The Kingdom of God

Carpooling to seminary back around 1994, one day my friend remarked, "In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says that we are to seek first the kingdom of God. What is that? If you don't know what it is, how can you seek it?"

That question has stuck with me. Did you know that the phrase "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God" occurs 101 times in the New Testament. That's more often than the words "salvation" and "saved" (together 100x). More than "repent" (54x). Almost as many as agape (109x).

Consider some of these verses:

1Ch 29:11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.

Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
 7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

John the Baptist and Jesus' ministry were all about the kingdom (Matthew 3:2; 4:17). And when they proclaimed that the people were to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand, they were saying, "Get ready, because the king is here!" The kingdom is to be the heart of our message, too #Mt 10:7.

Extremely important: The kingdom IS HERE NOW #Lu 17:20-21|. Those for whom Christ is king are citizens of that kingdom: #Php 3:20|.  We are dual citizens.

The old saying, "It's not a religion, it's a relationship," misses this important point. The Sanhedrin persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus Christ because He represented a treasonous competing claim to sovereignty. Caesar can't tolerate another "king of kings." It's not clear to me whether Pilate bought their argument. He kept calling Jesus "king of the Jews" (John 18:33ff; 19:20), which may have been bad enough for Rome to execute him, and offensive to the unaccepting Jews (19:21). But that fell short of what Jesus was really claiming.

Consider the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Another old saying is, "Jesus isn't Lord at all if he isn't Lord of all." "Lord" means sovereign, ruler, master. He's "Lord" because He's the King of God's Kingdom.

This is a life-transforming concept. Dig for yourself and see what you discover.