The Kingdom of God Devotional Guide - Wednesday, Jan 5

Scripture Reading: Genesis 28:10-22; John 1:51

Review: There is a very thin veil between the realm of the Universal Kingdom of God and the realm in which we live here on earth. Jesus is the gateway between the two realms (John 1:51). Through Him we are able to gain a foretaste now of our future life with Him someday in His Kingdom when He establishes it here on earth.

At times it may be difficult to wrap our hearts and minds around the idea of Jesus breaking through into the realm in which we live. After all, we live in a fallen, sin-cursed realm. But that is the point exactly. We are hopeless to experience Kingdom-life ever, much less in the here and now, apart from Jesus. We must go through Him. Besides, in addition to what we can learn from juxtaposing the two Scripture passages for today's devotion, we know Jesus has already come into our realm as King, bringing with Him all sorts of blessings and Kingdom-life experiences. We just celebrated Christmas, which marks the beginning of His physical presence on the earth as the promised Savior-King. When Jesus came the first time, He showered many people with Kingdom-life experiences (healing, spiritual liberation from demon oppression, miraculous rescue from natural disasters, etc.) After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He continues to come into our world with blessings of His future Kingdom, blessings such as victory over unbelief, victory over sin, grace to help in times of need, answers to prayer, and more. All these are foretastes of our future Kingdom life with Him. By the way, Jesus referred to these foretastes as Him giving "abundant" life to us (John 10:10). And He taught us to pursue these experiences, when He said: "Seek first the kingdom of God..." (Matthew 6:33).

Reflection Questions: What foretastes of Kingdom life have you experienced recently? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate how you are responding in life to Jesus' exhortation of Matthew 6:33? What has to happen to move your rating higher up the scale?