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The Kingdom of God

             But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:43)

 

            My goal is to spend some time considering the kingdom of God. The problem is that this is in “real-time,” like most of my blog posts, so it’s not my sharing the culmination of my findings after years of research. I may get distracted or bored and wander on to another topic, but that’s not my plan. In fact, the problem might be said to be that I don’t really have a plan.

            But, since I’m a definitional person, let’s begin there. We tend to think of a kingdom as a place ruled by a king or queen. It has borders, rules for citizenship, laws, taxes, and a spot on a map, just like any other country. This is the problem the Israelites had when Jesus came. The Messiah was supposed to set up the Kingdom of Israel to make Israel a powerful and possibly dominant nation among the nations.

            Dallas Willard pushes that idea aside to get at something more basic. A kingdom is where the king's rule is effective. If you aren’t in the kingdom, the king’s rules have no power over you. However, if the king’s rules have power over you, you are still in the kingdom, even if you are thousands of miles away from the king in question and in another country. And, even if you’re not physically in the kingdom, the kingdom is in you.

            Early in His ministry, Jesus said that He was sent to announce the kingdom of God. It wasn’t about saving our souls or dying on the cross to bring us salvation. As important as those were, they are like handing us our citizenship papers. They are necessary to bring us into the kingdom, but they are not the kingdom. They are not the goal. Living within the effective range of God’s will is. 

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