Kingdom of God

As Christians, we know that the Kingdom of God is our goal. When we received salvation, the Bible tells us that we were “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son God loves.” (Colossians 1:13). Often when we think about the Kingdom of God, the picture that comes to mind is heaven. We look at the Kingdom of God as being someplace out there. Maybe we picture it floating in the far off above us. We think about reaching the Kingdom of God after we die. We think about it as a place of the future–our final destination, but in John 3:2 we find John the Baptist preaching “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” What does that mean? What is the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God? How is it at hand? What does it mean to repent?

The word kingdom at its most fundamental level means the king’s domain. The dictionary defines domain as: 1) an area or territory owned or controlled by a ruler or government 2) a specified sphere of activity or knowledge. So the Kingdom of God is the area controlled by God or the sphere of God’s activity and knowledge. When we see the Kingdom of God this way, a few things become immediately apparent. 1) God’s Kingdom is eternal. Everything that is true about the Kingdom of God has always been true, is true now, and will always be true. 2) The Kingdom of God is filled with all the attributes of who God is in the fullness of their expression. 3) God wants to invade our space. The Kingdom of God is not just about life after death, but its about life with God right now.

In Genesis, God sets up His kingdom here on earth. He does so in the Garden of Eden. He creates a place under His complete control and authority. It is filled with everything that He is. He creates man and woman to live in this garden and to exercise authority over it on His behalf. They are His representatives within this portion of His kingdom. Adam and Eve know God in the fullness of who He is. Their experience with Him is not limited. Also, they possess certain abilities that we now lack. They can see things differently. Genesis tells us that there are two special trees in the center of the Garden of Eden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time seeing “life.” I can see the effects of life. I can define life by the things it produces, but I can’t see life itself. I definitely have no concept of what a fruit of life might look like. Neither can I see “knowledge.” I can read and study and gain knowledge, but I can not see it with my eyes. Yet, the Bible makes it clear that Adam and Eve could see these things. They recognized them with some sense that we no longer have access to.

2 Corinthians 4: 18 tells us: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Adam and Eve could do this naturally, but we can not. The effects of sin make it difficult for us to see the unseen…to see the eternal. When they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they removed God as their source of information, knowledge and wisdom, and they replaced that source with their own awareness, knowledge and understanding. Before sin, we had life–the presence of God within a human being. After sin, we had death–the absence of God within a human being. Before sin, God was our source of knowledge. We were full of our experience of Him, and we relied on Him for everything. After sin, our knowledge of evil made us aware of our own emptiness and lack while our knowledge of good made us seek to fix it with our own power.

So what were we to do? We had removed ourselves from God’s kingdom and found ourselves in another kingdom altogether. The answer was: repent. We need to repent in order to get back to God’s Kingdom. What do you think of when you hear the word repent? Do you see an image of a wrathful, angry God? Do you get a picture of the list of things you do that you shouldn’t do? Do you picture yourself turning around and going in another direction? The word repent in Greek is the word metanoia, which means to “change your thinking.” When you change your thinking about something, you see it a different way. You have a revelation of its true meaning, and that can change everything.

Let me give you an example. Take a look at the story of Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings chapter 6 verses 8-22. We see that Israel is under attack. The king of Aram keeps making plans of where to attack Israel, but God is revealing this information to Elisha. So Israel is able to avoid the attack. Now the king has found out that it is Elisha giving this information to Israel, so he seeks to take out Elisha. He sends a vast army to camp out around Elisha’s house. 2 Kings 6:14-17 “Then he (the king of Aram) sent horses and chariots and a strong force there (Dothan where Elisha lived). They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” The servant of Elisha could only see the situation with his physical eyes. He saw the army of the king of Aram, and he was afraid. He was thinking about things with his own limited understanding, but when Elisha prayed that his eyes be open, the servant saw with his spiritual eyes from God’s perspective. He changed the way he saw the situation. He repented.

We need to repent of the way that we see the world from our own limited viewpoint and knowledge. We need to begin to see things the way that God sees them. When we access the Kingdom of God this way, our behavior will naturally change. We will do all the other things we think of when we think of repentance. We will turn around. We will go another way. We will make a choice in line with God’s Word and His will. We will leave our sin behind. We will find the path that leads us back to God. Why? Because we have changed our thinking. We have changed our perspective. We now see things a different way.

Jesus followed John the Baptist proclaiming “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” He wanted us to see from a new perspective. He wanted us to understand that the Kingdom of God isn’t out there somewhere at some future time. It is right here, in us, right now. Jesus taught His disciples to pray that “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The word translated “come” really means to come forth or to emerge. We are to pray that God’s Kingdom emerges. It’s God’s life and attributes flowing into us, living in us, and then flowing out to the world around us. That’s how the Kingdom of God emerges and comes forth on earth in the same way that it emerges in heaven. We have to change our thinking about the kingdom of God. We have to change our thinking about who God is and what He wants to do. We have to repent in order to see the Kingdom of God invading our space the way that God wants it to invade our space.

Jesus gave us many parables about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. He says the kingdom is like a pearl, or it’s like a field, or it’s like a mustard seed, or it’s like yeast. The commonality in all these parables is that the Kingdom of God is something that grows. It expands. The parables of what the Kingdom of God are like give us a taste of God’s fullness. We need to take that taste and chew on it and swallow it and digest it. We need to fully experience the Kingdom of God now in our own lives, and we need to work toward expanding its reality in our lives and in the world around us.

So repent. Change your thinking. Shift your perspective. Get a taste of what God’s kingdom looks like. And work to help it emerge in the earth as it does in heaven.