“We are missing the Kingdom while, verbally, pledging allegiance to the King, creating a theological, spiritual, and pragmatic consternation and division within ourselves and within our culture.”

Those are powerful words, shared by Dr. Tony Evans during a recent taping at the Life Today studio. He joined Stream publisher James Robison, Pastor Jim Hylton, and Dudley Hall in discussing the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God

So many Christians think of salvation as merely an individual matter. Robison lamented, “When I look at the Church, all over the world, I don’t feel like I see Kingdom-presence manifestation in play. It’s as though we think He’s saved us to get us out of here, rather than to get Him in here.”

“I think we put too much focus on Him coming back, rather than His Kingdom coming in power for the Church and world to behold His glory,” Robison said. “I’m not sure His Will will be done ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’ apart from His Kingdom.”

It was a similar realization that prompted Evans to start on a journey that has turned into seven books on the Kingdom of God — with more on the way. During his time in seminary, Evans noticed “a dichotomy between the theology and the practice, in terms of the culture.” He continued:

In other words, you could believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and talk about personal discipleship, but it wasn’t infecting and affecting the environment. The racial strife was still the same way, class strife, there was continuous political strife on both sides of the divide, but everybody’s loving Jesus. So the question was, “What was missing?”

This led to a search. And this search led me to come to a realization that the unifying theme of the Bible is the glory of God through the advancement of His Kingdom. The thing you see from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is the Kingdom of God.

Watch part one of the conversation below, share it with your friends, and stay tuned for more from this four part series. As Robison said, If the Church gets this message, “we’ll no longer perish for lack of understanding.”