God's Kingdom is Near

Meister Eckhart

Our salvation depends upon our knowing and recognizing the Chief Good, which is God himself. I have a capacity in my soul for taking in God entirely. I am sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and presence of God. However men's happiness does not arise from this, that God is near him, and in him, and that he possesses God; but from this, that he knows the nearness of God, and loves him, and is aware that "the Kingdom of God is near". 

So when I think of God's Kingdom, I am compelled to be silent because of its immensity, because God's Kingdom is none other than God himself with all his riches. God's Kingdom is no small thing: we may survey in imagination all the worlds of God's creation, but they are not God's Kingdom. In whichever soul God's Kingdom appears, and which knows God's Kingdom, that soul needs no human preaching or instruction; it is taught from within and assured of eternal life. Whoever knows and recognizes how near God's Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, "God is in this place, and I knew it not".

Sermons, Blakely Translator