Here.... and here....and here

We all pray daily for the coming of God's kingdom to earth...Thy kingdom come.  Jesus' first message was precisely this:  The kingdom of God is among/within you.  He is the kingdom of God; His arrival on earth established the kingdom of God.  It comes with His Presence in us, among us:  Where two are three are gathered in my Name, there I am among you.

God will not "take over" the earth with His kingdom.  The earth has been given to mankind, and only we can allow the kingdom to arrive.  But it arrives in us, through us, the same way it arrived through Mary:  The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God;...his kingdom will never end.

As Jesus taught us, the kingdom grows slowly, as yeast rises in dough.  It is established here...and here...and here...and then, suddenly, we see it.  As each one of us, like Mary, yields our minds, our bodies, our lives to the the action of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the Holy One, is born in us -- and He is the One who establishes the kingdom of God in us, and through us, and with us....here....and here....and here. 

Yesterday, I wrote about what kind of people we will need to be to be part of heaven's throng.  We will need to be transformed from the kind of people will now are --- but we cannot do it ourselves.  We cannot re-make ourselves because the bitterness, rage, resentment, scars from old wounds, etc. are now part of our DNA.  The sin/hurt/injury is too deeply embedded in us for us to heal ourselves.

We must be re-born, not according to the old man / Adam, but according to the new man/ Jesus.  His mission is to establish the kingdom of God among us by making all things new (Rev. 21:5).  He wipes away every tear and overcomes in us the fear of death, the empty way of life handed down to us by our fathers.  The kingdom of heaven is now, and here, among us, within us.  It is established by the Son of God in us, among us.  Thy kingdom come.....Come, Lord Jesus, now, in me, in my life, in my body, in my property, in my possessions, here...and here... and here.

It is not done all at once; it is a process of continually handing over to His Lordship all that I am, all that I see in me and around me.  I like to think of my property, the little piece of land given to me by God, as one small place on earth where His kingdom has come, is coming, will continue to come.  Everyone who sets foot here has set foot in the kingdom of God.  My soul, too, is part of where God dwells on earth, so my soul -- my mind and heart -- must be ruled by the Spirit of the Most High.  Jesus must be Lord here of heaven and earth, for only He can establish the kingdom on earth of His Father.

When I die, the transition must simply be the falling away of the body of earth.  The mind and heart and spirit have already been -- or are in the process of being---transformed into His image.  His kingdom must have already been established on earth in my body, my mind, my heart, and all that I possess on earth.  Of course, I myself have not the smallest clue as to how this can be done, and of course, I do not myself know where to begin doing it.   Like Mary, I must leave all of that to Him, to the One who alone knows how to take this body of earth and to make it new in the kingdom of God.  Everything belongs to Him.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, and He will do all that is necessary to overcome fear and death in me.

We were designed for the marriage, the union, of our flesh with the Spirit of God.  If we refuse that union, the kingdom of God will never arrive in us, with us, for us, and through us.  It's that simple.  Only God can establish His kingdom on earth.  But He will not do it without us, or in spite of us.  He will do it only through our free and whole union with Him.  He will do it through the free and whole reign of His Son in our flesh.

Thy kingdom come...here...and here...and here -- in every situation my hands touch, at every point where my feet touch the ground, in every door I enter, in every person with whom I speak...Thy kingdom come.