The Kingdom of God Is Reality Because the Son Has Risen
Look Up
The kingdom of God is reality. It’s what is real. We often walk around as though we are the sovereign ones and as if we have the crowns on our heads. Life is self-referential. But we understand there’s one true King of heaven and earth—and it is Jesus.
When I was at seminary at Gordon-Conwell, I went on a retreat to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. You know how it goes. I was in a cabin with a bunch of guys, there was someone who snored, and I thought he was going to have a hernia. So at about five o’clock in the morning, I decided to go for a walk. I went down to the lake where we had been the night before, and I remembered the s’mores that we enjoyed eating and the worship songs. I was trying to read my Bible in the moonlight, waiting for the sun to rise—which always seems to take longer than you anticipate.
The Upside Down Kingdom
Chris Castaldo
The Upside Down Kingdom examines how living according to Jesus’s Beatitudes can cultivate God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, bringing peace and blessing to our broken world.
As I was mulling around and praying, at one point I looked at the mountain behind me and noticed on the treetops way up high that the sun was shining. It occurred to me that while it was still dark down below where I was standing, the sun had already risen up there.
That’s the good news. The Son has risen. Jesus is King. He’s advancing his kingdom in this world, and we have the privilege every day of bowing the knee to him, of surrendering our lives, and submitting and proclaiming his message so that others would give their lives to his reign and his rule. And that’s what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Chris Castaldo is the author of The Upside Down Kingdom: Wisdom for Life from the Beatitudes.
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