The Wisdom of Jesus Series: Click for audio: The Omnipresent Kingdom
Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty” (The Gospel of Thomas, Saying #3).
This somewhat tongue-in-cheek saying from the Gospel of Thomas was obviously intended to draw attention to a very important idea: the omnipresence of God. While Luke 17 contains a very similar scenario, that writer confines the kingdom of God to being within or “in the midst of you.” Thomas takes it a step further saying God’s kingdom is within and outside.
The critical statement here is the one that says, “When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.” We each exist based on a relationship of oneness with God. That which we are at our center, our true essence, is a child or expression of God. Not knowing this Truth is the primary cause of our suffering, our “poverty” as Thomas puts it. If we do not know ourselves as expressions of God, we actually are the poverty we express.
Our solar system, for example, cannot be understood by only studying the planets. Without the sun, the planets will fly into space. In a similar way that each planet owes its existence to the sun, so we owe our existence to our very present God. Knowing God as our source is to know ourselves as children of the living Father. Just as the sun gives life and harmony to our solar system, so God gives life and harmony to us. Yes, God is in the sky, God is in the sea, but most importantly, God is in us.