Building a Kingdom

Whose kingdom are you about? God's or your own? Far too often I am all about my own Kingdom. After all, that is our cruise control. Left to ourselves, we will choose what we think is best for ourselves. Left to ourselves, we will follow the path of least resistance to the thing we want most. We will do whatever we think makes us happy. It is really useless advice to tell someone to do whatever will make them happy. We are going to do that anyway.

Jesus is King, and we are part of his Kingdom. We are his subjects. He is our Lord. He commands, and we follow his command. Of course, our world is full of distractions and our hearts are full of sin, so we do not often see Jesus as a person who commands our allegiance and obedience. We see him as a sort of far-off person that we are supposed to have some sort of relationship with, which basically means we try hard to have a quiet time to pray and read the Bible. But as a very real person who commands our hearts and actions, we have a hard time perceiving this.

There is in all of us a clash of kingdoms. Down deep in our hearts there is a battle of conflicting motivations, and it is from our hearts that we live. Who is in control there? Us or Jesus?

When Jesus is in control of our hearts, and when we are about his Kingdom, we become open to change. We more readily admit the continuing sinfulness of our hearts and the necessity of change, the necessity of spiritual surgery. Then, when all the big hurts and heartaches, as well as all the low-grade hassles and annoyances come our way, they may not lose their sting, but we taste their bitterness in a new light. We are being chiseled and molded through sometimes painful processes into being Christ-like in our character because every piece of God's Kingdom is meant to point to Jesus.

When someone is bothering you, realize that God is sovereign and put them in your life for a reason. God knows what he is doing. You will never regret doing the right thing. You will never regret giving love and grace, instead of acting spitefully toward someone in an effort to build your own kingdom. All our kingdom-building for ourselves will inevitably come crashing down as sure as the tides erase our sandcastles. Only God's Kingdom will endure.