What’s Happening on the Inside?

What’s Happening on the Inside?
-Roy Lessin, Meeting in the Meadow

 
A familiar prayer in Scripture is “Thy kingdom come...”  Where does God want to establish His kingdom?  Our tendency is to only think of His Kingdom coming outside of ourselves—a kingdom that He will establish when Jesus Christ returns. As we wait for His kingdom to come upon the earth in the future, God wants to establish His kingdom within us today.
Romans 14:18 tells us that the kingdom of God within us is established in only one way, through the person of the Holy Spirit. Our problems come when we try to establish God’s kingdom in our lives through our own efforts or systems. We cannot produce or establish anything that is of God.

We cannot, by doing outward things, however good they appear, make ourselves into what God wants us to be.

There are three things the Holy Spirit works within us to establish God’s kingdom: righteousness, peace, and joy. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to produce all three. God does not want one-third of His kingdom established within us, or two-thirds, but the whole. The kingdom does not come within us in sections or on the installment plan. God doesn’t say, “Be good and I will give you righteousness. Be very good for a long time and I will give you peace. Be very, very good for a long, long time and I will give you joy.”

People become restless and joyless when they try to establish their own righteousness. What we do outwardly does not change us inwardly. The Scribes and Pharisees who lived during the years of Jesus’ ministry were a group of outwardly religious people who went about trying to establish their own righteousness through their works and by keeping their man-made rules and traditions.

They worked hard at it, but it did not produce any joy or peace within them. Instead, they were without faith, hard, demanding, angry, critical, and judgmental. Their outward form of righteousness left them empty. And, when they were confronted with the reality of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, they became more miserable.

We cannot walk in daily peace and joy if we carry unrighteousness in our hearts. The unrighteousness of bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness, will rob us of our peace and joy; the unrighteousness of worry, fear, and anxiety will quench the flow of the Holy Spirit within us.
Everything about righteousness is good, pure, clean, wholesome, and healthy to our inner-man.

Attitudes of unrighteousness will quench the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit, but righteousness will release them. The fruit of righteousness is not sour grapes.

Inward righteousness comes from the Holy Spirit, not disciplines or rituals.  Inward peace comes from the Holy Spirit, not from ideal circumstances or times of silence. Inward joy comes from the Holy Spirit, not from entertainment or good times. As believers in Jesus Christ we need to yield to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to produce the life of the Kingdom within us. Let Him anoint you with the oil of joy and clothe you with the garment of praise; let His peace rule in your heart and guard your mind; let His righteousness bring health and wholeness to your spirit.

Today, may your prayer be, “Lord, let your kingdom come in me.”

The kingdom of God is…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:18 NASB).

#devotional #kingdom #roylessin #meetinginthemeadow

©2024 Roy Lessin, Meeting in the Meadow. Photo by Marina Bromley. Used with permission, all rights reserved.