When Jesus spoke the words “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,” he was not offering a religious priority list, nor was he prescribing moral improvement as a pathway to Divine favor. His words addressed a far deeper concern: the orientation of awareness to LIFE itself. To seek the Kingdom first is not to add God to an already crowded life, but to discover the ground from which life itself arises. What Jesus named was not a future reward or a distant realm, but a present reality that could be known directly and lived without mediation of some outside authority.

For centuries, this saying has been heard almost exclusively as instruction—something to be obeyed, memorized, or believed. Yet belief alone was never its aim. Jesus was not calling people to think differently about God, but to see differently altogether. The Kingdom he spoke of was not coming later, nor arriving elsewhere. It was already present, already given, already within. To seek it first was to turn attention away from external assurances and toward an interior revelation that could not be controlled by doctrine, institution, or authority. This was a threat to the then established religious order.

The question that shapes this invitation, therefore, is not whether one believes in God, but whether God has been encountered within oneself. Belief can be inherited, defended, and repeated without ever unsettling the structures of identity. Belief can be a starting point. It can be the signpost pointing the way. Encounter, however, does not allow for such safety. It alters perception at its root. It exposes the limits of the separate sense of the personal self and reveals a depth of Being that cannot be reduced to belief or contained by language. Jesus did not invite his hearers into theological agreement, but into KNOWING—a direct awareness of Divine Presence that precedes thought and outlasts concept.

Much of Christian history, however, has rendered Heaven as something postponed. It has been imagined primarily as a place beyond the earth, a destination reached after death, conditional upon conduct or creed. This understanding has shaped Christian awareness so thoroughly that it appears self-evident. Yet it stands in stark contrast to the way Heaven appears in the teachings of Jesus and in the witness of the Christian mystics. When the religious leaders asked Jesus when the Kingdom of Heaven would arrive, they were seeking confirmation in the outer world. His response dismantled that expectation entirely by locating Heaven not in time or geography, but in Being itself. Heaven is within.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place you go to after you die; it is a state of consciousness available to you here and now. – Cynthia Bourgeault – Modern Christian mystic

Heaven, as revealed in this teaching, is neither distant nor deferred. It is not earned, achieved, or granted as a reward. It is a state of Divine Presence that always is. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart gave expression to this reality when he wrote that Heaven is not a place and not a time, but the direct experience of “Oneness with God.” Such language is not poetic abstraction. It is an attempt to articulate a mode of consciousness in which the sense of personal separation dissolves and the Divine is directly known rather than conceptually affirmed by way of belief,

What obscures this direct KNOWING is not a lack of belief, but identification with what has come to be called the False self – (Thomas Merton). This false self experiences itself as a separate, autonomous individual standing over against the world and over against God. It is the very veil that separates the human from the Divine. From this standpoint, Heaven can only be imagined as something other than what is presently given—whether as a future state, a distant realm, or a conditional promise. Yet the very identity that seeks Heaven in this way is the veil that prevents its recognition. The poet Robert Browning named this hidden reality the “Imprisoned Splendor,” pointing to the paradox that what is concealed is not absent, but obscured by misidentification. This misidentification is the persona – the mask – that claims to be the True Self.

Jesus addressed this condition directly in his repeated insistence that whoever would save his life – the personal life – would lose it, and whoever would lose his life for his sake would find it. This is not a call to moral self-denial, but a description of an interior transformation in which mistaken personal identity is relinquished. What must be surrendered is not life itself, but the belief that the personal self is its source. Without this surrender, Heaven remains an object of belief. With it, Heaven is revealed as the very ground of Being.

The Kingdom of God is near you. It is not beyond the sea, nor is it outside you. Rather, it is within you, and it belongs to you. – Miester Eckhart – Christian mystic

For this reason, Heaven cannot be earned. No finite form can earn the Infinite, and no effort of the personal self can produce what already is. The experience of Heaven is not reserved for a chosen few, nor granted as a consequence of correct belief. It is the birthright of all, though it is realized by few. When this realization occurs, it is not given for personal benefit, but for expressing the glory of God. Divine Presence is known so that it may be made manifest, so that the will of Heaven may be enacted on earth through a life aligned with the Infinite. This enactment has to come through you.

Much confusion has arisen because words such as Heaven, Christ, and Being, point toward realities that exceed the limits of language. Religious traditions have therefore relied on imagery to gesture toward what cannot be directly described. The difficulty begins when these images are taken literally and the symbol is mistaken for the reality it signifies. Jesus did not offer imagery as explanation, but as invitation, calling his hearers beyond concepts and into direct encounter with Presence itself.

To seek the Kingdom first, then, is not to strive toward a distant goal, but to turn attention toward the depth of one’s own Being, where Divine Presence is already given. This Presence is not located within the body, nor confined to the psyche. It is the luminous ground of awareness itself. When this is recognized, Heaven ceases to be a hope projected beyond death and becomes a living reality expressed through your surrendered life. This recognition does not remove one from the world, but reorients one’s participation within it, allowing the light of Divine Presence to move freely through the form of the body you think you are.

This reorientation is the introduction to the series sharing Christian principles for Living a Life more abundently It is the path that unfolds when belief yields to KNOWING and doctrine gives way to direct experience. The reflections that follow explore the core principles of my coming book Christianity Without Fear not as theological positions, but as lived invitations—each one pointing toward the same essential realization named by Jesus when he said, “I AM the Way.” These words do not describe a path to be followed from a distance, but an identity to be awakened from within.

To understand I AM the Way is to recognize that the Kingdom you are seeking is not ahead of you, but already present as you. This is the Way that does not lead elsewhere, but leads inward, through the surrender of the false self and into the living reality of Divine Presence. It is here, in this awakening, that fear loosens its hold and faith is no longer required, because what has been sought is finally known. This is where the journey begins.

One of the most familiar—and most misunderstood—statements in the Bible stands at the foundation of everything the Master Jesus taught, and to miss its meaning is to miss the ground from which his entire teaching arises. When Jesus said, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (KJV), he was not naming an external authority to be followed, but revealing an identity to be awakened. This is not a claim about religious affiliation or moral superiority, but a disclosure of the Divine LIFE present as the very ground of Being. The second Christian principle for living explores this saying not as doctrine, but as direct encounter. If you are reading on a desktop, you may return to access the link by scrolling to the top of the page; if you are on a mobile device, it awaits you below. What it opens is not a belief to be adopted, but the recognition that the WAY being spoken of is already present as who you are in Divine Presence.