Items of a spiritual nature
The Kingdom of God is Within You
03 / 10 / 06
"Neither shall they say, Lo here! or lo there! for
behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
The precise meaning of this saying of Jesus has been the source of some puzzlement to the Christian Church since its inception. It is generally held to mean; the reign of God in the hearts of men. And that's a pretty good definition of it - as far as it goes. I would like to advance another possible rendition of it, by substituting the word "consciousness" in place of kingdom and see if that doesn't make more sense.
As in: "Seek ye first the 'consciousness' of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The Apostle Paul stated something very like this: "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." This clearly connotes the 'consciousness' of God (or mind of God) however, in this context, a more apt rendering of it might be "Christ Consciousness".
Similarly in his epistle to the Colossians he speaks of his call to the ministry "according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God: Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now made manifest to his saints ... which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
He goes on to admonish the Ephesians: "I therefore beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. ... Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." That is what we are expressly enjoined to strive for - to ultimately become Christed beings - in emulation of our risen Lord.
Christ Consciousness is something the Christian Church has failed to inculcate and cultivate in its adherents, to the detriment of its sometime sordid history and legacy.