During my first week of lecture phase back in September, we had a teacher come and teach upon a brand new subject for me. He opened up the bible and said that there is something that we have all missed. He was so excited, he literally was on his toes. Laughter was pouring forth from his mouth and joy pouring from the movement of his hands. To see his passion made me tune it, it caught me almost hypnotized as my eyes followed his every step. My mind was on a crazy ride, but despite my notes and attentiveness… I ended the week more confused than I began. Now, over two months later, I get it. I understand what he was teaching. Now I am the excited one, I am the one flipping through the pages of my Bible faster than my eyes can read them. I am the one that wants to share this crazy message. Its about the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have all heard about it, we all have had teachings on the Beatitudes from Matthew and know the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” But, if you are like me, you have always overlooked this phrase, or maybe you thought you understood but you thought that it was talking about Heaven, or maybe you have already understood this, if that is so I would love to hear from you and how you understand it. But this is what I have learned.

The Kingdom of Heaven is the first thing that Christ preached on. Right after he spent 40 days with is father in the wilderness. “From then on, Jesus began to preach, ‘Turn from your sins and turn to God, because the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17)

It is the first and last of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3 and 10)

When he teaches the disciples to pray he tells them to say “May your Kingdom come.” (Matthew 6:10)

Parables all through Matthew are trying to help us understand what the Kingdom is.
When he teaches about worry, he says “and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” (Matthew 6:33) He tells us to make it our primary concern. That means it is the most important.

In Mathew 11 he teaches all about the Kingdom he says in verse 12 “ And from the time John the Baptist began preaching and baptizing until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people attack it.”

This is what Jesus was trying to teach us! The Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven he was not trying to describe what heaven will be like - he is describing earth. When he said in 11:12 that the Kingdom has been forcefully advancing, that is showing when it started. It started when John began preaching. We are suppose to make the kingdom our primary concern, we are suppose to be persecuted, we have to realize our need for him, we have to be like salt and light. Christ wants his kingdom on earth to advance. He wants us to live in him now.

Do you want to be more passionate? Do you want more to live for? Life in Christ is not all about the cross, we have been forgiven, now we are called to increase his kingdom. Just think, we are living in his Kingdom now! We are in eternity if you are in Him!

I challenge you to look through the scripture for yourself, study the Kingdom of Heaven. Read Matthew with new eyes, read the Bible with new eyes. This is not a little piece to the puzzle, it is the missing piece to my puzzle. The Kingdom is talked about all through the Bible, it is prophesied in the Old Testament, it is talked about in Acts. In Acts 1 the apostles ask Christ if he will now restore their Kingdom (they were thinking in physical terms.) But Christ responded with “But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere…” That was his response to the Kingdom. That is what we are suppose to be doing. There is more to life than living in his grace - we must tell the world and see his Kingdom advance! So what are you doing about the Kingdom? What will you do to advance it? To make him seen on earth and to make his name shine? This is our job as Christians - to spread the Kingdom of Heaven.