Something I read in my daily quiet time this morning stopped me; so much so that I had to look up the verse in another translation just to be sure I was reading what I thought I was reading. I was. It was in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, verses 20-21.
“Asked by the Pharasees when the Kingdom of God would come, he (Jesus) said in reply, ‘The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce ‘Look here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
Why did it stop me? I’ve read this verse before and just kept right on reading. Not today. Today, it occurred to me that I’ve held in my mind a different idea of the coming of the Kingdom of God. In my mind’s eye, I equate the coming of the Kingdom of God with the coming of Christ and revelation and rapture and the picture in my head is a violent one and also majestic. In any case, it is most definitely – or was in my mind – a moment in time and most certainly observable.
Thinking about it now, I don’t think these impressions are wrong. I just wonder if I haven’t confused or combined two different events or ideas. The coming of the Kingdom of God is one thing, perhaps; the second coming of Christ is another. This is something I will study further and welcome your comments on to help me see more clearly.
But now, after further study of the Kingdom of God, I do understand this more clearly. The Kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15). As in, right now!
Before today, I think I’ve read that to mean, it could happen any minute now. God will bring his Kingdom to bear on this world at any moment and so we need to be ready. But actually, the Kingdom is among us….now.
As we let the the Lord into our hearts, we become a part of the Kingdom. It’s not a fireworks and fanfare occasion yet the change is dramatic (even if you don’t feel or see it) and subsequently reverberates throughout our world. When we ask Jesus to be our savior, he saves us, right then and there. And the world is changed forever; the Kingdom of God grows a little larger.
Michael Morrison in his post “The Present and Future Kingdom of God” helped me understand. He writes, “When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, he used a phrase the people knew, but he was giving it a different meaning. He told Nicodemus that God’s kingdom was invisible to most people (John 3:3) – to understand or experience it, a person must be renewed by God’s Spirit (verse 6).”
Each of us can choose to be a part of God’s Kingdom. Many of us already have. And when we did, everything changed. Immediately. We aren’t to sit around and wait for something to happen. It’s not as though we bought our ticket and we just have to go about our lives until the Jesus train comes to get us. We are the Kingdom. Jesus is the King. He already saved us. So, what are we doing with that?
If we cannot answer the question; if we say we are Christians because we trust in Jesus; because we’ve asked Him to be our savior, we are already saved from this world. We’ve nothing to fear from it. We are of the Kingdom and we might just need to ask the Lord a question.
Now what? You are my King…today. How can I serve you, Lord?