Lakeland Seventh-day Adventist Church

The sign said $1.56 for regular. Not too bad considering it was right on the freeway. I got to the pump, slid my card through, and opened the cap on my tank. When the pump said I could press the button for the grade I wanted, that's when I saw the little sign.

The regular grade gas button was covered with a hand scrawled sign that said, “out of order.” The next grade was more than twenty cents a gallon higher priced. I'm not sure which was louder for Patty – the pumping of my wallet or the grinding of my teeth.

In Matthew four the devil offered the Savior of the world a good deal too, it seemed. After all, He had come to win back the kingdoms of this world, right? It would all be His with just a bend of the knee to Satan.

We all get these kinds of offers, but the difficulty comes in knowing whether they are good deals. We sometimes chase dreams only to awaken to a fine mist vanishing in the morning sun. Sure, Jesus knew what the real kingdom was, overcoming the devil, and “from that time Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,'” Matthew 4:17.

The question is, do we know this kingdom that He preached? Do we know the real deal? As He taught us in Matthew 6:10, and as we are thinking about in these posts, when we pray, “your kingdom come” what are we praying for?

Apparently, it had little to do with the “kingdoms of this world.” And we might deduce that it is a spiritual kingdom. Does that mean then that the kingdom of heaven has it's spiritual domain and shouldn't interfere with our “real” lives? Perhaps it can break into our lives later, when Jesus comes back. I want to be ready to give praise to Him then, but right now I need to “render unto Caesar.”

Do we know this kingdom we are praying for enough to keep others from being fooled by bad deals that promise the kingdom but then raise the price at the pump? What do verses like Matthew 6:33 have to do with this? How about Luke 17:21? Let me know what you think by adding a comment below.