The Kingdom of God

Right Here, Right Now

by Jim Gordon

For those of us who grew up in the church, we always thought of God as being a far-off, super human who sat on a giant throne up there somewhere. The general idea was that God was separate from us.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it is not what Jesus taught. Jesus always talked about the Kingdom of God being near or at hand, and the Kingdom of God is within you.

When we hear someone talk about the Kingdom of God, usually our first thought is a place in the distant future. A place we go when we die and leave this earth. It is where God lives somewhere way up in the sky. It is a place where we will live with Him forever.

Yet, when reading about the Kingdom of God in the bible, it sounds to me it is not some far away, future place. It is right now, and right here. A place where we live daily with God. Jesus said in John 14:23 “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them”. To me, if God has made his home with us, then we are certainly living in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within us. He said that we were to ask that God’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. So then, we see that the expression “Kingdom of God” does not refer to heaven, or the church, or to moral reform or to a future realm. Rather it refers to the active, dynamic exercise of God’s rule, authority, dominion, and power in our life right now.

When John the Baptist announced that the Kingdom of God was at hand, he meant that God’s rule was just about to break into the world through the Messiah. When Jesus Christ himself preached and proclaimed the gospel of the Kingdom of God, he meant that through him, God was exercising his power and authority in a redemptive way against all the evil in the world, and then allowing us to live a Kingdom life by loving God and loving others.

In short, the Kingdom of God is the rule of God manifested in Christ to bring redemption to the earth. Romans 14:17 reads, for the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. No wonder the Kingdom of God is the central theme of the New Testament!

I have come to believe more and more that the Kingdom of God is not necessarily talking about the coming heavenly kingdom, but it is our life with God right here and now. We are living with him in his kingdom every day.

Jim Gordon and his wife left the institutional church after spending over fifty years within the system. Jim wanted a way to express his thoughts and concerns about the religious system and why he and his wife decided to leave the institution but not their faith in God. Jim can be contacted by email at: jimgordon731@gmail.com