#DailyDevotion Are You Going To Inherit The Kingdom?

Matthew 25³¹“When the Son of man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His throne of glory. ³²And all nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and He will have the sheep stand at His right but the goats at His left. ³⁴“Then the King will say to those at His right, ‘Come, you whom My Father blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the time the world was made.’”

First who is this Son of Man? For that we need to go to Daniel chapter 7, ¹³“In the visions during the night I saw One coming with the clouds of the heavens like the Son of Man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. ¹⁴And He was given glory, power to rule, and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations, and those of every language should serve Him. His authority is everlasting and will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.” What is strange is that throughout much of the Gospels, when Jesus speaks of the Son of Man, he is suffering, which we don’t see in this passage from Daniel. On the other hand we finally do see this depiction of the Son of Man from Daniel now here in chapter 25.

Now Jesus certainly is at the right hand of God, the Ancient of Days, ruling even now as he waits for everything to be placed under his feet. But now we jump to the Last Day when we see everything and everyone placed under his feet. The Son of Man is coming on a day appointed by the Father to be the judge of the living and the dead. As in chapter thirteen with the parable of the weeds and the wheat, the angels come with him to root out all those who are wicked upon the earth. Also we see this in 2 Thess. “,when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels Sin a blaze of fire, to take vengeance on those who don’t know God and on those who will not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus.”

Now on this day, Jesus shall gather all the living and the dead before him. He will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The basis upon which he separates him is told us here, “Come, you whom My Father blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the time the world was made.” The Father has chosen them from the time the world was made. It is a St. Paul says in Eph. 1, “Before He made the world, He Who loved us 5 appointed us to be made His sons by Jesus Christ. In Him He chose us to be holy and blameless before Him…” It is God’s choice of us in Christ Jesus that makes us one of the blessed ones.

But how do you know if you are one of these blessed ones? He also calls us to inherit the kingdom which makes us heirs. Where have we been made heirs? St. Paul also says in Gal. 3, 26 “You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 because all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ…29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs of the blessing God promised.” If you have been baptized into Christ then you can trust his promise that you have been made God’s child and an heir of the kingdom. You have been made his child through faith in Christ Jesus and his promise.

Heavenly Father, you have called us to be your heirs through faith and baptism into Christ Jesus so we may inherit the kingdom you have prepared for us. Always give us this faith so we may at Jesus’ revelation enter the kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.