A Kingdom of Opposites

"If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” Mark 8:35

The Kingdom of Heaven. I often think of it as a kingdom of opposites or an upside-down kingdom. It’s a kingdom where the first is last and the greatest is least. Hang on to your life and you’ll lose it. Give up your life and you’ll save it.

Earthly kingdoms have their own way of doing and being right, but man’s way is not always the same as God’s way. It’s good to work hard in order to achieve goals, but we can’t always apply the same rules when it comes to the kingdom of heaven. We can’t work our way to heaven or do enough good deeds so that God will be pleased with us.

The truth is that God is already pleased with us. The Bible says that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. He didn’t wait for us to get our act together or do enough good things to make him proud of us. He loved us while we were most unlovable. In the kingdoms of this world, people don’t die for the unrighteous. “Very rarely,” James writes, “will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.”

But in God’s kingdom, a righteous person died for countless numbers of unrighteous. The innocent died for the guilty so the guilty would have the opportunity to be proclaimed innocent. God’s immeasurable love gives us hope and makes His upside-down kingdom accessible even to sinners like you and me.