After Pentecost Devotional - Day 28

“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” Matthew 16:28

It's too late.

All the predictions regarding the end of the world and the coming of Christ miss this most important point Jesus made. We so want to focus on predicting the future and knowing secretive information that we allow ourselves to be led astray from the actual focus of the gospel and Jesus' teachings.

One of the greatest problems with all the predicting is that we miss that Jesus tells us it is too late to do any predicting, especially in regard to the coming of God's reign. Sure, Jesus still must return in glory, but the issues Jesus talked about in relation to signs we might predict are accomplished.

It is simply too late to do any predicting. The signs have been fulfilled and the reign of God is already in our midst.

Yes, there are extended aspects of that reign we anticipate in a heavenly reality beyond our current experience, but Jesus focused his attention on the earthly reality of God's reign. In actuality, he spoke of that reign being inaugurated within the very lifetime of his listeners some 2000 years ago.

The difficulty we have is that we do not really understand the reign to which he referred. We are still expecting Jesus to march in on a white horse, leading an army to establish a political reality upon the earth. That is nothing Jesus ever gave us a reason to expect. Instead of a political realm, Jesus spoke of an internal reign alongside any political reality in which we live.

On the other hand, we want to project God's reign as only otherworldly with little to no relation to this world. That is hardly the good news Jesus preached and lived. God's reign was a reality he spoke of as intersecting the political, economic, and social realm in which we live and breathe. That heavenly (Godly) realm was not supposed to be otherworldly, except in its character. Its implementation was not to await some drawn out future in an ethereal realm. It was to be live here and now in the midst of the chaos of life.

Jesus claimed that God's reign was nearby and indeed already present in his life and ministry. It would be fleshed out within the generation in the lives of his followers before the majority of them had passed away. Sure, it would continue into a heavenly eternity before God, but more importantly, it would take hold of our lives in this present reality.

Forecasting the coming reign in some future date simply misses the fact that God's reign is here. It is now. It is in us. It lives and breathes as we allow Christ and the message of the gospel to flow through and transform us and the world around us. There is no need to keep delaying the kingdom reality. It has already come.

Determine to stop putting the gospel off and live it in the moment. That is the news the world needs to hear and see in our lives.


"Lord, help me lay hold of the realities of your reign in my life today."


—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/ 
My latest books can be found here on amazon

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