I had the chance to teach at Mount Hermon last week. I did a number of seminars, all focused on life in the way of Jesus. I started with an overview of the Kingdom of God. I believe anytime we teach on what Jesus taught, the kingdom needs to be close - after all, it’s what Jesus talked about first (Matthew 4:17), last (Acts 1), and most (over 100 times). Pause and take that in. 

After my second session, a man came up to me perplexed over Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom. He suggested to me that he hadn’t heard that before and wanted to clarify that Jesus was in fact talking about the presence of his kingdom in this world... now. I assured him that what what Jesus clearly taught in Matthew 4:17. In passage, Matthew records Jesus saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

It’s here.

Now.

On this earth.

Now.

At hand.  

The man I was taking to couldn’t get his mind around that reality. Jesus kingdom is here? Hw went on to suggest that there are times when Jesus refers to the kingdom and means the after life - heaven. I assured him that I agreed with him, but that the context of the passage we were discussing, the kingdom clearly meant a reality in this world. Now.  

I don’t think this man is alone. There are a lot of followers of Jesus who have absolutely no clue what Jesus taught about the kingdom of God (heaven). In many evangelical circles, we have disconnected the gospel from the kingdom. That’s very unfortunate because the first time Jesus mentions the gospel he does so in the context of taking about the kingdom.  In Jesus’ mind, the kingdom and the gospel were synonymous. Many have gotten so caught up on salvation as getting to heaven, that we fail to see that Jesus was more interested in bringing heaven to earth than he was in getting us to heaven. 

Just to be clear, I believe in heaven. I believe that before our glorious resurrection (literal and physical) from the dead we will be absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Cor 5:10) -  in heaven. 

I concluded my conversation with the man by encouraging him not to try to identify where the kingdom was located in each instance in the scriptures. I actually think that’s quite fruitless. I encouraged him to look at the description of the kingdom looks like - the Jesus way is proclaimed, the blind see, the lame walk, and good news is preached to the poor, Jesus is lifted up as King. Wherever (in heaven or on earth) those things are present; so is the kingdom. 

Amen.