Jesus' primary mission was to bring people to a place of decision to have faith in God, not merely to remove their pain. The kingdom of heaven/kingdom of God is Good News! It is good news because it means freedom from slavery to sin and selfishness. The kingdom of God is here and now because the Holy Spirit lives in the hearts of believers. Yet it is also in the future because Jesus will return to reign over a perfect kingdom where sin and evil no longer exist.

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Here again we see a strong clue that the kingdom is a realm of consciousness in this life in which we daily follow Christ and seek a relationship with Him and that the culmination of this IS an eternal presence before God in heaven. This scribe was obviously touched by the Lord's answer, came near to the kingdom of God when he accepted Jesus' teaching that love is central to understanding God and ourselves, and recognized that true obedience comes from the heart.