The kingdom of God is within you. It is there, waiting to be activated through your adoption of the behavior that does so. If one desires to have heaven within themselves, they must act at all times as if they were in heaven. This does not mean obedience to a static laundry list of commandments, though perfect, honest, earnest obedience to God as far as you understand him is required. This—incidentally—is the fulfillment of the first great commandment, to love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.
The second great commandment is to love your fellow man as yourself. There are at least two ways to gain insight into the meaning of this second commandment. The first is to treat everyone as you would like to be treated. This means, for example, that if you see a hungry man, you will imagine how you would feel if you were hungry, and then spend your resources as you would in that case.
A perhaps more insightful interpretation is to recognize that, if you live according to the kingdom of heaven, most people are in fact not like you. This means that as you spend your resources—your time, talent, and compassion—on others, you will find they almost never take advantage of them. You will find that your effort in recruiting and expending these resources far exceeds the benefit these people derive from it.
Almost without exception, they will not use what you have given to improve their lot, nor will they appreciate what you have done to provide it. In many cases, they won’t even recognize that you are doing anything at all.
To keep the second great commandment, and to fully embody the kingdom of God within you, you must act as if these people were also citizens of heaven. You must act as if the subjects of your kindness would react the same way you would to the resources offered, in spite of your knowledge that they will not, so long as doing so does not harm them:
5 The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. (Isaiah 50)
The default state of man is condemnation: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
The condemnation occurs because the default state of man is to flee from the light:
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3)
If you had a terminal disease, would you rather know about it or persist in ignorance? What if it were curable? We are all spiritually terminally ill, and there is a cure. Unfortunately, no one wants the cure.
What person do you know that runs to the light, that prefers to understand that they have flaws that they must fix and misunderstandings that they must correct in order to experience greater happiness? Instead, mankind prefers to persist in the way things are because they erroneously believe that it is more comfortable than seeking, discovering, and applying all truth, wherever it is found, and no matter the implications.
While intentional ignorance will allow vacuous comfort to persist for a time, it will always be ripped away from you, causing far more pain, suffering, and insecurity than you would have had by embracing the truth. A person who chooses to ignore the alarms signaling a sinking ship may avoid the discomfort of finding a life boat, but they will suffer more than those who listened when they find themselves forced to confront the rising water, and may be condemned to drowning if the water has made it impossible to escape their cabin.
It is not possible to avoid all suffering in life, but it is possible to limit suffering to that which causes growth. Those who live their lives in this way are so few that they are rarer than diamonds.
Men and women today do not seek out light and truth, and when it is presented to them, they hate the person who has brought it. Your heart will be broken by the preventable suffering that you see in ever-increasing quantities as you gain awareness.
When you give yourself completely to God, your heart turns completely to your fellowmen, and it will break into a thousand pieces as you truly comprehend their depraved state and realize that you are absolutely powerless to help them.
You will give everything you have to help them. You will intercede with God on their behalf, with intense and repeated prayers. You will study and pray to know how to help persuade them. You will set aside all the comforts of life that you have earned to instead focus on their needs. And, in spite of all of this, you will fail to make a difference almost (and perhaps altogether) every single time.
The more light and truth you have, the less you can do about it because the very truth that enables you to help others also alienates you from them. Those who are honest and open-minded—those that would listen to light and truth—do not need anyone to give it to them, because they will have already obtained it from God.
A truth bearer has the unpleasant job of paying the price to give another chance to those who do not deserve it, knowing full well that it will be extremely rare for someone who hasn’t bothered listening to God before to listen to them now.
Those who are not honest and open-minded desperately need the help of others to bring them light and truth, but they won't hear it.
Those that most need the light God has given you are also those who are least likely to receive it. The negative consequences of their refusal to turn to the light wash upon them like the lapping waves of the sea, and you are powerless to stop them.
Then, you will realize what Jeremiah felt like when he weighed the outcome of all his suffering in behalf of others. You will realize why Isaiah had second thoughts about his mission. You will realize what Solomon felt like after spending a lifetime acquiring wisdom, only to realize that he could not impart it to others against their will—a will that, if properly exercised, would be capable to receive it all without Solomon, anyway. You will understand why Abraham was a spiritual stranger in a strange land, and was indescribably lonely his whole life. You will understand how nothing in this world made Jesus' life worth living—that only his love of the Father could have motivated him to come and complete his mission on this earth. And it will be the same with you.
How you will wish those around you would repent! How you will wish they would adopt radical truthfulness and self-honesty! How you will wish they would cultivate a willingness to believe in what they hadn’t before considered! How you will wish they could see the value of light, and run into it, rather than running from it!