Kingdom Saints

Kingdom Saints

Daniel saw it first. Daniel 7:13-14: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven... and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him." Then verse 18: "the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever." That's not a passive inheritance. It's a taking.

Here's where many believers get it wrong. They read that and push it all into the future, waiting on the return of Christ to make any of it real. But the New Testament will not let us do that. When Jesus opens His ministry saying "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15), and after the resurrection says "all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matthew 28:18), He is declaring that Daniel 7 has already happened. The kingdom is not something we're forcing into existence by pushing for His return. It's available now. Dominion has already been handed over.

So what do we do with a kingdom that's already here? The epistles answer that question, letter after letter, telling the church how to actually operate in it. 2 Corinthians 5 is one of the clearest examples. Verse 10, Paul starts with the weight of it: we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive for the things done in this body. Then who we are now. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things are become new. And all things are of God.

Then verse 19, the part many skip past too fast. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And He has committed unto us that same word of reconciliation. God did the reconciling in Christ. Now He's handed us the message of it. That's why verse 20 lands the way it does. We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.

By chapter 6, verse 1, the assignment gets sharper still. We are workers together with Him. And Paul adds a warning most believers never sit with: that we not receive the grace of God in vain. Many have received it without ever letting it produce power in their lives.

Here's the blind spot that follows from all of this. Ask any room full of Christians to describe Jesus, and they'll give you the suffering Savior of the four Gospels. Beaten. Rejected. Crucified. That picture is true, and it matters. But the rest of Scripture reveals another Christ many never look for: the victorious Christ, reigning, ruling, and building a kingdom that cannot be shaken. If all you see is the cross, you've stopped reading too soon.

The saints of the Most High taking the kingdom is not a future event. It's a job description for now. This is our time to gain reward in Heaven while we bless people on earth. We don't have to sit back and accept the moral degradation and cultural collapse happening around us like it's inevitable. Jesus Christ called us, and commissioned us, to be the element of change in this world. We are the church.

And the church should look like the seventy in Luke 10. They went out, they did the work, and they came back to Christ rejoicing over what they'd seen Him do. Then He gave them more. More instruction. More revelation about the kingdom. That's the pattern. Go out, come back rejoicing, receive more. Every time.

Christ Is King. Live Like It.

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