If you want to find the kingdom of God and live within it, then you need to follow Me and live where I live. And where is that? It is with the poor and needy. Go serve and minster to them, and you will be serving and ministering to Me, and in this way, will be living within and serving the kingdom of heaven.
Many people wonder where God has been hiding for all of history.
In this parable, Jesus tells us where. It is the great surprise at the end of the story. It is the final “Here I Am” of the great divine game of Hide and Seek that humans have been playing with God since Adam and Eve first hid from Him in the Garden.
And since that time, though we are the ones who hid ourselves from God, it is we who think that God has been hiding His face from us. We wonder why He doesn’t show up in strength and power to fix the world and right all wrong.
We think God is distant and neglectful. We think God is shirking His duties. And when bad things happen (and continue to happen) we cry out to the silent sky, “God! Where are you?”
But now Jesus tells us where God has been hiding all along. He has been living and dwelling with “the least of these, My brethren.”
The people we neglected and rejected throughout life are the very people among whom God has lived and dwelt. God has lived among the poor, the sick, the weak, and the hungry.
And when we love and serve them, we love and serve Him, and paradoxically, He loves and serves them through us, so that they love and serve us in return, revealing the kingdom of God, and indeed, God Himself, to us.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus, the disciples have been saying, “Show us the Father. We want to see God. We want to understand God and know what He wants of us.” And now, finally, Jesus has given the answer. “You want to see God?” He asks. “Go serve the poor, for that is where He lives.”
When we live in this way, we will experience the kingdom of God in this life, which has been prepared for us since the foundation of the world, thereby fulfilling our God-given destiny and purpose.
Those who live this way will see righteousness rise like the morning sun and blessing will come upon them like the dew.
But when we refuse to follow Jesus in this way, we will live in and experience the kingdom of hell during this life, which is guided only by selfishness, greed, hatred, rebellion, and emptiness.
Those who live this way, though they live for themselves, will only see their life burn away into nothingness, losing all purpose and significance. Such people have chosen to dwell in a hell of their own making.
