Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

John 18:36

I read Jesus’ words again, and again.  I begin to understand, and do to some degree, but push on to try to grasp how these words of Jesus, his self-disclosure, influences me.

I agree that Jesus’ kingdom is not like the kingdoms of this world.  It is strikingly different.  He explains it by the truth that his Kingdom is from another place.  I try to grasp the meaning of what is “another place?”  What he was enduring at the time, torture in the hands of both Jews and Romans, casts a revealing light on his suffering.  He was being judged and tortured by the laws of “another place.”   His place is the Kingdom of God.

Nothing in the world view of his persecutors reflected his kingdom one bit, they did not reflect on who Jesus is and what he is doing.

Jesus came announcing the new kingdom that he came to establish.  It resembles neither the kingdom of the Jews or the Romans.  It is the kingdom that is not built on nationhood.  No, it is from another place. That other place is where God reigns in love and mercy, the place in which Jesus is standing.

I live in this world, but I stand, primarily, in the Kingdom of God.  Lord Jesus, help me to understand and obey what that means, now.  Above all, give me roots that are firmly established in the Kingdom of God.  Give me that wisdom from above to plant my roots in that which is eternal.