Dear GCI Family and Friends,
I am an American football fan. I played the sport, and so did my three sons. So, during the college bowl games I was watching the University of Texas play Ohio State University. The Texas quarterback was interviewed after the game. And what caught my attention was a prominent tattoo that was visible across his right forearm. It was the verse reference “Luke 17:21.”
I have a pretty good recall of many Bible verses (some of you remember when we had boxes of memory verse cards). Luke 17:21 was not one that immediately came to my mind, and when I looked it up, I got excited. These were the words of Jesus speaking to the Pharisees saying, “The kingdom of God is among you.” Wow, a young college athlete of a major university was inspired to have this verse displayed on his arm for the world to see.
I don’t know the backstory as to what the verse means to this player, but the verse is one that I have had on my list as we in GCI go forward in our 2025 theme of Kingdom Culture. How did Jesus instruct his audience about what to look for in his second coming?
First, the kingdom of God isn’t simply about external conditions and happenings (Luke 17:20). It isn’t about cobbling together bits of scriptures alongside world news leading to wild predictions. And as much we want Jesus to come back soon, it is irresponsible to set dates on a calendar. Jesus says that no man knows the date or the hour of his return, only his Father knows (Mark 13:32). The conditions that Jesus goes on to describe in Luke 17 can easily match up to various eras of human history in the past 2,000 years and certainly what we see in our society today. So, we collectively say, “Thy kingdom come” in our daily prayers.
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Second, Jesus is inferring that the Kingdom of God has a more important internal nature. If it is true as the apostle Paul says that the creation itself is yearning and longing to be delivered and restored, how much more for the humans who populate this planet? In our main passage, Jesus describes a self-indulgent, distracted world and yet at the core of humanity we all long for a time when sorrow, pain and suffering are no more. A time that can only happen when Jesus comes as a flash of lightning (Luke 17:24) on his white horse with a host of angels to make all things right (Revelation 19:11).
Finally, the kingdom of God has a spiritual nature. The kingdom of God was among the Jewish audience that Jesus addressed because the King was present with them. And it’s more than Jesus standing alongside people. We go back in the Gospel story to the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus to understand the relationship that Jesus desires. (You can read the full story in John 3.) Being born again means to believe and receive Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus makes his home in the believer and the believer becomes a new creation. Believers come to understand that they are kingdom citizens, and as they participate with Jesus in his ministry now, they assume the role of kingdom representatives. The spiritual union that a believer has in Jesus joins him or her to kingdom values and kingdom work.
Our tattoo-bearing quarterback did not have a good game that night of the interview. In fact, he made a bad play that cost his team a chance to win. Based on his composure and graceful act of answering the commentators’ questions, it showed me that he had a grasp of what the kingdom of God among us meant for him. May we go into our spaces and places of influence and do likewise.
Kingdom Representative,
Greg Williams
Dear GCI Family and Friends,
The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, we know some woman and man living and akting with God’s will. Of cours we do not see all of them, but only a part..
In a partial way, the Kingdom of God has already come to the earth, first in Jesus Christ’s appearance, life, death and resurrection. Jesus IS the Kingdom, without him there is no Kingdom of God. We therefore now pray for it’s expansion into all the nations as rain covers all the earth. Indeed, the Kingdom of God has come to us in 3 tenses: Past, present and future. We now pray for its future fulfillment so that God’s plan to re-merge heaven with earth can occur.
Thanks Greg for reminding us that the Kingdom of God is among us now in this present evil world. We are given to know that we are not alone and the Love of God is with us all and within those of the faith of Jesus Christ! Jn 17:25-26