Sharing in his experience of God as Abba is what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. He experienced God as his dear papa who held him in a warm, loving embrace. Christianity is not so much a series of propositions about God as it is the communication of the intimate knowledge that Jesus had of Who God Is. The Christian religion is the transmission of his experience of Ultimate Reality as Abba or Papa. In his preaching Jesus called this "The Kingdom of God" (in Matthew, "The Kingdom of Heaven.")
By giving God to us as Abba, Jesus teaches us that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves--closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing, closer than consciousness itself. The God preached by Jesus is every human relationship of love that is beautiful, good, and true all rolled into one and multiplied a million times over. A God who is Abba treats us with a tender and loving care that is beyond deserving, beyond imagining. This intimate relationship is what Jesus means by the Kingdom of God. Truly a pearl of great value!
This understanding of the Kingdom as participation in Jesus' experience of God as Abba comes from Thomas Keating's Manifesting God.
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