What Is This Kingdom All About?
Back when I first had the vision to reach out to those that had no understanding of God and who He is and why it is important to know these truths, I was seeking to understand what The Kingdom of God was really all about.
I knew that the parables Jesus taught about had references to the Kingdom of God so, I began to read my Bible to find out more.
I started to read my Bible looking for parables that had a reference to The Kingdom of God starting in Matthew. I did not find any parables, and I had read right through to the end of chapter 7.
The dilemma I found was as I read chapters 5, 6, and 7; often called ‘The Sermon on the Mount’, that I was missing something. This became my reading that I stayed with for some 18 months.
What kept me reading this passage again and again was the last part of chapter 7. It was the story of the two men building a house.
Because the houses would have looked the same, same materials being used, there was a difference that was easily to be seen.
Coming to an understanding about this has lead me to produce this project to develop these websites and all the studies and commentaries.
To put it simply, I discovered that the ‘wise man’ was resting on the finished work of Christ, not trying to make it happen. This concept of knowing that Salvation was not trying to live up to what Jesus was teaching but, allowing what had happen inside of them come out. The ‘foolish man’ was taking this teaching as form of rules to ‘live by’ and using his will to accomplish this task.
Resting in the completed work of Christ is knowing that these principles have been placed in our New Nature; that salvation has made us a New Creation. As we resist the ‘old way’ of living and trust that the work of Christ will shine out is resting in the finished work.
Recently, I have had more understanding about the Kingdom of God through Johnny Enllow, that this Kingdom is God’s desire to have His rule here on earth. There is too much to explain it all here, but I will summarise what I now understand this Kingdom is all about.
What had added to my difficulty in seeing what the Kingdom of God is, was the idea that had been taught to me over the years that the Kingdom of God had to do with Salvation and being a Christian.
When Jesus gave this Sermon the idea of ‘being saved’ and going to heaven was not in His mind or in this teaching. He had not died, and rose from the dead thus making a way for this to happen. So, salvation is not at the heart of this sermon.
When you go back to see the original text and how this passage is presented it becomes obvious it is written in a form of a poem. The stanzas before and after the middle leads up to and away from the passage that contains what we commonly call The Lord’s Prayer.
This technic of writing style presents the most important point in the centre and the text before and after building up to and flowing away from this this point.
This causes one to focus on this central point. At the centre of this sermon is the text “Let Your kingdom come; let Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on earth.” [Text from The Interlinear Bible, Sovereign Grace Publishers; - Koorong Sales page.]
So, at the centre of the teaching from the Sermon on the Mount is Heaven on Earth. This is what Jesus and His Father wants; the rule of heaven to influence the way we live on the earth.
This is far from the concept that Christians need to get people saved so they can go to Heaven. Getting people saved is an important part of Heaven on Earth but not the main point.
When God’s agents; Christians, demonstrate the principles of what Kingdom of Heaven is really all about others that have not experienced this are drawn to seek this for themselves.
The task of Christians is to demonstrate God’s Love by living in the principles of the Kingdom. So, those who live in the ’world’ come to understand that the way we should live by God’s standards are the best we all can achieve.
Having all areas of our culture functioning under these principles benefits all peoples not just Christians. Society in best placed for all when this way of living is embraced which does not enforce God’s principles on people but draws them to see the best way.
Much more could be said here to explain just how this all comes about but it not the point of this study.
If you want to explore more about this then I suggest you look here and find what Johnny Enlow has to say about this topic.
I have also a Study that you might like to follow in where I go into more depth on this subject, this opens in a new window, Click HERE.
This is long Study that will go into a full explanation of why I feel this is an important topic. It is to have a deeper understanding of what I feel is the Christian’s role is today.