In Exodus 18 we have a portrait of the kingdom of God; right after Amalek is dealt with and the people of Israel obtain the victory over their enemy Amalek, there’s order and peace in the people of Israel under God and His deputy authority.
If we look in the New Testament of what the kingdom of God is along the line of life, we will realize that this kingdom has many aspects. First of all, the kingdom of God is not merely God’s ruling and reigning but a realm of the divine life: all those in God’s kingdom have the divine life! We enter into the kingdom of God through believing in the Lord as we hear the preaching of the gospel; our regeneration is the entrance into the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, a most pleasant and delightful place where we all are ruled in life, by light, and in love (see Col. 1:12-13).
The kingdom of God is a realm of light, a realm where God is shining and we all walk in the light as God is in the light; in this light we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ washes us from any sin (John 8:12; 1 John 1:9).
The kingdom of God is a realm of truth, that is, the Triune God and His word being wrought into us to be experienced by us and become our subjective reality and genuineness in which we worship God and we live God in reality.
Today we want to see how the kingdom of God is a realm of grace, glory, and shepherding, and there are so many other aspects.
Hallelujah, the kingdom of God is a realm of the enjoyment of God: the Triune God is being constantly dispensed into us as the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit to be our enjoyment day by day!
Praise the Lord, in the kingdom of God as a realm of shepherding we are under the Lord’s shepherding, we shepherd others, and we are being shepherded by the other saints – there’s a recovery of the mutual universal shepherding for God’s purpose.
Finally, how wonderful that the kingdom of God is a realm of God’s glory, that is, a realm of God being expressed in splendor, and we are being made one in the divine glory as we decrease and He increases in us to gain all the glory! Amen!
And as we live a kingdom life in the church as the kingdom of God, we all are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit (Eph. 2:22). May the Lord gain a built-up church as His kingdom today, and may we have a consistency and depth in living the kingdom life day-by-day corporately in all the local churches!
The Kingdom of God is a Realm of Grace: the Triune God is Everything to us as Our Enjoyment
When the Lord Jesus came as the kingdom of God, He came to us full of grace and reality; God was incarnated in the person of the Lord Jesus to come to us and be our enjoyment (John 1:14).
Grace is the Triune God as the Father in the Son and by the Spirit to be dispensed into us to be our enjoyment. The Father is the source (the love of God), the Son is the element (the grace of Jesus Christ), and the Spirit is the application (the fellowship of the Holy Spirit) of the grace of God to us (see 2 Cor. 13:14).
In the church life as the kingdom of God today we are under the dispensing of the grace of God. Here we have the God of all grace, the grace of Christ, and the Spirit of grace operating in us and among us to be our enjoyment constantly.
Grace is God Himself becoming our enjoyment; simply put, grace means that God is everything to us, God does everything in us and for us, and God gives everything to us (1 Pet. 5:10). Everything that we have is actually what we received from God; God gives us grace upon grace, and there’s an abundance of grace.
When others come among us, they can even see the grace of God being lived out in us and expressed in our way of living. The whole Bible ends with, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints, Amen! Hallelujah for the kingdom of God as a realm of grace!
Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into Your kingdom as a realm of grace. Keep us enjoying the divine dispensing of the Triune God: the Father as the source of grace, the Son as the element of grace, and the Spirit as the application of grace in our daily living. Lord, please become our enjoyment every day forever and ever! We just want to enjoy You as everything for us, You doing everything for us, and You giving everything to us!
The Kingdom of God is a Realm of Shepherding: the Lord Shepherds us and We Shepherd One Another
The Lord Jesus came as the good Shepherd, and He came to call out His sheep to come to Him and follow Him in His kingdom (see John 10:10-11, 15-17; 21:15-17). All those who hear His voice through the preaching of the gospel receive His divine life to become His sheep; together, the Lord’s sheep are the church, the flock of God, and Christ the Great Shepherd, the good Shepherd, and the Chief Shepherd.
In the kingdom of God we have Christ as our good Shepherd, and He cares for us in a very tender and loving way. The Lord shepherds us not only outwardly but also from within; the Lord’s living in us is His shepherding us. Christ is our life; Christ lives in us, and His living in us shepherds us and imparts life into us.
