Believing

Mark 1:14-15

And after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Think fulfilled instead of endings

After John, Jesus came; there will be seasons, chapters, revelations, and insights that center around the people in your world
There is a difference between endings and fulfilled
Reframe endings to see them as fulfillments; that chapter is over
What some people saw as the end of an era, God saw as the beginning of an era
The way things were in John’s day were not going to be the way things were in Jesus’ day
The end of a chapter is not the end of the book; the end of one thing is the beginning of another

The Kingdom of God is close at hand

The kingdom: the way God does things, operates and thinks. It’s the operation and authority of God is near
The way God wants to work in your world not is fresh: new
Part of now is discerning what God is doing now

Repent – get a new mental model

Repent: “to change one’s mind or purpose”
Every new “kingdom at hand” requires a new repentance
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom is at hand; therefore it’s time to change your mind
Things are not the way they used to be, so adjust your mental model for today

Be a believer – now!

We are called to be believers, not just behavers
We call behaving righteousness; God calls believing righteousness
Matthew 9:29; become what you believe
1096g “ginomai:” to come into being, to happen, to become; let it happen to you, for you, the way you believe
Our entire lives are shaped by our faith – what we really believe; you will become what you believe
Our navigation system through life is inward rather than outward
We’re not just responding to what we see and hear
We create our life from what’s going on within
Faith is resting our weight on God’s promise, his character, and his faithfulness, not on the circumstances we can see
Romans 1:17 “The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “but the righteous man shall live by faith.”