I keep hearing Jesus say over and over, the Kingdom, the Kingdom, the Kingdom (52x in Matthew’s Gospel). I've never noticed how much he spoke about it. We must know what he means or we breeze through said texts with no notion about what he wanted to tell us. In the U.S. when we think of a kingdom we think Disney, as in Magic Kingdom. We revolted against England to escape the king. We are “free” people. We don't want a king telling us what to do. When Jesus talked about the Kingdom, he was speaking about his coming perfect rule over his people. He initially spoke only to the Jews but then sent his men to tell the World. In Acts 10 the centurion Cornilus and his family became the first Gentile converts to Christ and that expansion of the Kingdom theme has continued to the ends of the earth. The Kingdom for Jesus was presented to the Jews over 2000 years ago and according to plan, they rejected it. Notice that I said, “according to plan”. It was actually according to plan that ...
These are devotional, and other, thoughts from a guy who lived in Brazil from 1997 to 2023. I recount personal experiences and Bible applications with most of my posts. These "posts" are mostly for me but if you want to, you can read them too!