The Lord shepherds us by feeding us with Himself and in Himself as the pasture, by being life to us, and by living in us; the Lord’s living in us is actually His shepherding (John 10:9; 11:25; Col. 3:4).
Furthermore, when we allow the Lord to live in us, others are also being shepherded. On the one hand we are the Lord’s sheep, and on the other hand we are one with the Shepherding Christ to have a heart for people, care for the young ones, the new ones, and the disheartened ones.
In the church life as the kingdom of God, the realm of the divine life, we live a life of shepherding one another and being shepherded by others. No brother or sister is a “great shepherd” that doesn’t need anyone to shepherd him; we all need the Lord’s shepherding and one another’s shepherding.
This is what our fellowship is: it is a fellow-sheep in and under the Lord as the Shepherd. As we live in the kingdom of God as a realm of shepherding, the Lord is recovering the shepherding in mutuality for the bringing in of a new revival that will end this age and bring in the manifestation of the kingdom.
Lord Jesus, thank You for shepherding us by feeding us with Yourself and in Yourself as the pasture. Lord, how pleasant and wonderful we feel when we have You dispensed as life into us and enjoy Your living in us. Your living in us is such a shepherding to us. Oh Lord Jesus, make us one with You as the Shepherding One to care for the saints according to You, cherishing them in Your humanity and nourishing them in Your divinity.
The Kingdom of God is a Realm of Glory: God Expressed in Splendor
God has called us to and by His own glory (2 Pet. 1:3), and God called us into His eternal glory (1 Pet. 5:10). Also, God’s salvation is with eternal glory (Rom. 8:21), and His salvation leads us into His glory (Heb. 2:10). God called us by His glory, His salvation is with glory and lead us into glory, and our destiny is to be in His glory.
The kingdom of God is a realm of glory, that is, a realm of God’s expression in splendor (see John 1:14, 18; 12:41; 17:22-24). God’s glory goes with His kingdom; the kingdom of God is a realm in which God exercises His authority so that He can express His glory (Matt. 6:13; 1 Thes. 2:12).
In the kingdom of God there’s no self-glory; here there’s only One Person who receives all the glory, and this Person is God Himself. When the Lord Jesus came, He sought the Father’s glory; in the church as the kingdom of God, God gets all the glory, and we all are being perfected in the divine glory to become one in the divine glory. The church today is the only place on earth where God gets all the glory.
And we as believers in Christ need to walk in a manner worthy of God so that we may enter into His kingdom and be ushered into His glory (1 Thes. 2:12). As we exercise our spirit and live one spirit with the Lord, God is expressed through us both personally and corporately; when we all live one spirit with the Lord, God is manifested in the flesh – God is expressed in humanity, and God gets all the glory! Hallelujah!
Eventually, all believers in Christ will share in God’s glory, becoming the “diffuser” to express God in His glory as the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth for eternity!
Thank You, Lord, for calling us to Your own glory. Thank You for leading us as the many sons of God into glory. Lord, gain Your glory in the church. Perfect us into one in Your divine glory in the church. Lord, make us those who walk worthily of Your calling so that we may enter into Your kingdom and glory. Glory to God in Christ Jesus and in the church, Amen!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Kingdom (chs. 3-6, by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 11 / msg 11, A Portrait of the Kingdom of God.
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# Grace in its highest definition is / God in the Son to be enjoyed by us; / It is not only something done or giv’n, / But God Himself, our portion glorious. (Hymns #497)
# Foll’wing Thee, Good Shepherd, I would feed, / Shepherd those allotted me, / E’er I’d touch Thy heart’s desire, / Live in Thine economy. / O my Lord, All thanks to Thee! / Goodness, mercy follow me; / I’d ever dwell within Thy house, / As Thy Body glorious! (Song on Shepherding)
# Oh, the glory of the Triune God! / We’re His sons, oh, what a blessing! / We His glory are expressing— / Oh, the glory of the Triune God! / In Thy glory, in Thy glory, / In Thy glory we are one. (Hymns #1081)
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