Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Book Installment)
Living in the Kingdom of God
Chapter 2 – The Quiet Coming of the Kingdom of God
If the kingdom of God came in the 1st century, why are you just now hearing about it?
I wondered the same thing when God first revealed it to me. And I had wondered the same thing when He first revealed to me that everyone was going to heaven.
We human beings are constantly being tempted to forget the truths of God and go on living like we’d never heard them. These are truths once known…that have been forgotten.
I’ve imagined what it must have been like for 1st-century believers to experience the coming of the kingdom. The way they experienced it was just as Jesus said: it was simultaneously electrifying and subtle. This is because it was a spiritual event – not a physical one.
Believers had become accustomed to attending Spirit-led services when they gathered for church meetings. God’s presence was real – just as Jesus had promised:
Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
But when the kingdom of God came, there was an instant change. Church gatherings were no longer divine visitations. Instead, individual believers began experiencing the Holy Spirit in their hearts 24/7. A person no longer had to go to church to hear the Holy Spirit!
Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
This was the age of church giving way to the age of the kingdom – the kingdom of God. Both ages involved fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
The difference was that during the church age, the Holy Spirit was found whenever at least “two or three were gathered together in Jesus’ name.” But in the kingdom age, the Holy Spirit is found in each and every human heart. (Just because some people don’t hear doesn’t mean there’s no speaking going on.)
And this shift from the Holy Spirit leading every church gathering to the Holy Spirit leading every human heart happened in the twinkling of an eye. But it wasn’t all that happened. There was a new heavens and new earth such that people stopped going to Sheol (Hades) when they died and started going to heaven instead.
1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
1 Corinthians 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
This was how the church age ended and the kingdom age began – in an instant. But only truly spiritual people recognized it. The majority kept going to church and looking for a physical Second Coming.
This is how the Second Coming was missed by so many.
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