13. The guidelines of the Kingdom are often different from, even the opposite of, the rules my world or culture uses. 

(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.) 

What do you think or feel about the idea that God’s guidelines for living well are most often different from and even opposite of what the world believes?

Why might God’s guidelines be so different from the world’s?

How do the world’s guidelines seem to be working for people, for you?

It’s hard to understand how some of the rules that Jesus asks us to follow are good for us. How could loving my enemy be good for me? How could forgiving someone who has wronged me be good for me? What are other rules from Scripture that seem hard but may be good?

Ask Jesus to help you pick one of these hard-to-follow guidelines and see how that results in you experiencing goodness, peace, joy, contentment, etc.

God’s rules or guidelines can be difficult for us to follow because we and our culture have our own rules that compete with the rules of God’s Kingdom. God’s Kingdom and Kingship are unlike any king or kingdom we may know of or have experienced, and the laws of His Kingdom are also unlike any we have encountered. In any system the law and rules are meant to guide the behavior of the participants in order to preserve order and bring goodness to all. But,

in our flawed human condition, we develop ways to manipulate the system and others. We have our own ideas of what is good for us and strive for them. And if we are in a position to make laws for others, we often make choices that prioritize the system over the individual, and our own interests over those of others. God’s laws are different.

Jesus taught that the first will be last, the one who gains his life will lose it, if someone tries to take something from you, give it to him, if someone tries to hurt you, let them, and more. Some have called the Kingdom that Jesus taught “the upside-down Kingdom”—that’s how different God’s Kingdom is from the kingdoms of this world. But even if the rules Jesus gives us about God’s Kingdom seem unrealistic (to us), they are still the rules. If we are to thrive in this Kingdom, we must learn them and follow them.

Jesus not only taught us the rules of the Kingdom, He also lived by them Himself and showed us what it was like. We may not wish that our lives would end like Jesus’ did, but we would all wish to enjoy the peace, joy, contentment, goodness, kindness, and so on that Jesus experienced. Jesus proved that

God’s Kingdom rules, as unconventional as they may seem, do work. And His disciples and early followers give us the same evidence of the goodness that comes from following the upside-down Kingdom rules.