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).
Click on image above to access our Church Year Calendar
YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
The Messiah’s Call to Discipleship: The Kingdom’s Demands (rich young ruler), Mark 10:17-27; Luke 18:18-30
God grants us eternal life in His Kingdom by grace through faith, a gift of God through His kindness and love, a marvelous grace that we inherit through our union with Christ, something neither earned nor won. This living faith results in wholehearted surrender to Jesus, not by our efforts or moral achievement. In His encounter with the rich young ruler, Jesus lovingly names the idol each of us clings to and calls us to release it for the true treasure of following Him. Because we cannot save ourselves, we should and can trust the God for whom all things are possible, giving everything to Him in order to gain everything.
Our Focus Today
The Goodness That Belongs to God Alone, Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19
Jesus deflects the flattering title from the rich young man as “good teacher” by confronting him with the truth that goodness belongs to God alone, unmasking the kind of self-righteousness that measures salvation by human merit. As disciples we must move toward God-centered dependence, dismantling the illusion that our own goodness qualifies us before God.
Invocation
Holy God, You alone are good, and every goodness we possess flows from Your hand. Strip away from us the falsehood and the flattery we so often associate with our views of righteousness and goodness. Deliver me from my own imagination of the merit I imagine that I hold through what I have done. Confront in me those lies even as You confronted this seeker, that I can cease my constant measuring of myself and my own worth before You. Teach me what it really means to depend on Jesus alone, the only truly Good One. 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.
Tuesday: Matt. 2-3; Luke 2.41-3.18; 3.21-22; Mark 1.2-11
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Tuesday: Psalm 25, 55, 85, 115, 145 and Proverbs 25
The Goodness That Belongs to God Alone, Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19
Jesus deflects the flattering title from the rich young man as “good teacher” by confronting him with the truth that goodness belongs to God alone, unmasking the kind of self-righteousness that measures salvation by human merit. As disciples we must move toward God-centered dependence, dismantling the illusion that our own goodness qualifies us before God.
Reflection
True goodness belongs to God alone; it cannot be obtained or manufactured by human will and effort. Jesus refused the flattering comments about His own goodness in order to confront the seeker’s deeper error — the belief that his own goodness and righteousness might qualify him before God. As disciples of the Kingdom, God calls us to abandon every merit-based illusion we have cultivated about our faith, depending entirely on His grace and goodness to call us and never on our ability to achieve or do His commands unaided by His Spirit.
Engaging God’s Word Today
In what ways do you quietly rely on your own “goodness” to feel acceptable before God — and how would resting fully in His goodness to you in Jesus alone reshape the way you approach Him and live out your discipleship today?
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
Thank You, Heavenly Father, that You alone are good. Of all the men, of all the people, of all the women and children who have been designated to be good, I agree with our Lord that You are the only truly good one in the universe. Forgive me for always judging myself by my own standards or by others’ views about me. Set me free today, released from the burden of proving my own goodness to myself and to others. May the God who alone is good be my confidence and rest. Show me by Your Spirit how not to lean not on my merit but on Your mercy and teach me to walk humbly before the One from whom all goodness flows. In Your goodness I have been held and will be kept. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
1 Peter 2:9-10, The Church as Visible Sign: Locus and Agent of the Kingdom
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
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)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World?, Robert E. Webber (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Headship)
• Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today, Howard Snyder (during season of Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today
A Key to All of Scripture
Jesus was always full of surprises, even with His disciples. Perhaps the biggest surprise was His news about the Kingdom of God. Jesus came announcing the Kingdom, creating a stir. Through a brief span of public ministry, He kept showing His disciples what the Kingdom was really like. They understood only in part.
Risen from the dead, Jesus spent six weeks teaching His disciples more about the Kingdom of God. He explained that His own suffering, death, and resurrection were all part of the Kingdom Plan foretold by the Old Testament prophets (Luke 24:44-47). Now after the resurrection His disciples ask, “Are you finally going to set up your kingdom?” (paraphrasing Acts 1:6). How does Jesus respond? He says, in effect, “The time for the full flowering of the new order still remains a mystery to you. It’s in God’s hands but the Holy Spirit will give you the power to live the Kingdom life now. You are to be witnesses of the Kingdom and its power from here to the very ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).
And so it was, and so it has been. Today we are finally nearing the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy that the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to the nations (Matthew 24:14). As never before it is time to speak of God’s Kingdom now. This is no attempt to out-guess God or pre-empt the sovereign mystery of the Kingdom. The Kingdom still and always remains in God’s hands.
~ Snyder, Howard. Kingdom, Church, and World: Biblical Themes for Today. Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, OR: 2001. Electronic Edition. Location 11.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Messiah’s Call to Discipleship: The Kingdom’s Demands (rich young ruler), Mark 10:17-27, Luke 18:18-30
Visit our Church App for more information: Scan the QR Code below (if you have difficulty loading the app, click here for instructions how to get the app on your iPhone or Android)
