Seeing The KingdomSample

Now You Are Light All who have come to faith in Jesus Christ have been delivered from the domain of darkness and sin and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13). The believer has been awakened from the sleep of death, and now inhabits a realm of true spiritual light. Now, all things have become new. Old ways of thinking, feeling, and living are set aside, and the ways of those who walk in the light as Jesus is in the light come increasingly to characterize those who truly believe (2 Cor. 5:17-21; Eph. 4:17-24; 1 Jn. 2:1-6). The first evidence of the coming of the Kingdom comes to expression in the soul of one who has been awakened from death to life: the surprise of learning that you are loved by One Who gave His life for you; the gratitude welling up from within as you realize the mercy you have received; the overall sense of wellbeing which you know to be something real, lasting, and transformational. We may not be able to explain it, but we know something real, significant, and new has happened. The day I became a Christian I walked back to my fraternity house and sat down on my bed in a mood of mystery, joy, and reflection. Soon, four of my fraternity brothers wandered into the room and sat down. After what seemed like a long time, one of them said, “OK, Moore, what’s going on?” I didn’t know what he meant and said so. He asked, “What have you done? What’s happened to you? Something has happened, or you’ve done something, because, I don’t know, you just seem very, very different.” The other three concurred with his observations. I didn’t know what to say, but I had to say something. So I simply shook my head back and forth and said, “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. All I know is, that for the first time in my life, I’ve done something completely right.” You may not know exactly how to say it, but if you’ve come into the Kingdom of God, you certainly will know it. Next steps: How would you explain your experience of coming into the Kingdom of God?