Entering The Kin-Dom - a short reflection

The Kin-dom of Heaven is at hand; even now is! Entering the Kin-dom is not like crossing the borders of some earthly kingdom. The Gates to the Kin-dom of Heaven are not guarded by soldiers with guns and attack dogs, demanding to see your credentials; wherefore did the Master say that ‘Entrance into the Kin-dom does not wait upon marching armies or the overthrowing of thrones of power!’ One cannot take the Kin-dom by coup d’état! The Kin-dom of Heaven does not invade, unbidden, the human heart. Ever does the Prince of Peace stand watch at the gates of the human heart - waiting patiently, and with overflowing love, ready to extend the mercies of Heaven to all who wish to receive them. The Kin-dom of Heaven is open to all, and all that sincerely crave entrance will receive an abundant welcome.

The sincere desire to enter the Kin-dom, the hunger to know divine truth, bespeaks of the fact that the Kin-dom has ALREADY entered you, that the divine seed has already taken root in your soul. Hunger for divine verities is a symptom of indwelling divinity; that a character of divine potential has begun to grow in you.

Once this instinct for the divine engages you do not achieve FINAL PEACE until you attain the very Presence of the Divine Source that first initiated it in the human heart. Then, as you ascend the scale of being from the human to the divine, from time to eternity, from finitude of being to the Presence of the Limitless One, you are – on the one hand – shedding your material and temporal natures while, at the same time, you are acquiring, manifesting, or actualising the potential divine character of your spiritual and eternal nature. Indeed, as this hunger for divine verities grow - the transforming power of these truths similarly expand. In fact, you find that the more you know God - the more you want to know Him, and the more you learn of Him – the more you discover there is to know, and so, onward you go on your never-ending, ever expanding journey of endless revelation into the infinite nature of the Limitless One.

The very desire to ‘enter the Kin-dom’ is equal to the desire to know God, to know Truth, to know Abiding Peace, for these are experientially equivalent, indicates that you are already in the Kin-dom, for only the divine can long for and have understanding and loving commune with the Divine, only spiritual beings can yearn to experientially realise spiritual realities. That you thus yearn indicates that the Father has managed to contact and thereby spiritually awaken His sleeping material child, testifies that the Father has managed to quicken the seed divinity He placed in you when He conceived you. Thus quickened this seed will eventually burst forth from the material pod wherein it has been cocooned. Having been thus awakened, now that awareness of the divine values of the Kin-dom has finally dawned, your next challenge is to, not only NOT IMPEDE the growth of this seed but to endeavour in all ways to facilitate it in the actualisation of its potential. 

As this grows, as your divine potential is actualised, doubt diminishes while faith grows stronger, confusion recedes while clarity increases, hope springs continually even as despair dries up. You learn that the spiritual value of divine verities increase in direct proportion to the time spent contemplating them. Indeed, the light of the Kin-dom grows in direct proportion to our sincere longing therefore, spiritual illumination increases in a quotient correlated to our aspiration. 

The Father gladly fills the spiritual bellies of everyone that sincerely hungers for spiritual truth, not one is turned away. Not only that, He serves it in a manner most appealing to each individual child – His recipes are as limitless as His children are numerous -  each one concocted to suit the culture, gender, race, religion, education, class, and general preferences of each child. Some kids like salt, some do not; some prefer butter, others milk; more like sugar but still others prefer ketchup, the options and tastes are truly limitless, but if earthly parents are so considerate of the preferences of their children how much more so is the Father of All! When children fight over doctrine and dogma they are in truth fighting over the individual recipes the Father uses to cater to the tastes of His diverse progeny!

The Seed and the Shell

The Gods will suffer you to be crushed but never destroyed. When the harsh realities of the world seem to bear down with apparent cruel disregard for your life, your hopes, and all that you value; bear in mind that if the hard shell that serves to protect a seed is not removed it becomes a coffin. Some shells are so very hard that they may require many crushing blows before they fracture and release the life they imprison. It is inevitable, after being crushed, that you feel terribly exposed, vulnerable, and weak; and, to a degree, this is true but you cannot live forever within the protective shell of your own illusions, isolated from reality. Only genuine contact with true reality, or the reality that is True, can sustain you.

