How God's Kingdom Comes

by Richard

We read in Luke 19: 11 that the crowds were wondering if the Kingdom of God was suddenly going to appear. They were thinking of an external, political kingdom. Jesus tells them a parable that reminds them that His kingdom comes internally and spiritually, as we produce Godly fruit in our lives. Indeed God is looking for spiritual fruit and will reward us thousands of times over for any fruit we produce (the servant who turned a standard 30-month salary package into a 60-month salary package became the mayor of 10 cities – that’s quite a return!). But Jesus warns us against producing “no” fruit – the little we have will be taken away and we will enter eternity with negative equity.

Anyway, so how does this work in practice?

Thankfully we have the example of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10; a short, unpopular, high-ranking, tax official. Jesus stops by his place for dinner and he changes from being the local cheat into a generous giver. Jesus says, (I actually imagine him laughing out loudly with great joy) “Salvation has come to Zacchaeus today!” (9).

The arrival of Christ in Zacchaeus life had produced spiritual fruit. As the crowd listened to the parable of the servants that were given money by their master to look after and produce a return they probably thought of Zacchaeus, whose new found faith had brought about an incredible change in the way that he behaved

May we produce much fruit for Christ.