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Living in the Kingdom of God

February 5-7, 1999
Laity Lodge Retreat - Leakey, TX

Kingdom of God Kingdom Living Audio Retreat

In this Laity Lodge retreat, Dallas develops a unified vision of life in the Kingdom of God. Beginning with the conviction that God intends to transform human beings into the kind of people he can trust and empower, Dallas explores what the Kingdom of God is, what a person shaped by that Kingdom looks like inwardly, and how such a life actually becomes possible through spiritual transformation and the power of God.

Across the sessions, Dallas moves from theology to character to practice. The Kingdom is presented not merely as a future hope or religious idea, but as a present reality in which people can learn to live with God, undergo deep inner change, and increasingly act with the grace, strength, and freedom of Christ in ordinary life.

Resources

1: Introduction - Conversation with Dallas

In this informal opening conversation, Dallas reflects on his journey as a philosopher, teacher, and follower of Christ while introducing the questions that will guide the retreat. He invites listeners to consider the Kingdom of God not simply as a religious idea, but as the reality in which ordinary human life can be transformed.

2: The Nature of the Kingdom of God

Dallas explores Jesus’ central message: that the Kingdom of God is available to us here and now through confidence in him. He presents God’s remarkable purpose for human life—to transform us into people whom God can increasingly trust and empower to act within his Kingdom.

3: The Inner Character of Kingdom Living

What kind of person can God safely entrust with his power? Dallas turns from the reality of the Kingdom to the transformation of the inner person, exploring the character, desires, and settled heart of someone learning to live with God.

4: Method and Power in Kingdom Living

Dallas asks the practical question, “How do you do it?” and describes a path toward genuine growth in Christlikeness through intentional spiritual training and reliance on God’s power. Kingdom living becomes possible as we learn to bring every part of ordinary life under the presence and action of Christ.

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Introduction - Conversation with Dallas

Highlights:

  • Formative People and Influences: Family members and teachers helped shape a lifelong love of learning, faith, and spiritual life.
  • Philosophy and Christian Faith: A desire to understand God and the soul led from ministry into the serious study and teaching of philosophy.
  • Jesus and the University: Contemporary thought must again reckon with the possibility that Jesus is the most intelligent teacher of how human life should be lived.
  • The Kingdom as Theme: The Kingdom of God provides the central framework for understanding Christian life, ministry, inner transformation, and spiritual power.

The Nature of the Kingdom of God

Highlights:

  • God’s Intention for Humanity: God intends to form people whose desires have been transformed so deeply that they can be trusted with his power.
  • The Kingdom Available Now: Jesus proclaimed the availability of God’s Kingdom here and now through confidence in him, not merely a future life after death.
  • Kingdom Defined: A kingdom is the effective range of a person’s will—where what that person wants can actually be done.
  • Bringing Kingdoms Together: Life with God begins as the human kingdom is brought into God’s Kingdom and joined to what God is doing.
  • Spiritual Beings with Destiny: Human beings are more than bodies or brains; they are never-ceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s universe.
  • Confidence Opens the Kingdom: The Kingdom is open to anyone who places their confidence in Jesus, illustrated by people who crossed social and religious boundaries to come to him.
  • Seeking the Kingdom Daily: Seeking God’s Kingdom means making room for God to act in ordinary life through trust, prayer, words, and deeds.

The Inner Character of Kingdom Living

Highlights:

  • Transformation at the Heart-level: Kingdom righteousness moves beyond outward behavior to the inner person from which actions naturally flow.
  • Faith, Hope, and Love: Life from the heart is characterized by these central qualities, with love giving shape to the whole person.
  • Freedom from Anger and Contempt: Genuine transformation reaches the deep sources of hostility rather than merely restraining harmful outward behavior.
  • Desire Under God’s Rule: Disordered and cultivated desires can corrupt the inner person, while Kingdom life brings desire back under the direction of what is good.
  • Freedom from Manipulation: Kingdom people can speak truth and offer love without attempting to control others through pressure, cleverness, or impressive words.
  • Releasing Grudges and Retaliation: Love moves beyond the need to get even, make others pay, or respond to enemies according to the patterns of the world.
  • Becoming the Right Kind of Person: The aim is not simply performing Christlike actions but becoming the kind of person from whom those actions naturally flow.

Method and Power in Kingdom Living

Highlights:

  • A Path to Christlikeness: Genuine spiritual growth is possible without confusing transformation with perfectionism; the goal is real progress in becoming like Christ.
  • Doing Everything with Christ: Ordinary work and responsibilities can be carried out in the name of Jesus and in dependence upon God’s power.
  • The Fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, and self-control belong together as the character of a life increasingly rooted in God.
  • Training Through Spiritual Disciplines: Disciplines enable people to do indirectly what cannot simply be accomplished by direct effort or willpower.
  • Making Room for God: Practices such as solitude and silence empty life of competing demands so that prayer, worship, study, and attentive life with God can deepen.
  • Living in God’s Presence: The goal of spiritual practice is to learn to carry an awareness of God into every circumstance and increasingly act from that relationship.
  • Method Joined with Power: When intentional spiritual training is joined with God’s action, Kingdom life becomes a practical reality available in every part of ordinary life.