WHEN THE LIFE OF GOD IS YOUR LIFE

When Jesus spoke of Himself as the way, the truth and the life He was declaring that the life of God - Himself in person is the life of God - the corollary of  I AM. Jesus came as life itself because God is the breath of life. As a human being Jesus was the Son of God and the expression of the very nature of God as life and all that is real and true. Thus ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind,’ Expresses who He is and who He is for us.
 
MEANING
 
This should point us in the direction of the true meaning of the Kingdom of God. It is not divided into ‘states and territories.’ It cannot be corporatized. Sects, denominations and cults can never possess it or make legitimate claims to define it in their own terms.
 
The Kingdom of God is not even the combined perspectives of all the Christian communities. It’s not even what we might like to call ‘Christianity.’ Which is why Christian Proprietors can get so offended at the words of the Jesus in The Shack. “I’m not a Christian.” The Kingdom of God is the life of the trinity incarnated in us and in the world.
 
NEW CREATION KINGDOM
 
“The kingdom of God is the naked now — the world without human kingdoms, ethnic communities, national boundaries, or social identifications.” (1) It’s Christ our life.
Thus a life devoted to pumping up our own brand may not produce much spirit and life. This will threaten us if we are living from a culture that is based on religious contract and provides a sense of entitlement. Not if Christ is indeed our life and we generate meaning and belonging from the fact that we belong in His life – the Family of the trinity.
CHRIST THE DOOR
This means any effort to promote ‘our denomination’ as ‘the way’ of even ‘a way’ is bound to fail. For this reason the quest to pump up our denomination is fundamentally misguided. Why? Because the life of God since the cross has become the manifestation of you, George and Sharon and all for whom Christ is their life.
WITHOUT WALLS
‘Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ John 14.20.
The Kingdom of God is  Christ’s Person Himself manifesting in people without restriction, human definition or limitation. This spirit and life is both uncontained and personal -which is to say that it expresses itself in the world as ‘Christ in you’ and more. The life of God is the trinity in you and in us all. John put this succinctly when he wrote,  ‘I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist’ 2 John 1.7 NIV.
 
Christ come in the flesh is the person of Jesus as you – so that you are an expression of Him and the church as a whole expresses His fullness.
 
(1) Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (p. 101). The Crossroad Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.