Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).

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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance

Week 23: Ascension — Jesus Reveals the Father, John 14:1-14
Jesus alone mediates for us the full revelation of the Father, in such a way that to know Jesus is to know God. Seeing him is seeing the very heart of the Father unveiled in human form. Jesus claimed to be the only way to come to understand and relate to God the Father. This exclusive claim invites us to be humble and trusting, not arrogant and prideful, for the way to God is through Jesus alone, not through religion, morals, mysticism, or systems. The implications of this are weighty: we must anchor every prayer, every decision, and every hope of knowing God in our relationship to the living Christ, the only One who has opened the Father’s house to all who believe.

Our Focus Today
The Exclusive Way to the Father, John 14:4-6
In response to Thomas’ honest confusion about Jesus’ mission and identity, Jesus declared that he alone was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him.

Invocation
Lord Jesus, as I approach your Word now, I admit that I often come as Thomas did — sometimes confused, often uncertain of the way forward. Yet you do not scold my questions; you answer them with a simple reply: you are the Way! Open our understanding to see that you alone are the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and lead us through yourself into the Father’s welcoming presence. Amen.

Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.

Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Wednesday: Eccles. 7-12

Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Wednesday: Psalm 6, 36, 66, 96, 126 and Proverbs 6

The Exclusive Way to the Father, John 14:4-6
In response to Thomas’s honest confusion about Jesus’ mission and identity, Jesus declared that he alone was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him.

Reflection
Jesus made exclusive claims about how people can find a way to God and how to know him, once he is found by them. He did not merely show people the way to God; he claimed that he himself was the way, making access to the Father inseparable from trust in the Son. His claim to be truth and life means that all ultimate reality and all genuine existence converge in his person alone. We apply this truth by ceasing to search for God along paths of our own devising, and instead place our full confidence in the living Christ who has opened the one sure road to knowing God and the Father’s heart.

Engaging God’s Word Today
If Jesus himself — not a philosophy, a practice, or a moral achievement — is the only way to the Father, what competing paths are you still tempted to trust, and what would it mean to release them and rest wholly in him?

Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.

We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.

Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Benediction
Lord Jesus, I admit that I am often, like Thomas, confused, worried, anxious about who you are, what you’re doing and how I’m to relate to you. It is not always clear to me who you are or what you want from me but I know you are faithful. I leave here today knowing that the way to the Father is not hidden but revealed — it is in you, yourself. Show me how to walk confidently in you, who is the Truth beneath my feet and the Life within my breathing. No detour can improve upon the road you have opened for me, and no seeker who comes through you will ever be turned away. Amen.

Scripture Memory for this season
1 Cor. 11:23-26 (ESV): The Last Supper: The Kingdom’s New Covenant
²³ For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.

Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Thy Kingdom Come, Rev. Terry Cornett and Dr. Don Davis (during season of Ascension)
• Kingdom, Church and World, Howard Snyder (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, Headship and Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)

Book Reading Reflection: Destined for the Throne
(Reading “The Presence of the Future,” during season of Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)

“That these exorcisms are not an end in themselves or the final goal of God’s Kingdom is proved by Jesus’ warning that exorcism is not enough. To do no more than free a man from satanic bondage is like emptying a house of its occupant. A new tenant must move in and take possession or no final good has been accomplished; only a vacuum has been created (Matt. 12:43–45; Luke 11:24–26). Unless a life is possessed by the power of God, its deliverance from Satan can be only temporary.

Thus the exorcism of demons is only the outward visible aspect of an inner spiritual reality: the deliverance of human personality from evil that it may be possessed by God. This conquest over Satan by the power of the Kingdom of God is accomplished in this age, before the coming of the eschatological Kingdom. We need not think of this victory of the Kingdom as a complete defeat of Satan. Indeed, this idea can hardly be entertained, for Satan continued to be active in the subsequent ministry of Jesus (Mark 8:33; Luke 22:3; 22:31). As Oscar Cullmann has so quaintly put it, we may think of Satan as bound with a rope which can be lengthened or shortened.3 The figures of the binding and disarming of Satan are metaphors describing a spiritual reality. The powers of God’s Kingdom have invaded human history. The power of evil has been defeated. Since this evil power is at work in human experience, the victory of God’s Kingdom over spiritual evil must take place on the level of human history. It is, as Robinson has put it, a cosmic struggle in history (see p. 150, n. 1).”

~ Ladd, George. The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids: MI, 1974. Electronic Edition. Location 152.

On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
On the Road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35 

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