The Kingdom

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.
- Luke 8:1

What Jesus talked about most in his ministry was “the kingdom of God.” When he preached the gospel, it wasn’t some magic formula to get our souls into heaven when we die. As it says in Luke 8:1, he went about “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.” That phrase ‘proclaiming the good news’ is literally ‘preach the gospel’ in the original Greek. Jesus’s gospel was all about the kingdom of God.

For Jesus is was good news that God was reigning as royalty over all, and that God’s reign and rule was breaking into our world in small and big ways, individual and communal ways, spiritual and physical ways. Wherever Jesus went, the kingdom of God expanded - not because he converted people, but because he transformed the space around him, whether that space included people who were diseased in their bodies or their minds or their souls or whether it included little children in need of blessings or evil spirits in need of being driven out.

Today, why don’t you ponder where you’ve seen God’s kingdom breaking in to the world around you. Then pray the kingdom prayer that Jesus taught:

Our Father in heaven, holy is your name.
May your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from evil.
Amen.