A Lasting Picture

When I see glimpses of God’s kingdom I get chills. Seeing the mentors at Neighbor to Neighbor interact with their kids is something to see. Looking across the room at the mentors of all ages and all backgrounds helping each kid with their schoolwork in a way that is loving and nurturing, to me, is a glimpse of the kingdom. There are kinks and sometimes things don’t go accordingly, but if we truly believe in the reconciling power of Jesus and the Gospel then these types of occurrences can happen and should happen.

As followers of Jesus we are to live as if the kingdom of God is and can be a present reality. The words: ‘Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..’ should take on a new meaning. No longer is it the pre-game/post-game football game prayer, but it’s a prayer and an invitation for each of us to live with a kingdom focus and to view our world through a kingdom lens.

‘On earth as it is in heaven.’

The presence of God is everywhere; we’re just trained to look past it. We are trained that what we have (Jesus) is what they don’t have. The call to ‘love others with the love of Christ’ gets skewed and becomes a selfish quest to ‘convert and save’. But the invitation Jesus gives us is not a bomb-shelter where the ‘saved’ go and wait, but he invites us to live with a kingdom focus.

‘On earth as it is in heaven.’

What if we took Jesus serious when he talked about being present in the ‘least of these’? What if Jesus is calling us to live radically different then what we've been taught by others? What if Jesus is making a point that the kingdom he’s inviting us into has a level of reciprocity?

Seeing the mentors interact with their kids, I imagine that the teaching and subsequent learning not only occurs from the mentor to the mentee but also from the mentee to the mentor. Both benefit and grow from their relationships with each other, and whether they realize it or not, they need each other. They are not complete without one another. That seems to be the way the kingdom works..

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Matthew 5:3