A couple nights ago, I woke up from a dream in which i was giving a very good sermon on the Kingdom, and I wished that I could have written everything down that I said. But it makes me think that God wants me and us to think about what is there about the Kingdom? (If you refer video, go to Kingdom Living https://youtu.be/ARUigdAMCyw)

As I puzzled over that, in the last, since 2017, I’ve read the New Testament over about 4 times since then, using my daughter’s New Testament after she passed away and entered into heaven.

I guess the first thing I think about in the Kingdom is what Jesus taught his disciples to pray. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And, but then, its a puzzling statement when later on he says to a group of men that were standing by among his disciples, “There are people standing here who are going to see the kingdom.” So what does that make you think? When he was preaching he was talking about the kingdom is near. “It’s at hand,” “It’s really close.” “It’s good news!”  “It’s help for the oppressed and the poor,–the sick–and the dying.” Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, is the Truth!

So I want to reflect on what Jesus said and did regarding the kingdom. So, he prayed for it to come. He said, “Some of you standing here are going to see it.” And he taught people how to live in the kingdom. Very strict lives. More strict than the Pharisees or the Scribes, as we find out as he preached on the mountain.

On the night of his betrayal he said, “I’m not going to drink any more of this wine until I can drink it in the Kingdom. I think even when he was offered some wine on the cross that he refused it.

Going on from what Jesus said about it, we look to how St. Paul and the early Christians before St. Paul, viewed the Kingdom. They viewed the Father as the King of the Universe, and as Jesus said to his disciples, “The Father has given me a kingdom and I’m giving a kingdom to you.”

So this kingdom is very close to the disciples, Jesus gave it to them. He gave the disciples power over evil elements of society at the time, He said he saw Satan fall out of heaven. That was just a sample of the power that was to come in this new kingdom where the disciples are to reign along with Jesus. So we have the Father who is King of the Universe, and Jesus as King of a new Kingdom that the Father has given him and that he is giving to the disciples. So is it here? Is it now?

When Paul was writing to his churches, he encouraged them to live and love as worthy of the kingdom, to reflect the kingdom to those in society around them and I think that is a challenge for us today.

Paul talks as if the kingdom is here, that we’re in the kingdom that God has given us. He says He has taken us from darkness and moved us into the Kingdom of His Son, into the Kingdom of Light, so let us lighten the world, lighten the corner where you are. Lift up your lamp. As Jesus said, “Don’t let it be hidden, in a bushel or under a chair or behind closed doors.”

One of the things I appreciate about the current situation is that the churches have opened their doors to the internet to people that would not have entered otherwise, And so, the kingdom is here, the kingdom is coming, and the kingdom is doing God’s will here and now. This Evelyn Maxwell with Wholistic Education, God Bless You.