SEVENTH IN A SERIES ON THE GOSPEL JESUS PROCLAIMED
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1, NASB)
Justin Thomas was the last man standing at the summer’s final major, the PGA Championship. He did it again after he toppled his close friend Jordan Spieth on the final nine holes of the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup.
I picture the twelve suddenly taking a step back after hearing Jesus’ words.With these accomplishments and four other PGA Tour wins, Thomas was named both the PGA of America’s Player of the Year and the PGA Tour Player of the Year.
Few doubt that Justin Thomas was the greatest in golf in 2017.
The twelve disciples of Jesus were competing to be called greatest, too. Their fighting escalated to a point that they had to bring Jesus in for the judgment as to who among them was the greatest.
Jesus answered when he waved a child standing nearby to come over to him. He then told the disciples, “Unless you are converted (turn around and get headed in the right direction) and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
I picture the twelve suddenly taking a step back after hearing Jesus’ words.
“Whoever then humbles himself as this child,” Jesus said, “… is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
All are invited into God’s kingdom. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37).
But not everyone makes it into God’s kingdom. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21). To enter the kingdom of heaven, as the Pharisee Nicodemus learned, a paradigm shift was necessary. Nicodemus was religious. No doubt, respected. But he had not been born again (read the full story in John 3:1-20).
After Jesus had been crucified, Nicodemus showed up. We can be reasonably sure Nicodemus, at the end, got it. He understood the kingdom message that Jesus proclaimed. And Nicodemus humbled himself, got himself off the throne of his self-kingdom, and became a child in God’s kingdom.
The Good News Jesus proclaimed is the Good News of the kingdom. Where he is King.
When we step into his kingdom, we do so by faith. We step not up but down.
In Jesus’ kingdom, the humble are exalted. The proud are humbled.
God has an address, a place where he lives. We read about it in a text written 700 years before Jesus walked on earth. The Lord beckons us there in the words of the prophet Isaiah:
For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
“I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15)
—
Jim Hiskey
October 23, 2017
Copyright 2017 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
Other devotions in this series:
1 A Large Mistake
2 The Key Fundamental
3 After the Humiliation: Good News
4 The Garland
5 Much Ado About Much
6 The Living King and the Enduring Kingdom
8 Responding to the Good News
9 Resting in Jesus