Publisher's Synopsis
We all enjoy a good story teller as we imagine the places and the actors described in the story. If it is a good story, if it is told well, we begin to put ourselves into the story by imagining ourselves as the main character. We imagine the stage. We imagine the set on the stage. We envision the house, the land, and the country as told by the storyteller. As we relate with the struggles, the pain, and the joy of the actor through our imaginations, we vicariously experience the life of the actor through the storyteller.There is, however, a great love story in which you do not have to use your imagination. You are in the set. You are more than an actor in the story you are a participant in that great love story. It is the love story of the King of the Kingdom of God.All too often the message of salvation is couched under the negative aspect that unless you receive Christ as your Savior you will go to hell. While true it misses the heart of our Lords work throughout time that must be called the greatest love story ever told. From the beginning of the first sin in the garden, the King has been calling His rebellious people back to Himself in love. We do not need to imagine this story, we are the participants within it.We are in the part of the story in which Jesus is building the kingdom of God. Yet we may not have grasped the importance of what Jesus was teaching regarding the kingdom of God. We all get the message "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). But have we paid attention to Jesus statement "I must preach the kingdom of God", "for this purpose I have been sent" (Luke 4:43).The teaching of the kingdom of God began in the New Testament with John the Baptist stating that the kingdom of God was at hand (Matt 3:1-2). Jesus followed with the same message that it was at hand (Matt 4:17). Jesus sent out His disciples two times with the purpose given "to preach the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:1-2). Then after His resurrection Jesus spent time with the disciples "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God" during the 40 days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3).If the message regarding the kingdom of God was so important to Jesus we should understand it and be able to teach this great love story of the kingdom of God to others.And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matt 24:14)
