Day 23: John 18:28-40 - Kingdom of God
“Jesus answered, ‘My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”
Today’s Reading Passage: John 18:28-40
We live in a beautiful world. I bet you can easily picture it as you close your eyes. What do you see?
Ocean waves.
Grassy fields.
Majestic mountains.
Epic sunsets.
The beauty that God created all around us is stunning! It’s hard to believe that this isn’t our real home.
Can you imagine that it gets better?
God created Heaven to be even more impressive, more magnificent, more awe-inspiring than our earthly home. Imagine our world magnified in beauty and then there is no death, no pain, no tears (Revelation 21:1-5). Heaven is going to be a glorious kingdom!
And for those that believe in Jesus, and put full trust in Him as King, we know that our real home is His kingdom: eternity in Heaven with God (Romans 10:9).
Jesus came down from Glory and didn’t hide it from the government officials of the time, as He was under trial. His Kingdom is not of this world. This isn’t His home. And it’s not ours either if we trust in Him.
Even under the stress and anguish of being under trial and persecuted by the different people Jesus met in His final days (and He interacted with A LOT of new people in those final days), He didn’t lose focus of His true home.
As author and teacher, Randy Alcorn says, “Our present life on earth is the dot. It begins. It ends. It’s brief. However, from the dot, a line extends that goes on forever. That line is eternity… Right now we’re living in the dot. But what are we living for? The shortsighted person lives for the dot. The person with perspective lives for the line.”*
We may not have the pressure that Jesus was under as He neared His death. But we can still have pressure-filled days that can make us lose our perspective of where our focus should be.
In life’s moments, in the good and the bad, are you living for the dot, or the line?
Written by: Heather Erickson