And it is necessary for those seeking to enter the Kingdom. You go first.” Change is hard! But with God’s help through His Spirit, real change is possible. A cartoon I once saw shows one person saying to another: “Change is good. Everyone seems to generally agree that change is good, but most find it hard to make meaningful changes in their lives. The Greek word translated “repent” simply means “to change one’s mind,” leading to turning one’s life around. And God has outlined a number of steps-actions-that will cause people to truly change their hearts. The Bible shows that Christianity is a lifelong process of conversion-of building godly character.
Instead they are focused on meeting the conditions to enter it. Those called into God’s Church know they cannot build the Kingdom “in their hearts,” as some think. He also told His servants to pray, “Your kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). and believe the gospel ” (Mark 1:15, KJV). Repent-the first stepĪbout 2,000 years ago, Christ started His ministry with the message, “The Kingdom of God is at hand: repent. The Bible holds the answers! There is a marked path to entering God’s Kingdom, but it is not what most believe. Is just saying a prayer and letting Christ into your heart all it takes, as some assume? And is God going to let everyone in? It’s something still being sought after, like the millions of people around the world struggling to find a new physical home.īut how are we to seek it? And how do we ultimately gain entrance to God’s Kingdom? This is one of life’s great questions. It will be mankind’s ultimate home, and the Bible shows it will be established on earth. The prophesied Kingdom of God is a type of final home, a spiritual home. It will involve a righteous government, one that is finally able to bring about the peace and prosperity all long for. God’s Word shows this Kingdom arrives at Christ’s second coming. The Bible a few times calls this coming Kingdom a paradise (see Luke 23:43)-with Eden-like conditions in every corner of the world. Christians are to build their lives around this goal, this hope for the future. In fact, Jesus Christ told His followers to “ seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). Christians throughout time have joined him in this search. for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:8-10, King James Version, emphasis added throughout).Ībraham sought the Kingdom of God.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles. The book of Hebrews describes his lifelong search, his “sojourn”: “By faith Abraham. One man, the biblical patriarch Abraham, spent his life looking forward to this spiritual home. Through the centuries, a smaller group of people have also been searching for a home-for a spiritual permanent residence, the Kingdom of God.
They are all searching for the same thing- home. They’ve become a new “Lost Generation”-eyes deadened by the things they’ve seen, hearts growing cold with sorrow and loss, their hope slowly dimming. Vast numbers now wander through the world’s highways and byways, looking for a new home, someone to take them in. Around 80 percent of the world’s refugees have been living in exile for five years, and around one-fifth of them for 20 years” (Nick Cumming-Bruce, “Number of Refugees Is Soaring to Records,” June 20, 2019). Increasing populations in impoverished areas, famine, disease, horrible civil wars and strife have forced millions of men, women and children to leave their homes.Ī recent New York Times article reported that “the global population of people displaced by conflict reached 70.8 million last year, up from a little over 43 million a decade ago. Today there are more dislocated and homeless people on earth than there have ever been, even more than during World War II.
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