Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
The Time is Fulfilled: The Fall of Humankind and the Curse Overturned, Mark 1:14-20 (cf. Gen 3:1-15)
The arrival of God’s Kingdom in Christ demands our complete and immediate response, for now, through Jesus of Nazareth, the long night of humanity’s exile from Eden has ended and the dawn of restoration has broken into our world. Jesus’ call to “repent and believe” is a summons to turn from our rebellion against God’s rightful rule and embrace by faith the Good News that his reign of grace, justice, and redemption is now at hand. The first disciples’ radical obedience—leaving behind security, identity, and family ties without hesitation—models the wholehearted allegiance Christ requires of all who would embrace his Kingdom rule and mission. The Master calls every disciple today to enter his Kingdom fully, allowing Christ to transform our purposes from self-centered pursuits into Kingdom work. He intends to make us agents of the great restoration that reverses the curse and reclaims all creation for God’s glory.
Our Focus Today
The Radical Obedience of Discipleship: The Cost of Following Christ, Mark 1:18
The disciples “immediately left their nets and followed him,” modeling the urgent, costly, and dramatic response required by the Kingdom’s arrival—abandoning security, livelihood, and former identity to embrace Christ’s call without delay or reservation.
Invocation
Lord Jesus, your call to “Follow me” still echoes across the centuries with the same authority and urgency that arrested Simon and Andrew beside the Sea of Galilee. I come before you today admitting the half-heartedness of my own discipleship at times and my tendency to cling to earthly securities even as I profess allegiance to you alone. Expose in my life to me every form of my own delayed obedience, every negotiation I make with your commands, and every attempt I try to follow you while keeping one hand on my nets, my plans, my comforts, and my own control. Grant me the grace to respond with the same immediacy that marked these first disciples, recognizing that your Kingdom’s arrival in my life demands urgent, costly, wholehearted surrender to your lordship. Amen.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Friday: Lev. 23-24
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Friday: Psalm 23, 53, 83, 113, 143 and Proverbs 23
The Radical Obedience of Discipleship: The Cost of Following Christ, Mark 1:18
The disciples “immediately left their nets and followed him,” modeling the urgent, costly, and dramatic response required by the Kingdom’s arrival—abandoning security, livelihood, and former identity to embrace Christ’s call without delay or reservation.
Reflection
The Kingdom’s arrival demands our immediate and costly obedience that cannot be reconciled with half-hearted commitment, delayed response, or attempts to maintain our old securities. True discipleship requires a new allegiance to Christ, to count the cost and a willingness to pay all of it, recognizing that following Jesus means abandoning whatever competes for the ultimate loyalty that belongs to him alone. This is true whether it is currently our careers that define us, our possessions that secure us, or our plans that direct us. The disciples’ quick response challenges our tendency toward procrastination and conditionality in spiritual matters and exposes how easily we tend to defer obedience while we calculate risks, protect interests, or await more convenient seasons to fully surrender. Christ calls us to live as those who have left our nets, making decisive breaks with whatever might keep us from wholehearted following. We must embrace the urgent, costly, joyful path of discipleship that exchanges earthly securities for the infinitely greater treasure of knowing Christ and participating in his Kingdom mission.
Engaging God’s Word Today
What “nets”—i.e., sources of security, identity, or control—do you still cling to that can prevent you from immediately and wholeheartedly following Christ? What would it look like for you to abandon these “nets” today in response to his call?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Thank you, Father, for the call to discipleship and its obedience. Grant me both the wisdom and the courage to leave behind whatever competes with my wholehearted allegiance to Christ, no matter how secure, familiar, or valuable those things may seem. May Christ, whom Simon and Andrew followed immediately after abandoning their nets, give me such a new vision about his surpassing worth that every earthly treasure pales in comparison. Show me how to gladly pay the cost of discipleship with joy rather than suspicion or distrust. Let your Holy Spirit empower me to live with Kingdom urgency, that I can respond to Christ’s commands without delay or reservation, and find in him a security, identity, and purpose far greater than anything I have known or given up for you. Help me be faithful to you. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
Isaiah 9:6-7 (ESV): The Prophet’s Vision of the Messianic King: Isaiah’s Testimony
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during seasons of Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Ascension and Coming of Holy Spirit)
• Kingdom, Church and World, Howard Snyder (during seasons of Headship and Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: Destined for the Throne
(Reading “Destined for the Throne” during season of Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)
Because the crown is only for the conqueror, (Rev. 3:21), the church, later to become the bride, must learn the art of spiritual warfare of overcoming evil forces in preparation for assumption of the throne following the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. To enable her to learn the technique of overcoming, God ordained an infinitely wise program of believing prayer. He did not ordain prayer primarily as a way of getting things done. It is his way of giving the church on-the-job training in overcoming the forces hostile to God. This world is a laboratory in which those destined for the throne are learning in actual practice how to overcome Satan and his hierarchy. The prayer closet is the arena which produces the overcomer.
This means that redeemed humanity outranks all other orders of created beings in the universe. Angels are created, not generated. Redeemed humanity is both created and generated, begotten of God, bearing His “genes,” his heredity. Through the new birth, a redeemed human being becomes a bona fide member of the original cosmic family, “next of kin,” to the Trinity. Thus, God has exalted redeemed humanity to such a sublime height that it is impossible for him to elevate them further without breaching the Godhead. This is the basis for the divine accolade of Psalm 8:5: “Thou has made him but little lower than God” (ASV and Amplified).
~ Billheimer, Paul. Destined for the Throne: How Spiritual Warfare Prepares the Bride of Christ for Her Eternal Destiny. Bethany House, Minneapolis, MN, KS, 1975. Electronic Edition. Location, 15-16.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Time is Fulfilled: The Fall of Humankind and the Curse Overturned, Mark 1:14-15 (cf. Gen 3:1-15)
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