What is the kingdom of God? According to the New Testament, the kingdom of God is something that you should

seek before all other things. It's something you can enter or go into, and unnervingly,

it's something that can be taken away. The kingdom of God is something

that Jesus says is at hand or has come near. He also describes it as a secret that must be given to us

by God. It's something that can belong to you or be received. It is within you, and yet it's also

a kingdom in which Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all the prophets and countless people from all over

the world will live. It's something that can only be entered through many tribulations.

It's something that the unrighteous will not inherit.

It is good news that must be proclaimed.

It is something that no one can see unless they are born again.

So what is the kingdom of God exactly?

David says in First Chronicles chapter 29,

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty,

for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.

Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

So the kingdom of God in one sense is the reality that God is king of all things. In this sense,

all of us, whether we like it or not, live in the kingdom of God. To paraphrase Abraham

Kuiper, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which

God, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine. But there is another sense in which the kingdom of God has not yet fully come.

That's why Jesus teaches his disciples to pray to God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth

as it is in heaven. God is truly the king of all creation, but clearly not everyone or everything has yet submitted to his kingly rule.

People choose to ignore his word and sin and death still ravage our lives.

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