Let the Kingdom of God Arise!

Yesterday  I started a reflection, but due to waking up at 3:30am, I ended up falling back asleep sitting on the couch, and was unable to finish my thoughts.  That being said, I never worry about falling asleep while praying, in fact that is what I do anytime I have a season of disturbed sleep, I just begin to pray.  Some evenings I will pray for 2-3 hours before falling back to sleep, and I figure that time was well spent.  The other thought I have is that as a Dad, I never had a problem with my kids falling asleep in my arms, and that is the image I have of what falling asleep in prayer is like, the Lord has no problem with us falling asleep in the place of intimate conversation, and He just holds us in His arms while we slumber.

Anyway, back to the reflection from yesterday, This morning the theme of the Kingdom of God has been bouncing around in my head. This has been one of the themes that I have been studying for the last 12-15 years, ever since I read the whole of the Gospel of Matthew and saw how may times Jesus spoke about the kingdom (its mentioned 53 times in Matthews Gospel alone).  Last evening during a socially distant conversation with friends, we spent much of evening talking about our faith, our beliefs and a large part of the conversation was about the many faces of religion, the disagreements the judgments, the denominations, the wrangling that has occurred over the centuries about certain beliefs, etc.  It was a very interesting conversation, but no where in the conversation did we ever discuss the Kingdom of God.

This morning as I sat down I was recalling my reading from yesterday, where Luke (as the Author of Acts) describes that Jesus taught the Apostles about the Kingdom of God during his last 40 days here in the earth before He ascended (See Acts 1:3).  If we look back at the other gospels the word Kingdom is used 116 times, 53 in Matthew, 18 in Mark, 42 in Luke,  and only 3 times in John, making it one of the more common themes of Jesus.  In fact, if you look closely, that is Jesus' primary message, proclaiming the Kingdom of God is near or present (see Matt 4:17,  Mark 1:15, Luke 4:43).  It also seems to have been Paul's primary message, as the last words in Acts, describes Paul's primary message was the Kingdom of God and Jesus Christ (See Acts 28:30-31).

The thoughts rumbling around in my mind this morning have to do with the question "why isn't the Kingdom of God one of our primary themes in our churches?"  If this was one of Jesus' primary themes, the theme He spent all of His last 40 days on earth speaking about and Paul's regular topic, why don't we hear more about this Kingdom of God these days?

I don't have answers, but I do have observations.  In my life so far, to my knowledge, I have only heard the Kingdom of God preached 3 times on a Sunday morning, 2 of those very recently.  We are very familiar with sermons about how to live our lives, how to follow the Lord, how to make a difference, how to do what Jesus would do, and a plethora of other helpful and encouraging topics, but, at least in my experience, the topic of the Kingdom of God rarely comes up.

My point in this is now that we are mostly all experiencing our faith individually, maybe God is starting to cause our minds to shift towards His intent, and the establishment of His Kingdom.  Jesus said (Luke 17:21) that the Kingdom of God is in your midst, and the word that He used is equally translatable "inside", and we could understand Jesus to say the Kingdom of God is inside you!

We know that the Lord has said that He and the Father and the Holy Spirit all live within us (See John 14:17 (Holy Spirit) and John 14:20 (Jesus) and John 14:23 (Father)!  Thus, the Kingdom of God really does exist within us, for where God lives, His Kingdom is present.

Continuing this thought, if we all have the Kingdom of God within us, that is and always will be our primary citizenship.  We are His ambassadors, as His sons and daughters.  In the same way that Ambassadors and diplomats from other countries have "diplomatic immunity" where they are not subject to certain laws, because they are covered under the laws of their country, even while living abroad, we are all first and foremost citizens of God's Kingdom and His laws and dominion apply to our lives, and cover us.

This idea was actually quite common in the new testament church, and Paul spoke about it several times, and wrote about it in two of His letters - Ephesians 2:19 NIV:  "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household,"  and  Philippians 3:20 NIV:  "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,"

Paul speaks of us as being citizens of Heaven, for that is where the Throne of God is where He reigns, but Jesus made it very clear that the Kingdom extends to earth, and we are representatives of that Kingdom here, and we are to look for the Kingdom of Heaven to be established on the earth.  In fact He told us to pray those very words - Matthew 6:9-10 NIV: “This, then, is how you should pray: “ 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, [10] your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Going back to my thought of this time allowing us to shift our minds towards God's intent in the establishment of His Kingdom, I believe that we are all being given an opportunity to realign our allegiance to the Kingdom of God as our primary focus.  I think its no secret that the numerous denominations and differences in our churches is not the result of God's will, but rather man's imperfections, pride, and judgments against one another.  We are ALL part of the same Kingdom, with the same King, with the same citizenship, and its time to lay down our individual denominational flags, and unify under the single banner that is common to us all!

In the natural, in geographic kingdoms,  there were often many towns and cities, each with unique cultures, known for certain things, even for different dialects, but they were all citizens of the same kingdom.  The good Kings would allow for individuality and cultural differences to exist, knowing that this richness enhanced and made his kingdom stronger, but the king always saw the individual towns and people as citizens of His kingdom.

In the same way, I don't think God has a problem with our denominations, but His Kingdom is over all of them, and I think He desires to wake us all up to that fact!  We see this happening in many ways today, with global prayer being offered by all denominations, and the like!  During the many years prior to this pandemic, I  did associate with people from different churches, even different denominations,  but my primary focus of relationship was always my local church, sometimes to the exclusion of those outside that church.  Now, I am interacting every bit as much with those in my neighborhood, as I am my home church, but my primary interaction is with the Lord alone!

So back to my original thoughts, is it time for us to start thinking about the Kingdom of God, and our part in this global organization that is over every other faith based organization?  Is it time for us to start learning what Jesus meant when He said the Kingdom of God is "inside" you?  Is it time for us to start thinking like ambassadors of this Kingdom, better yet, as sons and daughters of the King?  Is it time for us to put aside our denominational banners and pick up the only banner that unites us all, the Banner of the Kingdom of God?  Is it time for us to learn to do what Jesus told His disciples to do, "As you go, proclaim this message: 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' [8] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give." ( Matthew 10:7-8 NIV)?  Is it time for us to embrace our true citizenship?

My prayer this morning is that I might, along with all my brothers and sisters worldwide, might embrace my role and my citizenship in the Kingdom of God!  I pray that we might see a global resurgence of understanding and focus on this most significant theme!  I pray that we all might learn to represent the Kingdom of God, everywhere we are, every day!  Let the Kingdom of God Arise!!

Amen!

May the peace of Christ settle in your heart, along with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!


Sam