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In Romans 14, Paul's emphasis is on how we should be sensitive about stumbling another believer by flaunting our ideas against him. But in the middle of this teaching we find the precious statement, "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (v.17). The whole Bible centres around the fact that all the problems in the world are due to sin entering into our life and that the Gospel proclaims that Jesus has come to set us free from the hold of sin (Mt.1:21). In the context of this Gospel as proclaimed by Jesus and the apostles, our primary goal must also be to seek for this liberation from sin and to be restored to the original plan of God.
As Jesus said in a parable, the Enemy has come and sown tares in the midst of the preaching of the Gospel. Now a lot of preaching is about how we can come to Jesus for our 'eating and drinking' – representing all our needs for our life on earth! Many preach about health and wealth as the gospel, saying that as sons and daughters of the King we should expect to live it up and enjoy 'the good life'. Salvation from sin has been made to equate forgiveness, leaving out deliverance from the power of sin in our lives. 'Grace' has been hyped up implying that we don't have to do anything from our side except to praise and thank God for what He has given freely to us. There is no mention of repenting from our sins or fearing God lest we should fall into sin again. We can even see that those who proclaim the true Gospel are getting maligned, saying that they don't know the liberty of the children of God and they are living under the law even though grace is available.
But the kingdom of God is about a life that is getting increasingly free from the power of sin – manifesting more and more righteousness, joy and peace in all we do. If this is not actually happening, except perhaps in doctrinal interpretation, we need to see whether we have entered the kingdom at all. It is a matter of our life.
When God brings us into His kingdom His goal is to win us back from the hold of sin in our life and transform us into the image of His Son (Ro.8:29). Everything doesn't go smoothly in our lives, but He promises us that even the challenges we face in life will be turned around to ultimately cause His plan to work in our life (v.28).
But even in interpreting this passage, people have been misled to look for God causing all things to work for better 'eating and drinking' – all things concerning the earthly life. Even when looking at Mt.6:33 which is the culmination of Jesus trying to tell us not to let our primary focus be on earthly things but on the kingdom of God, people still look at it as if Jesus is promising us to take care of our earthly needs!
Where we stand on this issue shows us whether we have seen and entered the kingdom of God or not (Jn.3:3,5). It's not about our church activities in which we may participate heartily, looking for blessings!