The Kingdom of God is within you

Take some time to reflect on the incredible claim made by Jesus in Luke 17:21 “The Kingdom of God is within you.” So, according to Jesus, God’s infinite landscape of all joy, all peace, all beauty, all love, all creation, can be found, not as a place outside of us, but is inside you and me. This surely is the most glorious and precious gift that our God can give us, yet we spend so much of our lives ignoring it, or not believing it – turning our gaze away from this inner space of perfection and wonder. We ignore it because our lives are so full of other distractions – our busy-ness and worry – that we cannot see or experience the vastness of God’s infinite landscape within us. We don’t believe it because who we are and what we do seem so not to be perfect, joyful, peaceful, beautiful, love-filled, and creative – it therefore becomes very difficult to believe that God has or would have given us his Kingdom. But he has, and it is time for all of us to find ways of increasingly accepting this wonderful gift in our lives – and, so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing over the past few days as it might help.

Stick with me!! I’ve first gone onto Youtube and found a summer countryside recording of birds singing, and other related sounds. Then, as I have experienced the tranquillity and stillness of these sounds, I picture Jesus opening a door from the inside of me that, in turn, opens-up to the landscape suggested by the sounds. The landscape I then picture as the Kingdom of God within me and claim it as my own – accepting, with thanks, this wonderful gift God has given me. Then I drink in more of the tranquillity and stillness and keep gazing at this gift, turning away from my busy-ness and worry – this being a perfect gift which I see now is guaranteed, despite my imperfections. It is guaranteed because Christ has prepared this place for me – and his sacrifice has meant that I can access this Kingdom always, as he has taken on my imperfections and mysteriously has become them for me (and see II Corinthians 5:21). I then see that this deepest of mysteries means that I have been made perfect by him – I have been made perfect, so I can live in God’s Kingdom now and for always as his Kingdom is found within me, and not in any way spoil it!! Incredible but true!!