As they gathered their armour shimmered in the sun light, at midday when the sun was high in the sky they stood proud upon the hill-top looking into the valley where their armies stood waiting for the agreed moment for battle to begin.    Swords ready, spears poised, shields raised, men clad in chain and battle armour, horses covered with shining metal all in battle array.   The clash of the realms of Kingdoms.   They stood one invader, one defender, the battle was for the Kingdom.    The King’s sat considering strategies and the fight for the Kingdoms began.

Perhaps this is the most familiar picture that we think of when introducing the language of KINGDOM into every day life.    Two realms attempting to establish or even usurp themselves, Knights, armour, spears, shields, jousting., maidens, chivalry, white horses and all that.     Perhaps its just the hollywood picture we all have.     For sure its two realms that belong to a distant past.

We don’t have kingdoms of this order any longer, it has even become more popular to say we live in GB rather than United Kingdom.    Kingdom seems to be an old term yet when it comes to things in relation to Jesus it is a term we must grapple with and take into our lives.    Jesus came announcing the Kingdom of God, he walked demonstrating the Kingdom of God, he was the Kingdom of God!

Today the language of the Kingdom of God is more popular than ever, declared from pulpits regularly, taught and inspired, it seems if you don’t have it in your teaching as a Christian you are strange.   I recall the day when we grappled with it as God was unfolding its truth, when it was not so popular.      Yet it is not about its popularity but more about the truth of the Kingdom.   You and I who have ventured out and began our faiths journey, submitting ourselves to King Jesus it is a real realm that we are part of.

Today Kingdom is still challenged by Empires. Empires of the mind, of people, of agendas even by an empirical church.    The teaching has sometimes been over taken to establish this one or that ones control, and certainly not to establish the Kingdom as proclaimed and practiced by the Christ of God.

The kingdom of God Is not about making any person greater, richer or exclusive above any others it is about bringing the order of God to bear on all creation, it is about making mature saints.   Humanity being mature, Christ filling all in all.

In the Matthew 6:33 passage we are told to “seek first the Kingdom of God” these were words that at the time they were spoken were aimed at confronting the world, today they still do that, they challenge our minds, they hold a plumb-line up to our actions discovering where our hearts are focussed!

The Father, from our first introduction breaks into ‘void and darkness’ with confrontation, presenting from the beginning God in action, and so it is with “seek first”.   It makes us stand up and re-evaluate, assess our days, and align with freedom, to seek first the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 6 addresses the “all” of our lives with such simple, direct words, in terms of, if we seek first the eternal, the cosmic realm our needs will be seen too.   We are met with an invitation to bring our supreme loyalty to the King and seek his Kingdom.     In seeking the Kingdom of God we create a following, with all things being added along with the significance of the Kingdom of God.

If we do not seek the kingdom of God we will be seeking first the kingdom of self.    This kingdom of self is the kingdom of subtraction, as when possessions get hold of you, you discover that owning them becomes, being owned by them.

Your biggest need is a cosmic backing and when this is lacking the house of mankind is empty of meaning and purpose and God

Seeking the Kingdom brings to us All it unshakableness, All its forgiveness, All its at homeness, All its freedom, All it’s joy, All is everything-belongs to you.    The good news-here and now

Jesus said in Luke 4:21, 22 something had been fulfilled, in a room filled with people, with all these eyes fixed upon him, he not only spoke but did something, he “SAT DOWN”, what a scandal, how ridiculous, who did he think he is?   In every synagogue a chair was given as the seat of the Messiah and in this chair the drama played itself out, Jesus sat in the Messiah’s chair!

In this sitting down and declaration he said the word of the kingdom has become fleshed out in me, the kingdom has broken through and the realisation of that is in me.      You have heard about it now see it!      I am the kingdom of God standing in the synagogue

A thought went through my mind while thinking on the Kingdom and its implications,  “We have made songs about the REIGN of Christ and his Kingdom into songs about RAIN on me”

We have been born from above to bring heaven to earth, to be the reign of God on earth and to herald the Kingdom of God in all creation, to declare, sing, live and act out REIGN ON ME!

Jesus brought a blueprint for a new World order not just salvation, he tabernacle in the mankind model,  we have now become the working blue print model of the Kingdom of God.

You Are A New World order-tasted of the age to come

Jesus called disciples of the new world order, the Kingdom of God, he called disciples to go and make disciples, we have gone out to make disciples of Jesus.   Jesus actually made disciples of the Kingdom, sons of the Kingdom.   Not disciples of Jesus but disciples of the Kingdom of God!     Now that’s got you thinking and all stirred up, we have perhaps made the wrong disciples?     My aim is to consider this next time!