209: The Gospel of the Available Kingdom – Become Good Soil Foundations Series (Part 4)

“To be sure, the kingdom has been here as long as we humans have been here, and longer. But it has been made available to us through simple confidence in Jesus, the Anointed, only from the time he became a public figure. It is a kingdom that, in the person of Jesus, welcomes us just as we are, just where we are, and makes it possible for us to translate our “ordinary” life into an eternal one.” —Dallas Willard, The Divine ConspiracyHow would you answer this question: What is the gospel that Jesus preached?When I (Cherie) first encountered this question, I was both arrested and bewildered. I had some sense of what I thought the “gospel” might be, but I could not, for the life of me, articulate what it was that Jesus himself preached. I was new in my adult faith in Jesus and spent most of my devotional time reading the Psalms, the Gospel of John, and Paul’s letters.This question launched me on a treasure hunt that changed my life—and continues to propel me today. It led me first deep into Matthew’s account of the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then into Mark’s and Luke’s, and back again to John. Over the past twenty years, I have returned again and again to these profound and sweeping accounts of the earthly ministry of the Anointed One.What was the gospel that Jesus preached? And what does an apprenticeship look like when it seeks not only to have faith in Jesus, but to practice living the faith of Jesus?Let’s remember it together. Join us for this episode of the Become Good Soil podcast. Indeed, the Kingdom of God is at hand.It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.For the Kingdom,Cherie and Morgan