The Kingdom Within

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

THE KINGDOM WITHIN

Luke 17:20-21

20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." 

NIV

This is what it is all about, having the kingdom of God inside us. Of course, being born again is the way for the kingdom of God to enter as Jesus told  Nicodemus that for him to see the kingdom of God he must be born again, or born from above. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the old self must die and we become a new, reborn from above, person. We express that as being born again when we are born from above, the kingdom of God is within us. Somehow, that seems a bit impossible for the kingdom of God to be inside a person and we would have to admit the physical kingdom of God, the whole of his kingdom that someday will come upon the new earth, and we will dwell within it, is not the kingdom inside us. However, this kingdom within us could be seen as being metaphorically, but it is not that either. We could say that all of us believers make up a kingdom of believers or the kingdom of God, but that is not right either. This Greek word translated as within, entos, means directly inside. It looks like we could get the English word, enter, right from the Greek word entos, and that is where this kingdom of God is, as it has entered inside of us. We could see this as the reign of God is now within us, that we are not under the authority of the king of the kingdom, and as such we live a whole new way of life. There, is another possibility in that Jesus was asked this question by the Pharisees who did everything with pomp and ceremony or splendor, like a new king would be coronated. They would expect or question if Jesus was going to do something like becoming a new king with all the special affairs filled with pomp and splendor. His response was that when a man becomes born again when the kingdom of God enters into a person, it does not come with a big ceremony, it quietly becomes part of a person's life, part of our life, changing us into a person of God, filled with the love of God, with his grace upon us, influencing our hearts and minds so we become more and more like Jesus. This is the kingdom within us.