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

The Church as Visible Sign: Locus and Agent of the Kingdom, Eph. 2:11-22; 1 Pet. 2:9-10
Through the Blood of Christ, God has reconciled Jew and Gentile into one new humanity, making former strangers fellow citizens and members of His household, and building them together into a holy temple where He dwells by His Spirit. The Church is not a human club but God’s embassy, created by mercy and united by the Cross. Her reconciled life across every dividing line is itself the Kingdom’s visible sign. Those who were once not a people and without mercy have become God’s chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a treasured possession, called out of darkness into His marvelous light to proclaim His excellencies. Let us never seek, then, to rebuild the walls Christ destroyed, but rather welcome the stranger as family, and let our shared life declare His excellencies to those in our circle of life.

Our Focus Today
Remember Who You Were: Brought From Being Strangers to People of Mercy, Ephesians 2:11–13 and 1 Peter 2:10
The Church understands its identity rightly only when it remembers that it was once alienated, hopeless, and without mercy, and that God brought us near solely by the Blood of Christ, a truth that should produce humility, gratitude, and compassion for those still far off.

Invocation
Merciful Father, I come before You now, remembering that I once was a stranger, someone without hope and without You in the world. By the Blood of Your Son You brought me near, forgave me of my sin, and provided me a hope and a destiny in life. Thank You for Your amazing grace! Now, humble me as I open up Your Word, fill me with insight and gratitude for Your mercy, and awaken within me a new level of compassion for those still far away from a relationship with You. 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: Rom. 10-13

Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Monday: Psalm 26, 56, 86, 116, 146 and Proverbs 26

Remember Who You Were: Brought From Being Strangers to People of Mercy, Ephesians 2:11–13 and 1 Peter 2:10
The Church understands its identity rightly only when it remembers that it was once alienated, hopeless, and without mercy, and that God brought us near solely by the Blood of Christ, a truth that should produce humility, gratitude, and compassion for those still far off.

Reflection
Our identity as God’s people is His gift of mercy to the lost through His Son, won for us through the Cross, and is never presented as an achievement of merit or human effort. Remembering where we came from guards us against pride and fuels our gratitude for the Blood that brought us near. We have received mercy because of what God did in Jesus Christ, and that has nothing to do with our own good works or activities. All may come to God through Christ. Therefore, those still far off perceived by others as outsiders can become children of God through grace, for God longs to bring all people near.

Engaging God’s Word Today
When I honestly remember who I was apart from Christ, how does that memory reshape the way I view my own standing before God and the way I treat those who are still far off?

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
In the high name of Jesus, we go now as people who have received mercy from the God of heaven, the God and Father of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us never forget the darkness from which we were rescued nor the Blood by which we were brought near to the Father again. May the God of all mercy keep us humble, fill us with gratitude, and send us with compassion to those still far off, until they too become a part of His people. Amen.

Scripture Memory for this season
Rev. 11:15, The Kingdom’s Consummation: Second Coming of Christ the King
¹⁵ Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

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: The Gospel of the Kingdom

This is what the Kingdom of God means: the defeat of the enemies of God. The Kingdom of God means the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ until all His enemies are put under His feet. And who are His enemies? Wicked men? Antichrist? Godless nations? We have already found our point of departure in the Scripture. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Paul defines the Kingdom of God in terms of the conquest of such enemies as death.

Whence comes death? The Word of God is clear. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6: 23). Death comes because of sin. The last enemy to be destroyed is death; therefore sin is also an enemy and sin must likewise be destroyed.

Whence comes sin? What is the source of evil? It is of course Satan. Here we have a hellish triumvirate—a trinity from the pit —Satan, sin, death. “He must reign until He has put all his enemies under His feet.” This is the triumph of God’s Kingdom. We have seen from our diagram and from our earlier studies that the defeat of Satan is to be accomplished in at least two stages. At the end of the Millennium he is thrown into the lake of fire for ever. But at the beginning of the Millennium he is shut in the abyss and chained for a thousand years. And now we come to the crucial question of this chapter: Has anything yet been accomplished in the triumph of Christ over His enemies? Or is our salvation altogether a matter of promise? Does the defeat of sin, Satan, death through the reign of Christ belong exclusively to the future, or is there an initial victory which has been accomplished?

The answer to this important question has already been suggested from our study of I Cor. 15. The conquest over death is in three stages, and the first of them has already been accomplished. God’s Kingdom—the activity of God’s kingly power through Christ—has already manifested itself in history in Christ’s resurrection. The triumph over death has begun.

~ Ladd, George Eldon. The Gospel of the Kingdom. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI: 2000. Electronic Edition (copyright © 1959, The Paternoster Press), Location 554-564.

On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
Reign of Christ the King, The Kingdom’s Consummation: Second Coming of Christ the King, Rev. 11:15; 19:11-16

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