My Kingdom is Not of this World

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Nov 29, 2015 1799

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” – John 18:36, NKJV

The Kingdom of God does not advance and evil is not overcome through fighting and warfare as the world practices them (see 2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Evil was overcome in the truest sense of the word when Jesus died on the cross which was the method of execution of the worst criminals as practiced in the Roman world. To His followers this looked like total defeat. Their expectations of a Messiah who would conquer the Romans and set up an earthly kingdom were totally destroyed. None of us could begin to imagine the kind of disappointment that the followers of Jesus experienced. This moment when things looked the darkest was the pivotal point in the history of the human race.

In our personal lives and in the larger world there are apparent evils on every hand. Human methods of warfare do at times seem to conquer a certain evil, but another one, sometimes even worse, arises and it goes on and on.

The followers of Christ are privileged to overcome evil in whatever form it may appear by using the spiritual weapons that God has provided. The Bible describes these weapons as love in its many facets and ways of expressing itself.

The temptation is always there to use some kind of human methods to overcome a particular evil and we all need to be more aware of this. As we learn to lean fully upon the Savior in His ultimate victory over evil we shall indeed see healing in seemingly hopeless situations. We are privileged to pray at all times and cast our burdens upon the Lord and He will go before us and mountains of seemingly unresolvable problems will be removed and our way made plain (see Psalm 55:22; Isaiah 40:4; 1 Peter 5:7).

Tom Durst. Used with permission from the Union with God Devotional Forum