The Least in the Kingdom - Part 2

In Part 1 we sat with John in Herod’s prison.

The greatest prophet born of women sent men to ask Jesus, Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another? Jesus did not shame him. He pointed to mercy. Healing. Good news for the poor. Then He said the line that stays with us: among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John—but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

Greater because of where we stand. John stood on the near side of the door, pointing at it. The least who has come through that door stands in a place John, from that prison, could only ask about.

That is a mercy. It is also a calling.

Before that calling can settle, it helps to know who He means.

Not everybody in the crowd that day. Not everybody who walked out to the wilderness to look at a prophet. Not everybody born of a woman. Not a church roll. Not a last name. Not a person who simply started talking religious.

The new kingdom is a family. And a family has a way you come in.

Jesus told Nicodemus a man cannot even see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. Not improved. Born. A second birth. The first birth is of women. The second is of God.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

John wrote it plain.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

That is who belongs.

Those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. Those who believe on His name. Those the Father has brought out of darkness and placed in the kingdom of His dear Son.

The kingdom of God and the family of God are not two different houses. They are one and the same. If you have come to Him and taken Him at His word, you are not standing on the porch. You are in. A child. Part of the household.

Us. Believers. Sons and daughters.

And that is a tall order.

Not a tall order to get in. Getting in is gift. The King opened the door. You came. You received Him. You were born of God.

The tall order is the living.

Once you are named a son or a daughter, you live in the house. You carry the family name into a world that is watching. That kind of life cannot be managed by grit. It cannot be kept up by manners. The only way a child of God can live like a child of God is to walk in the Spirit.

Be filled with the Spirit daily. Lay the flesh down daily. Love one another with the kind of love this world is starving for.

Paul said he died daily. That is not poetry. That is the only way the new life keeps breathing. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

The old self is not meant to keep the run of the house. The flesh will still rise. Appetite. Pride. The need to be seen. The reed that bends with every wind. The Spirit is the One who leads now.

And the only way that happens is surrender. Not a little. Total. Hands open. Not my will. Yours.

Then the love can move. The kind that does not wait to be deserved. The kind that looks at the person in front of you and does not first ask what they can do for you.

We live in a world of hurting people. Lost people. People who have never had the gospel preached to them in a way they could hear it. God loves them. He wants them to have the chance to be born again—the same second birth that brought us into the house.

So we walk. In the Spirit. Dying a little every day so He can live. Loving the ones we meet. Being a quiet, honest witness—not a show, an example—so that someone who has not yet come through the door might see the family and want to come in.

John was the greatest born of women. The least in the kingdom is greater than he. That is not a compliment to sit down on. It is a life to walk.