So often it is that apparent defeat and catastrophe go before growth and new life. Indeed, the New Life cannot be acquired without first letting go of the old. It is in this interregnum period, the transition period between the Old and the new – that moment when you now have neither, when all appears irredeemably lost, when anxiety and uncertainty become almost unbearable, that you discover the true power of your faith; for only faith can carry you from the old life into the new.

Faith enables you to find the Better Way and without faith the Better Way can never be made manifest. The Better Way cannot be found, much less walked, established, nor can a Better World built without faith; for Faith is, in truth, the very substance of things hoped for, the great seed from whence springs all good things and faith springs forth from the eternal and indestructible centre of our very being, that essence that no blow can destroy; moreover, each blow becomes a means of achieving new and ever greater realisations of hitherto unimagined potential.

Next Generation Gospel - updated

The gospel of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be wholly limited to the things he said; only the matchless life he lived can provide us with the full stereoscopic reality of the depth of his teachings. It is remarkable to think that such marvellous truths could be hidden in plain sight. Indeed, if you were to ask many Christian theologians 'what was truly original about the teachings of Jesus?' many would be at a loss to tell you, and while this might seem extreme – it is nonetheless valid. 

Part of the difficulty we experience when we try to interpret the life and teachings of the Man from Nazareth is to be found in the audience of Jesus. Of necessity, he had to speak in a language they would understand – not simply Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek but employing the idioms of that day, age and culture. Consequently, it was inevitable that he would employ the vocabulary of concepts supplied by the Torah; it was literally the only show in town. While he was at pains to ensure his disciples did not confuse the Torah with the Gospel he taught and lived, undoubtedly, the flawless fluidity with which he employed the Torah to relate gospel truths compelled his followers to think they were co-extensive and mutually inter-dependant. Heaven knows, they were hardly likely to be very familiar with the traditions of others.

Jesus was so skilful in the art of putting new spin on old truths; so artful in his employment of available idioms and common concepts; so expert in using the ordinary and everyday things of life to communicate extraordinary truths; and we should remember, the truths he taught were so vital, vivifying, and enlightening, that not only was their spirit revered but so too were their very forms; such that incidental facts associated with the gospel came to be viewed as fundamental elements of it – the New cloth was sewn onto the Old. Consequently, the Old Wineskin of the Torah, contrary to the teachings of Jesus, was blended with the New Wine of the Gospel he taught and lived. For all his effort to ensure that his followers did not confuse the spirit of his gospel with its inevitable cultural expression, the subtlety of his message proved too fine – consequently they missed his point, and his gospel became identified with, and ultimately seen as an extension of, the Torah. Such was the success of this hybridisation that in the hearts and minds of nearly all Christendom the Torah is now regarded as an indispensible element of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.

While it is easy to see how this error evolved, there can be no overestimating the significance the difficulty this presents to the forward motion of the gospel. People’s loyalties, once mobilised, are difficult to reset; especially is this so when people are locked into a tradition where disloyalty means a first class ticket to Hell!  While the highly serviceable nature of the Torah is beyond question, it should be borne in mind that the Spirit of Truth can gainfully employ the truth of any tradition. The Spirit of God is not limited by gender, race or religion; the Creation may be limited but the Creator is not; the Creation is an instrument of the Creator but it is not that Creator. However, we commit a tremendous spiritual blunder when we take one piece of the Creation and say ‘that and that alone’ reflects the Creator and this is what we do when we assert the primacy of one tradition over another.


