6. What is the Kindgom of God?
Last updated June 12 '98
How many Christians know that they actually have Spiritual Authority over Sin, sickness and the devil? .........
What is the The Kingdom of God on earth?
The Kingdom of God on earth is that place on earth where Satan has been cast out. The Kingdom of God is also that same place where the will of the King is being done. The King of the Kingdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. When we look around us at this time, we may well agree that we don't see any such thing. When we look at the world and its system, we see nothing more than everything under subjection to Satan as the 'god' of this world, and so it is. When we look at the organised churches, we see little more than the brotherhood of man, where just about anything that pleases man is accepted, and so it is. When we look at the Church as the Body of Christ, we see frailty, weakness and failure. Few there are who really know Jesus as Lord and fewer still there are that do His will. Many claim the name but are found to be practicing something else, led astray by their own thoughts and feelings.
There are two Opposing Kingdoms on earth.........
The big problem we all seem not to recognise is one of deception. We are held bound in this deception by Satan who as the great architect of the worlds system is also the god of this world we live in. Here then we have two opposing Kingdoms. The Kingdom of God as the Kingdom of light who has the Lord Jesus as its founder and King; versus, the Kingdoms of this world as the Kingdom of Darkness who have Satan as their founder and ruler. We Christians are no longer of this world but we still have to live in it. Satan cannot stop us from being saved but Satan is intent to deceive us so that we will never discover our God given Authority and power as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Do be otherwise would be to put his 'Kingdoms of this world' at risk! ....The Kingdom of God is the sphere or the extent of our new born again spirits. The Kingdom of God is emerging out of the body of Christ and will one day soon replace it. Today we are the Church, tomorrow we will be the Kingdom.
Sincerity is no guarantee against deception.........
The problem today is that few there are that see this future Kingdom of God ; fewer still that taste it! The reason is due to mass deception by God's enemy. Satan has had 2000 years of practice at blinding us Christians to the realities of the Kingdom of God and to all the power and authority we have in Christ. Most true Christians are as honest and as sincere as they can be, but we are yet to realise that our honesty and our sincerity is no guarantee of protection from deception. We can be just as honestly deceived as we can be sincerely deceived. God cannot protect us from deception if we choose to meet the conditions for deception, no matter how honest our intention or how sincere our devotion. We need to know that although our honesty and sincerity is no protection from being deceived, Spiritually knowledge is!!
We need to know in our heart not our head.........
Heart knowledge is totally different from head knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is knowing intuitionally in our heart. Intuition does not demand reason or understanding initially. We need to remember that today Christianity is still the Christianity of personal revelation. Personal revelation is both intuitional and spiritual knowledge. If the Lord Jesus does not speak within us personally today, then what we claim is not Christianity at all, neither is it New Testament. Only that word which the Lord speaks to us personally, is of any real use. The difference between the 'logos' of Gods Word, and the 'rhema' of God is immense. Both are the Word of God, but where as 'logos' is the written Word of God in the Bible outside of our heart and resides in the mind, whereas the 'rhema' is the Lord Jesus speaking in us personally by revelation, revealing Gods Word and making it become alive and real on the inside of us. Only the 'rhema' is spiritual and therefore Life. Only the rhema is that which is in our heart. Only the rhema is really a part of us and we a part of it. The Lord Jesus said that 'the words I have spoken unto you are Spirit, and they are Life' (John 6:63). The Kingdom of God comes to us by way of revelation from the Lord Jesus and from no other way.
The grearest need of the Church today..........
We need much more of this revelation rhema type of God's Word than the other! The need of the Church today is not to get more mental acquisition of the Bible or more spiritual gifts, or more of anything. The need of the Church today is to wake up to what she already has obtained! The need of the Church today is to have her eyes opened to see what she already is and what she has already got! We need to stop walking around in the darkness of our minds! Our need is for someone to turn on the light. We need to see what we have already got! Fresh revelation from the Lord Jesus on a personal one to one basis is what is so urgently needed. Revelation is that which opens our eyes to see what we already posses. We need fresh revelation; fresh 'manna' from the Lord Jesus, to show us more precisely what we are in Him, and what we have already got because of Him.
The secret of growth in Christ......
