Look Up
The dominion of God is actuality. It’s what’s actual. We regularly stroll round as if we’re the sovereign ones and as if we have now the crowns on our heads. Life is self-referential. However we perceive there’s one true King of heaven and earth—and it’s Jesus.
After I was at seminary at Gordon-Conwell, I went on a retreat to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. You know the way it goes. I used to be in a cabin with a bunch of men, there was somebody who snored, and I assumed he was going to have a hernia. So at about 5 o’clock within the morning, I made a decision to go for a stroll. I went all the way down to the lake the place we had been the evening earlier than, and I remembered the s’mores that we loved consuming and the worship songs. I used to be making an attempt to learn my Bible within the moonlight, ready for the solar to rise—which at all times appears to take longer than you anticipate.
The Upside Down Kingdom examines how dwelling in keeping with Jesus’s Beatitudes can domesticate God’s kingdom on earth as it’s in heaven, bringing peace and blessing to our damaged world.
As I used to be mulling round and praying, at one level I regarded on the mountain behind me and seen on the treetops manner up excessive that the solar was shining. It occurred to me that whereas it was nonetheless darkish down beneath the place I used to be standing, the solar had already risen up there.
That’s the excellent news. The Son has risen. Jesus is King. He’s advancing his kingdom on this world, and we have now the privilege on daily basis of bowing the knee to him, of surrendering our lives, and submitting and proclaiming his message in order that others would give their lives to his reign and his rule. And that’s what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the dominion of heaven.”
Chris Castaldo is the writer of The Upside Down Kingdom: Wisdom for Life from the Beatitudes.
