The Kingdom Is Closer Than You Think
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” –Matthew 6:10
“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” –Luke 12:32
“Now when [Jesus] was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, “See here!” or “See there!” For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.’” –Luke 17:20
John Baptist Maino, Pentecost, 1614
As the church, the family of God—adopted into royalty and invited into his divine purpose for the world—we have received an unfathomable inheritance through Christ: his very kingdom.
When the kingdom of God first made its grand entrance into the earth, many almost and actually missed it. They didn’t expect a kingdom whose king would surrender his own life. They didn’t expect a kingdom that would be invisible to the natural eye. They didn’t expect a kingdom that would instead of being a dwelling place, need a dwelling place in human hearts.
But unexpected or not, this kingdom came in the power of God, rather than the wisdom of mankind (1 Corinthians 2:5), and because of that it has outlasted every other kingdom, ruler, authority, and governing body on the face of the earth.
The kingdom of God is not just a distant hope that one day we’ll experience in physical form: it is a promise for right now that was already fulfilled and realized the moment Jesus breathed, “It is finished,” and the veil of the temple—separating the divine from humanity—was eagerly ripped in half from top to bottom by the most loving Father who would give anything just to be with his kids.
From there, the Holy Spirit came and has never left. He is the gift of God to us, the presence of God to us, the promise of God to us, the evidence that God is with us, and the revealer of our wonderful King of Kings Jesus, whose name is the very cornerstone of this kingdom reality in which we as the church get to operate.
On Friday, June 11th, my church hosted a worship night. These evenings together in God’s presence are always so rich, and as I sat just listening to the music, I remembered Matthew 6:10, the portion of Jesus’s model prayer for the disciples where he asks the Father for the kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
As I let those words sink in once more, I thought about how little of this kingdom realm we must actually live in. If the glory Moses saw was so far less than what we now have access to by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:7-9), how much more could we have of God and could we be experiencing of the kingdom in our everyday lives?
So, in that moment, the Holy Spirt gave me new language:
Let it be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Let it be done here as it is there.
Let it be done here as it is here.
The blood of Jesus and the testimony of the saints make what’s happening in heaven real right where we are. The kingdom of God came in Jesus and with that, heaven opened to us. That has not changed.
Isn’t it true that the kingdom of God is already in our midst? Isn’t it true that what we don’t experience of the kingdom isn’t because of its absence but because of our lack of awareness?
To me, this is encouraging. Because it means the kingdom is closer to us than we’ve ever realized. It means that heaven isn’t something we have to reach for but receive. And it means that right where we are, in our 9-5 jobs, in our daily care for our families, in the grocery shopping, in the funerals, in the baseball games, we can find him. And he’ll find us. And we get to experience a higher way of living because of that promise.