What Difference Does the Reality of the Kingdom Make in My Life? | I Become an Agent of New Creation in My Family, Church and Community

by Alan Smith

So He said to them, “When you pray, say … Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Luke 11:2

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

My first paying job in ministry was as a janitor for the church I grew up in. I will never forget what happened one day while I was helping my supervisor do a minor building repair. He told me which screwdriver I should use for the job, but I thought one flat-head was like another, so I just grabbed one. I should have used the one he told me to use—the one insulated to prevent electrical shock. It was a “shocking” lesson. Some materials are designed to be conduits!

God is looking for conduits—places where the heavenly realm and the earthly realm intersect and overlap. He is very interested in heaven invading earth. The temple was like that. It was a building with a special room behind a veil. The room behind that veil was unlike any other room. God lived there. God, who is Spirit and lives in the heavenly realm, dwelt behind that veil on the earth. Behind that veil in the temple, heaven and earth intersected and overlapped. Behind that veil, heaven and earth were the same place.

In Christ, we have become His temple, a temple made without hands. Like the temple of old, our bodies are earthly dwelling places where, behind the veil, God lives. We are now the place where heaven and earth intersect and overlap. We are the conduits through which heaven can invade earth. That is exactly what Jesus has instructed us to ask Him–for heaven to invade earth, for His will to be done on earth as in heaven. God wants to affect our families, churches and communities with the reality and the authority of His kingdom. He wants to do it through you. You are His conduit.

1. How does being a conduit of the kingdom change how you view yourself?

2. How might the kingdom of God invading through you actually work to change things within you?

3. If your family, church and community began to look more like heaven because of God’s kingdom invasion in your life, how would those environments be different than they are now?