On the Kingdom of God

The kingdom of God is what God is doing. Both Testaments use the word “reign” in this respect. The reign of God is the kingdom of God. So what is the kingdom of God? You need to know that or else you cannot “seek first the kingdom of God,” can you? So how do you seek first the kingdom of God? Well you would try to find out what God is doing and get involved with it. You can’t find out what God is doing without identifying His righteousness. You need to have a vision of God. Everything that exists outside of the human realm automatically expresses the kingdom of God. And some things within the human realm, if they are surrendered to God, also express the kingdom of God (e.g., the teachings of Jesus, the ten commandments, etc.). So if you wanted to seek the kingdom of God, the first thing you need to do is to step into those teachings. Now if you try to do that by [merely following] the teachings, you’ll become a legalist. We have to become not someone who [merely] does the law but the kind of person who naturally does what the law says. That is the process of spiritual growth.

We want to seek to be this kind of person in all areas of our life. That means we have to be prepared. So you need various kinds of disciplines to help you. I can’t simply resist anger in the moment when I’m confronted with a frustrating incident. I must be prepared for it. If we want to exhibit the fundamental aspects of the soul (e.g., peace, love and joy) on various occasions, we have to be prepared. We are either peaceful, joyful and loving or not. We have to attend to these deep conditions of the soul. That is where spiritual formation comes in. And if you don’t have that you’ll just become a guilt-ridden legalist, and you’ll find yourself trying to act in a way that you’re not really.