So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” Acts 1:6

 

To be honest, there are some things about Jesus and His Kingdom that just aren’t easy to understand. Even His disciples had real questions.

 

Jesus had died and come back to life. It was pretty wonderful…and confusing for His followers. Scripture says that “During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). They were excited—was now the time for the overthrow of Roman rule? “Lord,” they asked Him, “has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” Jesus answered that the dates and times of God were “not for them to know” (Acts 1:6-7).

 

Jesus did want them to understand that He was fully alive after the resurrection. He had talked about His kingdom a lot, so it was natural for the disciples to wonder, is now the time? Jesus told them what they did need to know: that He was fully God and fully alive!

 

There are things we may not understand about Jesus or God’s timing, but we need to know just what the apostles needed to know: Jesus was fully God, and He is fully alive today. Just like our original parents, Adam and Eve, we often think that we have the right to understand everything that God does (Genesis 3:4).

 

What we do know and understand is what we’re accountable for living out (Luke 12:47-8). “But as for me,” a man named Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last” (Job 19:25).