the kingdom of God is within you

Like the Pharisees the problem was not so much what they were doing, it was what they left undone.

Matthew 23: 23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! (Blind leaders) You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

People who only look at the outside are really blind. If we want to change our situations, we FIRST have to change ourselves and to change ourselves effectively we must first change our perceptions. (How we see things)

Our perception of the world around us i.e. the people, environment, and circumstances will determine our reaction to these things.

We not only have to look through our Binoculars, our camera, our microscope we must take a hard look at the LENS that we are using to get an accurate picture of why we see and think certain ways.

Self-fulfilling prophecies

· Pygmalion effect

The concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy can be summarized in these key principles:

We form certain expectations of people or events
We communicate those expectations with various signs or cues
People tend to respond to these cues by adjusting their behavior to match them
The result is that the original expectation becomes true

This creates a circle of self-fulfilling prophecies. This is our lense!

We have seen how WHAT we are looking through can altar our view, but what about our point of view?

Having the right Paradigm. A what? Paradigm is a way of looking at something, an assumption, a point of view, the way WE look at the world around us.

We have to have the right map of where we are going.

Suppose we wanted to go to a certain place in Brno and someone gave us a map of the city, we could find it right?

But what if the printer made a mistake and on the map for Plzen he printed Brno!

You could work on your behavior, you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed, and you would only get to the wrong place faster.

You could work on your attitude then. You could think more positive. You still would not be in the right place, but maybe you wouldn’t care. Your attitude might be so positive that you’d be happy wherever you were.

The point is you would STILL BE LOST! All these things can only help us as tools if we have the right map.

We all basically carry around two types of maps.

The way things look to us = our realities
The way things should be = our values

We automatically assume that the way we see things is the right way and that the way we think they ought to be is also right.

Our Character or who we are on the inside determines our Paradigms in other words we see what we are! (Story about Stephen Covey’s encounter on the subway!)

In this situation there were probably people on the subway that felt nothing, others may have thought well he probably did something wrong or he deserved it or God would not have allowed it. On the other side there may have been people that were much more sensitive to what was happening and sensed that this man was in need and the must be more to it than some man not watching his children.

In order for us to see correctly or have the right paradigm we must understand that there are unchangeable laws in the realm of human relations and success.

The way we see the problem IS the problem. This is the way the majority of people see.

They think that to change we must first change the world around us or the outside-in approach.

But the truth is and the only lasting change will come from the inside-out approach.

You cannot have fruit without roots.

1 Corinthians 13: 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

we know in part and we prophesy in part = imperfect
Think, reasoned and talked like a child all this was based on something lower than love.
Become a man and put away childish ways (childish is natural ways and Love is the Mature grown up ways)
We can see only a flat surface in a mirror not all sides.
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Love has something to do with maturity, change growth, seeing etc..

Love is the proper lens to be able to see the world as we should.

Luke 17: 20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Ephesians 1: 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Knowing Christ and his Word on the inside will change our lenses and our maps. We will begin to see that Christ is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church