The whole secret to growth as a Christian is the revelation that precedes faith. If you have no revelation then you have no faith! By faith we apprehend or acquire the things that are of God, but if you can't see them, how can you know where to apprehend them, let alone acquire them. We are to walk by faith, but how can you walk if you cant see. We are to live by faith, but how can we live if we have not first seen what this life we are to live really is?. Revelation comes to us when we approach the Lord Jesus as the light, and ask Him to show us these things clearly so as to cause us to know and understand. 'Knowing' is used here to mean that deep inner sensing that is in our heart not our head. Basically all our real knowing is spiritual and in our heart; reasoning and understanding are mental. Revelation is the prelude to knowing, whereas the actual knowing is faith. The Lord Jesus said, you search the scriptures because you believe in them is life, but they speak to you of Me, but you won't come to me for that life. Also He said, I am the Life. Revelation to the heart does not come off the pages of the Bible! ..it comes only from out of the Life of Christ Himself.
We need our eyes opened........
We need to go to the Lord Jesus on a 'one on one' basis and ask Him to open our eyes and give us revelation and understanding, so that we might see and become alive and active as He has made us to be, by causing us to be born again. We need to know to grow, and that 'to know' only comes by what the Lord Jesus reveals to us by revelation; to grow means to enter in by becoming a part of what has been unveiled and revealed. The major problem in the Church as the Body of Christ today is not the lack of study and devotion, but blindness and nakedness (Revelation 3:17). This is the reason why the Church is so despicably Spiritually weak. In many cases it is the Spiritually blind leading the spiritually blind around and around the same ditch. The Leaders need their eyes to be opened by the Lord of reality, so that all may be clothed with His Life and come to the knowledge of the truth to see and understand the power and authority we have in Christ. We must see the Kingdom of God that is upon this Earth before we can walk in it. Those who know they are Born Again need only to have their eyes opened to see exactly what the Kingdom of God is. All who are Born Again have Spiritual eyes, trouble is most of us appear to be Born with our eyes shut!
Kingdom Authority and power..........
The prerequisite of Kingdom Authority is first to see the Kingdom of God and second to enter into it. Being 'Born Again' satisfies both of these requirements. Kingdom Authority can only be exercised by those who are in the Kingdom operating in the Name of the King. We need to counsel the Lord Jesus to anoint our eyes with His eye salve that we may see. Seeing enables knowing. Only knowing is that which is precious and of value, because that is our Faith. The Faith that comes by hearing is the knowing that comes by seeing. The 'Logos' of God's Word does not give us Faith or Life in itself, it is a map to the 'Rhema'. Only Jesus as 'the Rhema' gives us Faith and Life because He is our Life and our Faith. He alone can open our eyes to see and He does it by truth and revelation. Truth is the eye opener. Revelation is what He shows us and causes us to know once our eyes have been opened.
It's not hard but it is pure............
It's all so simple and all so pure, yet most of us miss it because we are bent on doing our own thing that we have always done and going our own way that we have always gone. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth and revelation, He operates in us by first revealing more of the Lord Jesus to us, and then revealing to us what we are in the Lord Jesus as a direct result of the His attainment. Because He has attained, I have obtained. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Whatever He reveals to me of what I am in Christ, that is a fact that describes what I am. It is the truth of God as to the reality of what I really am. What I may think or feel has nothing to do with fact. By the grace of God we are what God says we are, because we are exactly what God has made us to be; the maim problem in the Church today is right here. Because of doubt and disbelief, or deception and presumption, we appear before God either as inferior or superior to what we really are.
Look again at what God has done for us..........
Let us recall once again what God has made us to be as His Church. We have received a new spirit and that new spirit is born of God. It is only that which God has taken out of Christ that can be the Church. Only that which is of the Life of Christ is the Body of Christ. Only those which have the Spirit of Christ are a Christian. Only that which is the spirit of Christ is the real Church. We have received this new spirit of Christ in place of our old spirit which was dead to God and never knew Him. God has given us a new spirit and put His Spirit within ours. When Jesus died for us, He gave us His Death through the shedding of His blood to be the remission for our sins, but He also shed His life to be our new spirit. When Jesus was on the earth before He became our Saviour, He had as it were two lives in Himself not one. He had spiritual life because His Father is God, but He also had His soul life because He was born a man. He was like us. He was a Spirit that lived in a body that had a soul. He had Spiritual Life, physical life and soul life (self life).
The Spirit of Christ.............
