What God Really Wants Us to Know Series (Part 4) "The Kingdom of God" Outside or Inside?

What is the universal drive, the drive behind all human action, all striving and seeking from the human perspective? Is it not the simple truth that all we really want is to be happy?  Isn't "happiness" what virtually everyone on earth is really seeking? God offers the kingdom of God – abundant life – true, sustainable, unconditional happiness.

Now, how does what God offers compare to what most of us seek? How does the kingdom of God and the abundant life that God offers compare to the typical conditions for happiness that we human beings have created in our minds? We might think that if we had wealth and fame we would be happy, but it is easy to find plenty of examples of people with great wealth and fame who are so miserable that they must turn to drugs or alcohol just to deal with daily life.  We might think respect or admiration of other people will make us happy, but people are fickle and have short memories and we could be on top today and forgotten or despised tomorrow. If we think about it, every man-made definition of happiness can be seen as poor, shabby, flimsy and fleeting substitutes for what we all really crave, and what we really crave is precisely what Jesus offered, referring to it as the "good news of the kingdom".

According to the Gospels, Jesus preached the "good news of the kingdom" everywhere he traveled and he commanded his disciples to preach the "good news" as well.  So Jesus repeated this theme wherever he went, to everyone to whom he spoke, repeating it innumerable times. Jesus himself also directly identified the "kingdom" as a master theme when he announced that preaching the kingdom was actually one of the very reasons he was sent by God.

"I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." Luke 4:43.

Over the millennia since Jesus death, there have been multiple theories of what the good news of the kingdom actually is. Some believe it is a future state when God's kingdom will come or when Jesus returns. But one must wonder, if that is true, why did Jesus say over and over again, "the kingdom of God is at hand"? If the kingdom was a future state, then why did Jesus say it is "at hand". If he was talking about time, then he would have been saying that the kingdom is right around the corner …in time, but yet 2000 years later, the kingdom has not yet come. And, if Jesus was talking about an exclusively future-state kingdom, why would he have used the present tense when he said, the kingdom is within you? Clearly, Jesus was telling us the kingdom is within us and it is within us right now.

• The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21).
• Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16  

This teaching that the kingdom is within us is a major revelation towards our understanding of the "kingdom of God" for how likely are we to find the kingdom of God if we are looking for it outside of ourselves when all the while it is within us? It may be difficult to accept that there is something divine within us. Nonetheless, the word of God reveals that this is so dozens and dozens of times. If you have any doubt, simply read through  the collection of  39 verses in Appendix 6 "Christ in YOU".

First of all, how can it be possible for the kingdom of God to actually be inside of us? This statement immediately challenges our concept of the kingdom of God as only a heavenly realm, a mental image of a city of gold up in heaven. This is not to say there is no heaven, but simply to acknowledge that when Jesus spoke of "the kingdom of God", he was not speaking of a heavenly dwelling place where we go upon the death of our physical bodies.

If the kingdom of God that Jesus preached is something "within us" then what is it? Let us look at a few verses for clues:

• Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:17)
• Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)
• My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. (Galatians 4:19)

These are only three examples of nearly four dozen New Testament verses related to the Spirit in us or God in us or Christ in us which we will explore in a coming chapter. If we believe that the Bible is in fact the infallible word of God, then we must accept as truth that the Spirit dwells in us.

We can plainly see from the verses above that the kingdom of God that Jesus preached is not a place, instead it is Spirit, it is the Spirit of God, also referred to as the "Christ" and this Spirit dwells within us. Whether or not we consciously acknowledge it, it is within you and within me right now. Well if the Spirit is within all of humankind, if Christ is fully formed in all of mankind right now, why is the world the way it is? Why are so many people depressed or engaging in criminal or immoral acts? Why are you and I right now, not manifesting for all the world to see, the "fruit of the Spirit" – unconditional peace, unconditional joy, unconditional love? Why are you and I not seen by other people as the "light of the world" right now? Why are we not able to do the works that Jesus did, as he said we would if only we believed in him? This leads us to an important understanding of the nature of the kingdom of God which is that the kingdom of God is within us and it has the potential to continuously grow within us:

• The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took , and sowed in his field: (Matthew 13:31)
• The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened . (Matthew 13:33)

What can we conclude so far from all of this? A kingdom is where the king lives. The kingdom of God is where God lives. And, according to the Word of God, God lives in you starting out as a tiny spark of God's light but with the potential to grow and become the "light of the world".