Most of Jesus’ parables are designed to redefine the nature of the Kingdom of God for people. The Jews believed that the age of the Kingdom would see a swift political uprising in which Israel would become a sovereign state once again and, under her Messiah, would dominate the earth. Jesus was announcing that the age of the Kingdom had arrived, but he therefore needed to correct this view which, from his perspective, was far too narrow. The Kingdom of God would indeed subdue the earth, but the process would be much more pervasive and would take much longer than the Jews thought. The Kingdom, Jesus explained, would not come in a swift political revolution. This kind of change is superficial and short lived. The Kingdom would gain dominion on earth in slow viral fashion just as yeast spreads throughout dough. It would start like a seed and then, slowly but surely, grow into the mighty ‘tree’ that the prophets envisaged. Consider how a tree grows. It takes a long time and you tend not to notice the progress. You only really notice it in retrospect. The increments of growth are small but the result, over hundreds of years (for some trees), is great. Every act of service that you render for God’s Kingdom is like one small increment of growth. You may not notice the significance of it, but it is a vital increment. A great tree is the result of many small increments of growth. So it is with the Kingdom of God. Your contributions are part of something great and one day you will see the culmination of that.
Think about how you are going to serve God today.
Read Matthew 13:31-35
