What is a Kingdom Life?
I’m going to fry your wires a bit. The good news Jesus came to preach was not about His death, burial, and resurrection. In fact, He didn’t begin speaking about that until late in His public ministry, and He never talked about it openly to the masses. No, Jesus preached the arrival of the Kingdom. He preached Kingdom Life. He came to heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, deliver those who were oppressed, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and much more.1 He came to destroy the works of the devil – all the works!2
It gets even better! He came to tell us (declare) and show us (demonstrate) that we, His disciples, could do all of those things too.3 But for more than 20 years, I had believed a lie from the enemy. I believed Jesus could and did those miraculous things because He was God. As both God and man, I thought Jesus utilized His divine power to accomplish the amazing healings, deliverances, and resurrections. However, I had completely glossed over the Scriptures that tell us that Jesus accomplished those amazing things as a man. He didn’t use His divine ability! He was demonstrating to us what a Kingdom Life looked like, and the power and authority a Kingdom Life carried. He was showing us the perfect role model for living a victorious life on this Earth today.
This illustration may help put the two gospels4 (the Gospel of the Kingdom, and the Gospel of His death, burial, and resurrection – i.e. the Gospel of Salvation) into proper perspective. The Gospel of Salvation is like walking through the front door of your home. You walk in from the cold and rain. You escape the elements. You are safe. But the Gospel of the Kingdom is like walking into the kitchen. If your home is anything like mine, life happens in the kitchen. Relationships happen in the kitchen. Refreshment and renewal happens in the kitchen. Feasting happens in the kitchen. You must walk through the front door to get to the kitchen. We often times invite strangers through the front door. But if you’re like me, only friends are invited into the kitchen. That’s where life takes place. That’s Kingdom Life!
The Essentials series will challenge you to consider the characteristics of the life Jesus died to give you here and now. Jesus didn’t pay an awful price just to deliver you from the world, nor to give you the ability to merely endure the hardships of the world, but rather to partner with you to redeem, restore, reconcile, and renew the world back to its original design. He came to invite you into His kitchen. He came to declare and demonstrate the Gospel of the Kingdom – Kingdom Life.