Heaven on Earth

Kingdom Come Pt I
Matthew 6:10

In his book, A Genuine Faith, Rodney Reeves offers the following quote from Henri Nouwen:
"changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross."

Another of our good professors at SBU, Mike Fuhrman, offers the flowing wisdom:

Jesus gave us both the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, you can't have one without the other.

Throughout history humanity has made countless shots at creating a perfect world. Perhaps going as far back as Bale, countless "ists" and "isims" have attempted to birth a utopian society and have consistently miscarried. Communities both secular and sacred have been founded in hopes of "getting it right this time." But the question must be asked what does Jesus intend when he teaches his disciples to pray for a Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven? Does he intend for them to have a Heaven on Earth? What would that look like, how would we know that it was here?

God lead Israel out of captivity in Egypt to establish a kingdom in a promised (yet unseen) land. In the same way, Jesus redeemed us to a Kingdom and for a Kingdom that we have only had a foretaste of. We live between Advents. Yet Jesus talked about the Kingdom as something that is and is not yet (more on this tonight).

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered,

"The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you."
Luke 17:20-21 (NRSV)

As far as Jesus was concerned, wherever He was, the Kingdom was there. Lets chew on that for now.