John 18:36-38
The Kingdom of Our LORD
36 Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”
37 Pilate said, “So you are a king?”
Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”
38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.
John 8:31-41
The Children of Abraham
31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
33They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"
34Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you do what you have heard from your father."
39"Abraham is our father," they answered.
"If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did. 40As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41You are doing the things your own father does."
"We are not illegitimate children," they protested. "The only Father we have is God himself."
Jesus in His conversation with Pilate defends Himself in a non-attorney like way...He is innocent of everything...All Jesus did as He tells Pilate was to testify to the Truth, in His life...And those who love Truth, can and do recognize what He says...Pilate asks the great question "What is Truth?...
Jesus in His conversation to some of the non-believing Jews, tell them that if they know the Truth, then the Truth shall set them free...And sometimes it takes more than seeing and hearing something to know the Truth...Sometimes it takes faith, to know the Truth...It seems there are times in our lives we do not want to know the Truth, and many times that we do not seek the Truth...The non-believing Jews validate this point...
Jesus makes it clear to us that He is a King, and that He has a Kingdom...But His Kingdom is not how we on earth would view or see a Kingdom...Jesus never tried to rise to an earthly power in politics or military leader...He teaches us about His Kingdom of the eternities...If this type of Kingdom was an earthly priority for us, we would search it long and hard...If it gave us immediate pleasure, happiness, or satisfied one of our desires we would be continually seeking His Kingdom...But the eternities are hard to understand, they are more like a mystery (to us, especially the less we seek Him), and His Kingdom seems to have much confusion -so we study other things, and look for things that make us happy, things that satisfy an earthly desire, and things that give us pleasures...But are these not things and the Truth, that Jesus is talking about...He is talking about the treasures of heaven that last forever and ever...
Jesus' Kingdom is of the heart...It seems that it is not a physical Kingdom...His Kingdom is about the spirit...This Spirit that we hold in ourselves...It is about how we feel in our hearts about His Father...It is about how we feel in our hearts about our neighbors...His Kingdom is about our very soul...And as Pilate questions Him, you read and feel the innocence of His answers and conversation...His Kingdom is not about military, or weapons of destruction...His Kingdom is of the Spirit, the Soul, and can be found in the hearts of men and women who follow Him...His Kingdom will never end...
Jesus is the Messiah...Jesus was the One to come that Moses and the Prophets wrote about...He is the King of the Jews...The Wise Men who visited Him right after His birth (by tracking Him by a most unusual of stars or planet, or comets)...These Wise Men called Him King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2)...He was born and would grow up and teach the Truth about His Father, and His Kingdom...And those who follow and believe Him to this day, are set apart by this Truth, for this Truth has set them free...