Faithful on Fridays Blog

Episode Two: Before

We’ve established that God is both Lord and King over His creation and He planned for mankind to represent Him here before time began. Knowing that He would make a glorious return, sit on His throne on earth, and judge the nations He reminded the disciples and us,

Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  Matthew 25:31-34 

Inherit the kingdom? An inheritance is a gift given to a person entitling them to share what’s passed on or handed down. As children of God we are co-heirs with Christ; we’re in the same family.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Romans 8:16-17

How do we know what’s included in our inheritance? We begin at the beginning,

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Romans 4:13 ESV

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. Galatians 3:29 

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Galatians 4:4-7 

The promises to Abraham, inheriting the world, looks back to Gen. 1:28, the blessing of fruitfulness, multiplication, dominion, and authority to rule. It all begins there. There are many promises made to us by God, but they all begin here: before. 

The Kingdom of God begins with eternal life; Adam and Eve were created to live forever, that’s why after the fall God placed an angel guarding the Tree of Life; their inherited sin nature needed to be transformed into a new nature. That new nature includes the promise of life, a renewed inheritance, with God forever.

… so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7 

As believers in Jesus Christ we have an inheritance that’s promised before, is partially here already, and not completed quite yet. We live in that in-between time of the 1^st and 2^nd comings of Christ, therefore it’s a spiritual reality now (more next week), but a reality nevertheless. 

One last thought, the prophet Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream which included this Kingdom in his prophetic dream,

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, Daniel 2:44a

That’s our inheritance, back to sinless Eden, to rule and reign again when Christ returns!