The Kingdom of God is Within You

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. ~ Luke 17:20-21

The kingdom of God is within us. Jesus said so. For too long we have been seeking that kingdom as if it were outside of us. As if we could find it in the world. For years, I’ve been taught that the kingdom of God is God’s way of doing things. That’s part of it. But it is so much greater... so much deeper. In Mark 4, Jesus explained the parable of the sower by saying that the sower sowed the Word into the soil of our hearts. That seed of the Word of God – the Word of Love – plants the kingdom of God with us. We water that seed with the living water that is the Holy Spirit. We nurture it with the light of truth found in the Word of God. And it grows. The kingdom of God grows within us. It changes us, conforms us to the image of Christ. It matures and bears fruit – love, joy, peace, faith, goodness, patience, self-control - the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It produces, in us, God’s way of doing things. We act in love, we give, we edify, exhort and comfort those around us. It comes from within our own heart. It grows from the inside out. The kingdom of God is within us.

For too long, the body of Christ has been looking for the kingdom as some outside principles that we had to lay hold of and bring to pass. We had to declare the kingdom into existence around us by our faith and our will. We’ve looked for it to manifest on the outside. We’ve thought that our great works, programs, plans, sacrifices, giving, denial of self and all our other busyness (business) would get us into the kingdom. It’s been within us all along, ever since we were born again. We have pursued the kingdom like that carrot at the end of a stick that is bound to a donkey to keep it moving forward, oblivious to everything around it except that carrot. That poor, deceived donkey will walk past lush green fields in pursuit of that carrot. But no matter how hard it tries, how fast it goes, or how bad it wants it, the donkey can never reach the carrot.

God is saying to His church: “Break the stick and eat the carrot. My kingdom is within you.”

The traditions of man have created the stick and put the carrot on the end of it. Empty religious observances, rules, legalism, hypocrisy, hierarchies, autocracy within the church – all of these things have bound us to the stick and kept the kingdom out of our reach. The stick is a lie… created by the father of lies to keep us chasing after something that already belongs to us. Break the stick. Break off the lie. Eat the carrot and receive the revelation that the kingdom of God is within you.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…. Where does righteousness exist? In our heart, our spirit, that is made right with God by the blood of His son Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Meat and drink are fleshly matters, but righteousness, peace and joy reside in our spirit, our heart. Those things are within us. Jesus said over and over that it was extremely difficult for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. That’s because a rich man’s heart is filled with love of money. The Kingdom of God cannot abide there in that root of evil. The kingdom seed would be choked out by it like the weeds in Mark 4.

What will happen when the church truly receives the revelation that the kingdom of God is within us? We will look to our own hearts and allow God to till that soil. We will nurture the seeds planted within us. We will allow the seeds to mature and grow. The kingdom will grow from within us and be manifested in our words, our countenance and our deeds. Through the eyes of our own kingdom hearts, we will recognize the kingdom within the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ and will nurture that heart with love and joy. We will recognize the absence of the kingdom in those who are unsaved. They will be drawn to us by the kingdom light that emanates from our heart and shines through our faces. We will plant the seeds of the kingdom within their hearts by speaking the Word of God to them in love. We will nurture those seeds with encouragement, comfort and joy. The seeds we plant will be nurtured to maturity in an environment of love and peace. Seeds will grow into fruit and fruit will produce more seeds to be planted in more hearts. This is the kingdom of God - love, joy, peace and righteousness in our hearts and towards one another.

Jesus said the first and greatest commandment was to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength. The second was to love our neighbor as ourselves. On these two, hang all the law and the prophets. On these two, hang the kingdom of God. These two commandments work within us. We love from within and allow it to manifest outwardly. Not a feeling, but a decision. We choose, within our hearts, the residence of the kingdom, to love and then we act upon that decision.  For too long, we’ve tried to put the cart before the horse – to act out love before the kingdom is fully established within us. We end up manufacturing something that is not really love. It is control and manipulation that wears a fake mask of love. We’ve been like the Pharisees, saying do this and do that. Act like me, dress like me, pray like me, walk like me, live like me. Yet our hearts have been filled with pride and judgment rather than the kingdom. We’ve beat one another over the head with the Word. We’ve used it as a corrective rod to beat others into submission. We’ve used it to beat ourselves up. That’s not the kingdom. No more, church! We must repent of spreading this poisonous concoction and seek the kingdom in earnest. Not the kingdom that we want, that we think is right, that we are comfortable with; but the true kingdom of God - love, joy, peace and righteousness, flowing from our hearts into the hearts of others. Cast off the outward trappings of a man-made religion! Cast off your graveclothes! Be vulnerable before God and allow Him to restore the kingdom in your heart. Allow that kingdom to radiate from the inside out and clothe you in the glory of God.

The Lord is speaking to His church:

“You can do it your way if you want to. I have given you free will. There is a way that seems right to you. Others have done it this way. But I say to you that that way leads to destruction. So many churches think that I have blessed them because of the works, programs, order and government. But I tell you that I have blessed them in spite of these things. My grace and mercy provide for my children even through their stubbornness and pride. You have rejoiced in a trickle and called yourself great. But I am calling you to a higher way. I am calling you to turn and repent from the way that you thought was right. I am calling you to see the truth. When you cultivate my kingdom in your hearts as I truly intended, when you nurture one another’s hearts in pure unselfish love, I will be manifested among you. My glory will shine forth in you like the sun. You have been standing on the shore fishing for souls with fake, shiny lures. Sure you’ve caught a few fish that way. It seems right to you. But when you follow me out into the deep in your own hearts and my glory shines forth from within you and you are truly known for your love for one another, then the fish will be drawn to you as they were drawn to Peter’s boat. You will work as a team, not because of the rules, structure and order you created out of your own minds and by your own works, but because your hearts have been knitted together in my kingdom, by my love, by your love for me and for one another. As a team, you will cast out your nets and gather in a harvest greater than your boat can handle. Then other boats, other churches, will join in. Your hearts will be knitted with them in love as well. My church will be unified by my kingdom, the kingdom of love, that I have placed within your hearts. Seek first my kingdom and my righteousness. Seek it within, not without. I will add the fish when you are ready.”