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 42 — Harvest: The Messiah’s Transfiguration: The Kingdom’s Glory Revealed, Mark 9:2-10; 2 Peter 1:16-18
The Transfiguration is the moment God revealed the Messiah-King’s hidden glory, divinely certifying that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Sovereign of the Kingdom to come. Now through His manifestation on the mount, the Father’s own direct witness confirms everything the Gospel claims about Christ’s identity and His coming reign, a confirmation that rests on the eyewitness testimony of the apostles, not imaginary or invented accounts. We must allow our lives and ministries to proclaim a Messiah-King whose glory was seen and sworn to, which grounds our promise, hope, and preaching in credible eyewitness authority rather than religious sentiment and steadies us as disciples as we follow Him holding to the certainty of the Kingdom that is to come in fullness.
Our Focus Today
The Transfigured Form of the Nazarene — the radiance of the disclosed King, Mark 9:2–3; Matthew 17:2
On the mount with His apostles, Jesus was “transfigured” — His face shining as the sun and His garments made whiter than any earthly hand could whiten them, momentarily lifting the veil of His glory of the flesh He wore. Let us never cling to low, ignoble, and untrue notions of who He is. We must always be aware of this by faith as we behold His humble earthly form in the Gospels to revere Him as He is: the King of glory.
Invocation
King of glory, we come to the mountain longing to behold You as You truly are. Lift the veil from our dull and earthbound eyes and help us to see You as You truly are. Let Your transfigured face pierce our low and unworthy notions of You. By Your Spirit, teach us to revere Your majesty hidden within Your humble form, that we may rightly honor and worship the Nazarene as the King of glory to come. 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.
Monday: Luke 11.14-12.34
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Monday: Psalm 14, 44, 74, 104, 134 and Proverbs 14
The Transfigured Form of the Nazarene — the radiance of the disclosed King, Mark 9:2–3; Matthew 17:2
On the mount with his apostles, Jesus was “transfigured” — His face shining as the sun and His garments made whiter than any earthly hand could whiten them, momentarily lifting the veil of His glory of the flesh He wore. Let us never cling to low, ignoble, and untrue notions of who He is. We must always be aware of this by faith as we behold His humble earthly form in the Gospels to revere Him as He is: the King of glory.
Reflection
In His Transfiguration Jesus lifted the veil over His flesh, revealing His divine glory and majesty that dwelt within Him all along. His shining face and dazzling garments proved that this Carpenter’s son, the humble Nazarene was, and is, the King of glory unseen by natural eyes. Therefore, let us never entertain low or unworthy notions of Jesus, but by faith revere Him as he is, affirming His hidden majesty even in His lowliest earthly form.
Engaging God’s Word Today
As you read the Gospels and behold Jesus in His weariness, humility, and human ordinariness, where have you allowed an exaggerated kind of familiarity to breed a small view of Him? How can you let the Spirit teach you to see, beneath that veiled and humble form, the radiant King of glory who was transfigured on the mount?
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
Only if You reveal Yourself to me as You truly are, can I know You Lord Jesus. For none can penetrate the veil without Your express permission to see You. You are great and majestic. Forgive me for underestimating You so many times in so many situations. Make me never content to entertain small thoughts of You, a gracious and great Savior. Let that same light that shone from Your face illumine my seeing today, so that in every page of the Scriptures and every hour of your day I see you as You are— the veiled King of glory. And may that new vision transform my walk of discipleship with You each day. 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
In Jesus Christ peace becomes not only visible; it becomes specific. Watching Jesus, we see what peace really means: Martha and Mary, John and the disciples, blind Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus, and Cyrus. Clearly, peace is relational. It is always a pattern of peace with, or peace between, or peace among, as these examples show. Since the Bible sees the world ecologically, with all aspects of creation linked to all others, peace in the kingdom sense necessarily reaches to the “harmonizing” of every reality and relationship under God’s authority.
The peace passages in the New Testament underscore this concreteness. In Ephesians 2, Paul says Jesus has destroyed the “dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile. Peace here is specific: Jesus creates a new reconciled community where Jews and Gentiles meet as sisters and brothers in one new peaceable family. Throughout his writings Paul carefully notes that it is not just the Jew-Gentile hostility but all hostility, which has been overcome by Jesus. So now “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is the great practical application of peace in the New Testament, the key link between kingdom and church. The kingdom breaks in now through a community of believers where peace is the trademark. In God’s kingdom plan peace is both the final goal of the kingdom and the present experience of the community of Jesus’s disciples.
Jesus is the key. He has brought peace between God and humankind. He reconciles through life, death, and resurrection. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Through repentance and faith, men and women are born again into a restored fellowship with God and with sisters and brothers in Christ. Having been reconciled, they are called to work out and live a life of peace. They are to be a reconciled and reconciling fellowship.
~ Snyder, Howard. Kingdom, Church, and World: Biblical Themes for Today. Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, OR: 2001. Electronic Edition. Location 21-22.
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
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