Demystifying the Kingdom Mystery
A Historical Perspective
Britain is a small simple island in Europe, but when it comes to historical significance, it was the heartbeat of the British Empire. At the height of its power, the British Empire or Kingdom dominated territory which was more than twenty-five percent of the world’s total surface area. It was in charge of vast countries including India and America. This is how powerful the British Empire or Kingdom was. It bossed over four hundred million people. That is what power is. They are recorded as the single most powerful empire in the history of humanity ahead of the fiery Mongolian Empire which was the brainchild of the Chinese.
Important Definitions
The world has known so many kingdoms whose collectives are referred to as empires. An empire in its purest form is several kingdoms existing under the rulership of an emperor or an empress. In simplicity of language, Emperors are Kings and Empires are Kingdoms. By definition, a Kingdom is a place ruled under the authority of a King or monarchy. The word Kingdom is thus a combination of two words, king and domain. When these two come together we have a Kingdom.
Establishing Kingdoms Dimensions
The world has seen several Kingdoms come and go. Others may remember the Assyrian Empire, the Munhumutapa Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Greek Empire. Scholars of history will be able to document how these kingdoms rose and fell. The Kingdoms were usually built on a specific ideology which was more or less utopian in nature. People were yearning for an environment where they had everything and where they were significant and noble. They were all driven by a dream of something they felt and genuinely believed to be possible. They wanted a sweet society that had no poverty and lack. The failure to realize this utopian dream is what caused the empires to collapse. The Roman Empire was not conquered but it collapsed because of frustrations and personal self-aggrandizement agenda. The Russian empire collapsed under the burden of poverty and lack. We cannot forget the challenges of the Russians at Petrograd Soviet as they chanted, ‘We want bread, peace, and land.’ Thus the Empire crumbled like a deck of cards before Tsar Nicholas II.
The Quest for Peace
Inside every human being is a quest for a better life, for a peaceful life and prosperous life. We yearn and cry for peace. Legendary musician Oliver Mtukudzi once sang a song which in a nutshell says if only there could be peace forevermore. Nations even go to war so that each one of them can live in joy peace and harmony. Peace is one thing we yearn for. Somehow our inner man knows that there is supposed to be peace because he comes from the presence of God in the Kingdom of God where there is peace. How else do you explain the title of Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace? While it is important to yearn for peace I am fully persuaded that we all need the Prince of Peace.
We desire Utopia
All humanity has a quest for good things, it has a quest for greatness. It has a quest for a life that is perfect. This is why we know good things when we see them. Three things define our ideal world. It is our purpose, our loss, and our utopia. This is why when we find what we believe is our purpose our hearts dance with joy and our eyes glow with excitement. We change jobs and we even leave our countries as we search for green pastures. We try our best to get the most out of this life. What in essence we are looking for is the utopia that Adam lost in the Garden of Eden. Remember that you are not wrong in desiring a utopian state. You are correct because you used to be there in the loins of Adam. Whether you believe it or not, you were there. This is why you yearn for the good old days.
Continue the search
The undercurrent of your behavior as a human being is grief. You are busy crying for what can be. This is why no matter how good things seem, there is a feeling of a void in your life. You seem to be missing something. There is an element of something missing, something which completes you. This explains why some people end up developing some addictions because they are trying, however wrongly to get what they lost. Some have surrendered to sexual addictions, yet others have gotten into the bondage of alcoholism. All this in the quest for the lost Kingdom. We keep searching and we are right to do so until we connect to the lost Kingdom. This is the quest burning in our hearts. What happened to our Kingdom? The answer is that we lost it. This is why we need to use all the wisdom available to us to locate the lost Kingdom. It is the missing link to our joy and fulfillment.
The full circle
The rise and fall of powerful kingdoms is evidence of the importance of a Kingdom. There is a missing kingdom for sure, which is ideally our beloved home. After so many years of futility in the pursuit of Kingdoms, humanity gave up on the agenda of a Kingdom but they continued doing it passively. The arrival of Jesus Christ re-activated the Kingdom message and hence connected him to the people of his day. But this also made him the number one enemy of the religious leaders of the day. Jesus Christ had a simple message, I have brought you back the lost Kingdom. So this is why Jesus Christ should never be classified as a Religious Leader. Jesus is a Kingdom leader. This is why he would always speak zeroing in on the Kingdom. His goal was to remind our inner man that I have brought you back that elusive kingdom that you have been seeking. This is why he is called the Prince of Peace. I submit it to you, my friend, Christ is the peace and prosperity that you need. He remains the only hope for humanity, communism has failed us, socialism has failed us and so has democracy. Christ is the way the truth and the life. Without Christ in the equation, nothing will ever make sense.