DEVOTIONAL----LIVING IN TWO KINGDOMS

Living in Two Kingdoms

How can believers live in an earthly kingdom, and live in the kingdom of God at the same time. What does it mean to be a Christian citizen? If you believe that you live within and under the kingdom of Christ, but you also hold citizenship in the country in which you live, how do these two work together?
What do you do when those kingdoms seem to clash?
In Romans 13, the apostle Paul lays out a bold set of principles:
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.”
The clash of kingdoms sometimes turns to war between earthly nations. But there is also a wide and deep teaching in Scripture about the kingdom of God and how it relates to the kingdoms of this world, the nations. Sometimes these kingdoms clash; sometimes they don’t.
One truth at the center of Jesus’ teaching, at the very core of his message, was that the kingdom of God had come. Jesus himself said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43). The Old Testament, particularly the prophetic books, clearly teaches that a future day will come when the kingdom of God will usher in a new age. The Old Testament divided cosmic history into two parts, “this age, and the age to come.” In this age, God’s people are to do their best to live through the periods of peace and the periods of conflict and war that are the everyday realities of this world. But there will come a time when God will impose upon the world his power and his ruling, and usher in the age to come.
In Jesus’ day people still looked forward to the age to come. And we still look forward to the day of the Lord when history will draw to a close and God will remake everything. But Jesus made a dramatic adaptation of this view of reality. Though the age to come is still to come Jesus taught that the kingdom of God had already come.

If you are a believer in Jesus here and now, whether your home country is the U.S. or Syria or Israel-Argentina, Ireland, or Iran, the most important reality of your life is that you live within and under the kingdom of Christ. And belonging to the kingdom of God means a number of life-changing realities. (More next time.)