At 23, I had a personal encounter with the living God. From then forward, I committed myself to living according to His ways. I had been in church from the age of six months, and when I was six years old, I “walked the aisle” during revival. I grew up in a missionary family, and I was fully connected to church, even memorizing Scripture during Sunday school. My parents helped establish churches, and my brother and I were right along to help. Mostly in the nursery.

During my mid-teen years, I grew bored with nursery work, and other things pulled me from my commitment to church. But at age 23, I had a spiritual epiphany that changed the course of my life. God was real. I could know Him and have a personal relationship with him. I realized God had not been my focus during previous years, but the church had been. After my personal encounter with the living God, I devoted myself to knowing Him, His ways, and living it daily. And I have never become bored in this relationship.

I wanted to know God and not simply know about Him. I knew this would happen by building a personal relationship with Him. And like any other relationship, it would be through spending time together and engaging in an exchange of ideas. I would talk to God in prayer and listen to Him by reading the Bible.

The prayer part was simple because it came from my thoughts. But where would I begin reading the Bible in order to know God? The Bible is a daunting book, and much of it didn’t apply to me or my life. It was like reading a history book. So I began reading the Psalms and Proverbs because they made sense to me. The Psalms taught me to pray, and the Proverbs gave good advice about life. After reading continuously for a year, I longed for more.

I knew the red letters in the Bible were words that Jesus spoke and if I wanted to hear from God, that’s where I would read next. I observed that the book of Matthew had more red letters than any other book in the Bible. There I stayed for three years and it continues to be my favorite book of the Bible.

In Matthew, I found the most exciting news about God’s ways. They are not the same as the ways of our culture. When we apply God’s kingdom principles to our lives, we become citizens of God’s Kingdom and that is how we navigate through this earth’s culture.

I learned about God’s kingdom from reading Jesus’ words in Matthew. Jesus taught His disciples about God’s kingdom in story form because it is part of the mystery of his Kingdom, revealed to those who desire to know it. Later, he explained the stories to his disciples so they would understand.

You and I can have understanding when we pray and listen to God as He explains things. We can grow our relationship with Him through an exchange of thoughts as we meditate on them.

I quickly learned Jesus’ attention was on our inside life, not necessarily circumstances. That is the mystery revealed in His teachings. Our circumstances exist to reveal a spiritual principle. If we only look at changing our circumstances and not our hearts, then we have missed the point of Jesus’ teachings.

“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Rm. 14:17 NIV.

God’s Kingdom is not about the earthly things we engage in daily, but it’s about the attitudes that rule our hearts and minds and challenge us to trust God despite our circumstances.

Jesus’ teachings about God’s Kingdom show us the way to see into that spiritual kingdom. He begins His parables with “the kingdom of heaven (God) is like…” and then introduces the spiritual principles of God’s Kingdom. And in every case, it’s about the attitude of our heart. Our circumstances reveal our inside life.

Over the years, I have determined when the ruling attitudes in our circumstances are righteousness, peace, and joy, we know that by God’s grace, we are becoming citizens of His Kingdom. So, in every circumstance I find myself, I measure the status of my citizenship by what it produces in my internal being.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” Gal. 5:22-23 NLT.