“….for yours is the Kingdom of God.”
Luke 6:20
If God is love… then His Kingdom is the Kingdom of Love. He tells us how His Kingdom operates in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere… because His commandments are an expression of His love… He tells us we love Him back by obeying His commandments.
I truly believe that an expression of God’s grace is that He loves us in our immaturity. He sees us as we struggle to obey even though some of our best efforts fall short. When we set our hearts to obey (to love God, to love others “as we love ourselves”, to testify of His love) He sees that and it moves His heart. Falling short is not rebellion. Giving up …..maybe.
The King desires intimacy with us. He wants us to see ourselves as He sees us – valuable, lovely, somebody that He trusts – His child. For if we don’t have that deep intimate understanding that HE LOVES US back, can we truly love others from our heart? Can we truly love God and others if we don’t love ourselves? Then we get into striving and performance…. And eventually, we get so burned out that we can’t love.
I am not talking about selfish love that demands its rights to pleasure and ease…. But the kind of love that says for example in a toxic discussion “What you just said does not honor me so it dishonors the God in me. I love you enough to tell you since you probably had not considered that before.”
The Kingdom of God is peace, love, and Joy. It is a place of power to live as overcomers. Our King leads us in triumph. It is a place of justice. It is a place of intimacy and relationship. It is a place where He calls us friends.
We are citizens of that Kingdom when we become converted. Growing into a valuable member of the government of God takes time and study. But remembering that it is OUR Father’s KINGDOM should give us hope and confidence as we go about our day…. Whatever our day may hold… that we are valuable members of the Kingdom… serving as secret agents in the marketplace…. Staking territory for our Father’s name in the land.
Being confident in knowing that God loves us and values us, being able to receive that in our hearts, being able to say with true humility “God is the reason I move and have my being” allows us to truly walk in the fullness of the Kingdom in our own hearts and to bring that light to the world. It is the grace to fulfill the Great Commandment seeing His Kingdom come to earth.
“My Loving King, when I see You, I see love.
Every thought You think, every word You speak, everything You do is for love.
Your law – is perfect in its expression of how You love me.
If I ponder the beauty of Your Kingdom of Love for the rest of my life,
I don’t think I could ever discover all its riches.
Let me always be found faithful,
not as a subject in Your Kingdom but as Your precious, valued heir.
In Jesus’s Name. Amen.”
#3 Ponderings from the Sermon on the Mount. For the next blog in this series, go to “How do you get into the Kingdom of God?”
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