Do you realise, or can you appreciate, the truly marvellous nature of the revelation made by Jesus? For many people, prior to the arrival of Jesus, God was a terrifying mystery – the One who inspired fear and dread; a God of War, Judgement, and Vengeance; but the Cross put an end to such a god. Behold! In place of the god of War, we find the Prince of Peace! In place of Judgement, we find Mercy! In place of Vengeance, we find Forgiveness! In Jesus we discover a God who inspires Love and Faith and Hope; a God who can quench the raging fire of terror with the Great River of Peace that flows from the Rock of Faith; who can turn tragedy into triumph, defeat into victory, despair into hope, death into everlasting life; who can transform the flawed and weak creatures of time into the perfected children of an Eternal God. 

And so, on the cross, we see the greatest spectacle this world has ever beheld! The death of an old god and the birth a new and everlasting Ideal; a God who inspires transforming love, a hope that can give life new direction, new meaning, new value; an enlightened faith that no darkness can extinguish! A God of Loving Mercy! Behold! He was beaten and tortured, did he curse? Did he revile? Did he promise retribution? Vengeance? No! This is the one who proclaimed, 'You that have seen me, have seen God.' Behold the Great Revelation! Know your God!

My soul grows rich

My soul grows rich in wonder and joy,

The majesty and mercy of the Almighty

Pour over my soul

And I am washed,

Away,

As flotsam and jetsam,

In the torrent of his glory.

His love, like his wisdom,

Knows no bounds.

He holds the universe

in his hands

as tenderly as a father

holds his first born.

He sings songs to us

And tells us stories

That we do not understand

But we know

When we cry

He hears and responds

And

in the depths of our being

we know

we are loved

The Father

There lives within you the power that formed the universe. There lives within you the guiding voice of the Architect of all Creation. Behold the Heavens, even the Heaven of Heavens! Great is the power of the Almighty, who holds the stars of Heaven in his palms and plants them where he wills. Behold infinite cosmic Father! Bring unto him your troubles, nothing is too big or small for him. If he, with a shout, can shake the Heavens – how much more will your troubles tremble before his might!

He is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, of time and space, doubt not that he would be glad to make time for you! Open your heart to his instruction. Trust wholeheartedly in the righteousness and efficacy of his ways. His plans are infinite, his goals are eternal so let not yourself be perturbed by the small things of time.

Learn of him and his ways, make your world richer by daring to be like him. Lend your shoulder to his great work; give those that thirst something to drink, those that hunger something that nourishes, give protection to them that are exposed and vulnerable, open those eyes blinded by spiritual darkness, point the way for those that are lost, liberate those captivated by fear and loose tongues that they may sing his praise!

You are his beloved child and you are loved more than you can imagine. It is the father’s delight to shoo away the Boogey Man of your fears; to give you peace, courage and hope, but until you learn to trust him you will remain trapped in the realm of your own fears – trust is the key to realising your fondest hopes. Your father will not vanquish your demons for you. He desires that his children be able to stand on their own two feet but neither will he let you struggle on your own, he will always be one hundred percent behind you – he believes in you – even when everyone else would give up. You might doubt yourself but he doesn’t doubt you.

The father will not rob you of the dignity of your achievements by doing all things for you. Moreover, he knows well what you are capable of and has set his angels the task of trying and testing you – charged them with the sacred duty of making you the best and strongest person you can be. Bearing such a commission one cannot expect an easy life, more likely a life of struggle relieved now and then by small islands of respite and rest. The love of the father makes his children strong, it is not that unwise love that indulges children and makes them weak. His is a fearless love! It does not shrink or complain about unavoidable hardships, nor flinch when sending instructive discipline upon his wayward children.

Fear not to bring your joys and hopes to him, your laughter and excitement, your dreams and adventures, for what father does not treasure to listen to his child tell their story with great excitement and energy; what father is not brought to joyful tears to see his child thrilled by his existence; or is not puffed large when the child swears to honour his generosity, kindness, wisdom and faith. Even as the father can fill your cup of joy to overflowing, you can do the same for your heavenly father when you sincerely, faithfully and humbly – even joyfully and gladly – put at his service everything he has helped you become. Rest assured when you give him everything, you lose nothing!