Kingdom of God (Christianity)

The need to accept God's sovereignty and to live in His kingdom is a basic message of Christ's teaching - for example, Matthew 6 verses 31-34 "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness". Submission to the authority of Christ, figuratively described as a "yoke", leads to freedom and blessings beyond what this world can give and, as Christ said, "my yoke is easy and my burden light". However, it is painfully easy to be seduced by the apparent blessings that the material world has to offer and to be so enslaved by them as to be unable to put them aside and accept the kingship of Christ. It is for this reason that he indicates how difficult it is for a rich men to enter the kingdom, harder than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, yet "with God, all things are possible". Progress in the Christian faith is marked by the ability to accept Christ as master and not the world, while the struggle to achieve progress consists of trying to serve two masters - God and "mammon", ie riches, the world, material wealth. This latter state is very uncomfortable since one is in a spiritually untenable position. The paradox is that we are promised that putting the Kingdom of God first will result in "all these things being added". Many of Christ's parables are descriptions of the Kingdom - the pearl of great price that the merchant sold all his possessions in order to acquire, the grain of mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, that grew to great size.

Perhaps it is the need to reject the tyranny of material possessions which makes it harder for the rich to enter the Kingdom - but as well as the "world", the flesh and the devil also have to be resisted - desires and temptations being common to all. It is not that wanting and enjoying are in themselves wrong, it is the choice of who shall be master. And the battle is never finally won in this life while the individual's will is not wholly subservient to that of God's. In the words of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". We are assured, both in the scriptures and by those who have made progress in the Kingdom, that this relinquishing of the will brings freedom and peace, for His service "is perfect freedom".

Despite the fact that we can live now in the Kingdom of God, Christians still refer to the "coming" of God's Kingdom as a future event, an event foretold in the apocalyptic writings of both Old and New Testament. This event will be the final show-down between the armies of Christ, those who follow him and are members of his Kingdom, and the armies of Satan. Christ has already pre-empted the result of this encounter because of His death on the cross, Christ the willing sacrifice for the sins of the world overcoming death and ensuring victory to himself and his followers, proving by his death and resurrection that "death has no more dominion". The question remains only, for each individual, on which side he or she will be counted in this final encounter.