I remember sitting down with someone after a service. He looked tired. He told me, “I thought if I followed Jesus, life would turn around. I thought my business would grow, my problems would lessen, and things would just fall into place.”

There was confusion in his eyes. Disappointment too.

And I understood.
Because many of us have been shaped by the idea that Jesus came to simply improve our life situation. As if Jesus is like a financial upgrade, a moral improvement, a spiritual enhancement to our already existing plans.

But when I go back to Scripture, I keep encountering the same truth: Jesus did not come to offer a better version of the kingdoms we already have.

He came to announce a new Kingdom altogether.

Not an improved earthly kingdom, not a refined political system, not a more successful version of our ambitions.

A completely different reality.

The Kingdom Jesus Announced

Theologian N.T. Wright explains that when Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God, He was not talking about heaven as a distant place we go to after death. He was announcing that God’s rule was arriving here and now, breaking into this world through His presence, His teaching, His healing, His forgiveness, and ultimately through His death and resurrection.

Jesus was saying:

God is reclaiming His world. But He is doing it in a way nobody expected.

Not through force, but through love. Not through power as control, but through power as self giving service. Not from a throne of gold, but from a cross of wood.

This is why Jesus said:

“My kingdom is not of this world.”
John 18:36

Not because His kingdom is somewhere far away but because His kingdom operates by a different logic.

Letting Go of Our Old Expectations

And this is where the struggle happens for us.

We often come to Jesus expecting:

• more comfort
• more success
• more recognition

But Jesus offers instead:

• peace that is not tied to circumstance
• joy that is rooted in God’s love
• purpose that continues even in suffering

N.T. Wright says that the cross was not a failure. The cross was the enthronement of the King. That means the greatest display of God’s power was not in crushing enemies, but in forgiving them. Not in taking life, but in giving His own.

So if this is the shape of His kingdom, then this must also reshape us.

Learning the Rhythm of the Kingdom

I am still learning this. Slowly. Sometimes painfully. But always with grace.

The world says success is being admired. The Kingdom says success is being faithful.

The world says power is control. The Kingdom says power is service.

The world says wealth is having more. The Kingdom says wealth is giving more.

This is not natural to us. We do not drift into it. We are transformed into it.

Through prayer. Through surrender. Through learning to trust God more than we trust our own strategies.

A Kingdom Growing Quietly in the Present

N.T. Wright reminds us that the Kingdom is already here, but not yet fully revealed.
Which means every act of love, forgiveness, faith, integrity, and generosity is not small. It is part of God reclaiming and renewing His world.

The Kingdom grows in us long before it grows around us.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3

The Kingdom begins when we know we need Him.

My Prayer

Lord, teach me to desire Your Kingdom over my own.
Free me from the pressure to prove my worth.
Shift my heart from earthly ambition to eternal purpose.
Make me more like Jesus, who rules through love, who conquers through sacrifice, who heals through presence.

Let Your Kingdom come in me
so that Your Kingdom may come through me.

Jesus did not come to upgrade our earthly lives.
He came to invite us into a new life entirely.

A life rooted in Him.