God sees our hearts, deep inside us, and so His kingdom is within us. And God within you directs your loving, charitable actions. The social context of Luke is Jesus being challenged to explain himself by the Jewish Pharisees. Jesus proposes belonging to the kingdom of God is more important than following Jewish laws to a tea. Jewish Pharisees expected the kingdom of God to consist of people keeping the Torah perfectly.
The huge body of writing in Jewish law supported this idea. In Jesus' brief explanation of God's kingdom , He first establishes His divinity before the Pharisees questioning His actions. Mary sang about the new world order that her Son would bring: the poor and disenfranchised will be victorious. Revelation tells us about a new, perfect heaven and earth that will replace our broken world.
This new world will be the future kingdom of God. Luke refers to Jesus as the way into the Kingdom. Jesus brought light into the world. Repent and believe the good news! We spread his reign on earth. God uses us to bring light to the world as we share our gifts in the here and now. In teaching, feeding, and listening to each other we expand the kingdom of God, his reign on earth.
Meanwhile, we await the ultimate kingdom of God. A blessed, Christlike life now and in a future world describes the kingdom of God. Betty Dunn hopes her articles in Crosswalk. A former high school English teacher and editor, she works on writing projects from her home in West Michigan, where she enjoys woods, water, pets, and family. Christ also promises to come a second time to complete his reign by creating a new heaven and new earth. The great mystery about the kingdom of God is that it is both talked about as something we should anticipate and also something that we have current access to in the here and now.
This text reminds us that things are not the way they ought to be here on Earth. He is sovereign and at work in our world to redeem humanity now. Jesus was approached by the Pharisees who asked when the kingdom of God would come here on earth. Jews that witnessed this conversation would have been familiar with the kingdom of God. They were knowledgeable about the many prophecies that told of the glory of their coming Savior. This would have been a conversation that would provoke a reaction from bystanders.
They yearned for a Messiah to establish rule on earth. Jesus replies to these hostile Pharisees letting them know that the kingdom of God would not be found by those with doubting and hard hearts. Jesus was saying the kingdom of God is here now because the King was among them!
This statement was Jesus pointing the Pharisees to his divine identity. Jesus was making clear that his presence was what was bringing his kingdom to humanity.
Even though these Pharisees said they desired the kingdom of God to come they were not able to accept the King. Their unwillingness to rethink what they thought God should or would do to save his people blinded them from being able to recognize Jesus as their Messiah.
Because God's kingdom is already among you. He published more than 15 books of spiritual writings, poetry, fiction, and essays, and participated in movements for social justice and peace. He took great interest in the religions of the East, particularly Zen, for the light they shed on the depth of human consciousness. From the seclusion of the monastery, he exerted a worldwide influence. The utter simplicity and obviousness of the infused light which contemplation pours into our soul suddenly awakens us to a new level of awareness.
We enter a region which we had never even suspected, and yet it is this new world which seems familiar and obvious. The old world of our senses is now the one that seems to us strange, remote and unbelievable. A door opens in the center of our being and we seem to fall through it into immense depths which, although they are infinite, are all accessible to us; all eternity seems to have become ours in this one placid and breathless contact. Readers who practice the Transcendental Meditation technique will recognize in these passages clear descriptions of transcending — the natural phenomenon of mental activity settling down, like waves settling on an ocean.
Consciousness reaches its most silent state, serene and unbounded. We experience pure consciousness. We realize that this is our true Self, beyond time and space, infinite and eternal. We now know, from extensive scientific research studies, that during Transcendental Meditation practice , during the experience of transcendence, brain functioning becomes integrated, physiological activity settles down, and one experiences a unique state of restful alertness, a fourth major state of consciousness Maharishi calls Transcendental Consciousness.
Transcendental Meditation is just the simple technique of going within, and there you are! To go within is so simple; it is so natural for every man to go to a field of greater happiness. And how can it be simple? The question arises because constantly I am emphasizing its simplicity. All this message of the inner life and outer life is not new, the same age-old message of the Kingdom of Heaven within.
Without exception, born as man, every man has the right, the legitimate right to enjoy all glories that belong to him, all glories of the inner world and all glories of the outside world. And here is a process every man can directly experience for himself. Augustine , trans. Teresa of Jesus , trans. Allison Peers ; reprint, London: Sheed and Ward, , — Also in St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection , trans. All rights reserved.
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