I lead the excerpts taken from Jabay’s book with his introduction to Chapter 5:
“The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of God - these are all the same Kingdom. . . . The Kingdom is Christ’s because Christ is God’s Son, and, therefore, He is heir to the Kingdom. This Kingdom is God’s, and He is the rightful King not only because He alone is divine, but because His subjects have freely invited Him to rule over them.
“I hasten to add, however, that He chose us as His subjects long before we chose Him as our king. He led us to Himself with an utterly uncoerced coercion. God did this and is doing it today through the cross - His and ours. The demonstrated love of Christ dying as an atonement for our sins evokes our love. But God is also drawing us to Him through the suffering of our personal crosses. When the deadly cup of suffering finally kills off all intention of self-rule, we are made ready for the rule of God.
“For us today, the Kingdom of God is also at hand. I understand this to mean that we should not think of the Kingdom of God as some past or future event. Nor should we think of it as something which we must bring into our lives by hard work. Everything has been done. The Kingdom of God is now, at the very moment you are reading these words.”