Written by Dallas Willard (1935-2013), an American philosopher known for his writings on Christian spiritual formation. This is an excerpt from his book “The Divine Conspiracy.”
Contrary to a popular idea, the kingdom of God is not primarily something that is ‘in the hearts of men.’ That kingdom may be there, and it may govern human beings through their faith and allegiance to Christ. At the present time it governs them only through their hearts, if at all. But his kingdom is not something confined to their hearts or to the ‘inner’ world of human consciousness. It is not some matter of inner attitude or faith that might be totally disconnected from the public, behavioral, visible world. It always pervades and governs the whole of the physical universe—parts of planet earth occupied by humans and other personal being ….So when Jesus directs us to pray, ‘The kingdom come,’ he does not mean that we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: ‘On earth as it is in heaven.’ With this prayer, we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Romans 14:17]
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