We know from the Bible that the life of the soul is in the blood, and it is this personal 'soul life' of Jesus Himself that He shed also with His precious blood on Calvary's cross. It is this personal Life that He has given to us to be our new spirit in His resurrection. It is also this same Life that constitutes us to be the Church as His Body. If that is so, then the the real Church was born at Bethlehem, not at Pentecost; and it became available to us at calvary when Jesus died. By shedding His blood, He gave us His soul Life, that He had lived on the Earth as a man, to be our new spirit. What we got on the day of Pentecost was His Holy Spirit, which is the Life of God, the promise of the Father and the 'Fullness in power of His Life' in our new spirit. One is the container or the temple, the other is the Life that fills the temple. One is the wineskin and the other is the wine. One is the Spirit of the Man Jesus Christ (Romans 8:9) after the flesh, the other is the Spirit of God that indwelt the spirit of the Man Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is within us!.......
The life that died and was resurrected is the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the one that Jesus committed into the hands of His Father before He died (Luke 23:46).This Holy Spirit is the same one that the resurrected Jesus got back when He was Glorified as Lord. That day was the day of Pentecost. Yet Jesus never spoke of the Church as being that which was in their midst, but He most certainly did say that the Kingdom of God was in their midst and would one day be in those who would receive Him. Therefore, the Kingdom of God was formed in the Man Jesus, while He was on the earth. When He died, He gave us His life. He gave us that which is His Spirit, which is now His Body, the Church on Earth and will be revealed to be The Kingdom of God. So every born again Christian has the Kingdom of God within him! It is nothing more and nothing less than our new spirit!
Today we are the Church, tomorrow we will be the Kingdom of God!.....
At the moment we are the 'Body of Christ' being formed as the Church but shortly we shall be the Kingdom of God. Today we are the Church, but tomorrow we will be the Kingdom. What then is the work of the Church? It most certainly is the work of the Church to proclaim the gospel of salvation to benefit fallen man, but once we are redeemed we should not neglect the other part which is to the benefit of God. We need to also proclaim the Kingdom of God and do Kingdom work! Kingdom work is in praying Kingdom prayers and exercising Kingdom Authority
If we don't get involved in Kingdom work, Satan will not be cast out and God will not be satisfied. If Satan is not cast out and God is not satisfied, we will continue to be oppressed, restless and dissatisfied. There are a lot of bored, restless and dissatisfied Christians in the Church today. There are a lot of restless Church assemblies today, that are forever looking for a new type of blessing experience or activity to excite them and refresh them. This is all because we fail to co-operate with God by not pursuing His aim of a Kingdom, once we have been redeemed.
We should seek first the Kingdom of God..........
We need to seek the Kingdom of God and get involved with the King's work. Those who don't press on and seek the Kingdom, leave themselves wide open for stagnation and deception. The vital work of the Church on earth is for God's benefit too, not just for mans benefit. The work of the Church is also to is to herald in the Kingdom of God. God is still waiting for the Church to do it's Kingdom work for Him by exercising the Authority of it's King. The coming of the Kingdom is not automatic, if it were then the Lord Jesus would not have taught us to pray and ask God for the Kingdom to come! But since the Lord asks us to pray in such a way, He simply shows us that this also is the work of the Church.
The governing Principal of all God's work on earth........
The principle of all Gods work with man on this earth is to wait for His people to act, then God will move. God needs us to cooperate with Him in His work. Man's problem has been dealt with by the cross, but the problem of Satan's authority must be dealt with by the Kingdom. The Lord Jesus has stripped Satan of his power but not of his existence on this earth. Jesus now holds both the keys of death and the keys of hell but He has given to us the keys of the Kingdom! We have been given these keys to use, to unlock and to lock . He has given us His power and authority over all the power of the enemy to use. Gods purpose for the Church is that She we finish the work that the Lord Jesus commenced; by casting Satan out, so that the Kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of God and of His Christ.
The Big Question ???...........When?
The big question here is, How much longer will we delay God His rightful Kingdom on this earth? God has dealt with Satan at the cross in the person of. His Son. Satan now, has no more power or authority over a Christians life, and that also means over the Church. God wants to accomplish something special with the Body of Christ. This is his unique purpose for building the Church. Can we see what it is ? Not only has God achieved something fantastic with the Lord Jesus as the head of the Church, but also God will accomplish something more fantastic by the Christians as the members of the Head. God is not going to do any more for us than what He has already done. He has died for us to give us our freedom from the penalty of sin, He has risen from the dead for us to give us His life, He has ascended to give us a place to live in, He has been Glorified to give us His Authority and power over all the power of the devil. I ask you, what more can He do? The rest is up to us!!
God will achieve His goal with the Overcomers.........
God wants us to rise up and become overcomers in the Church and to preach Kingdom Authority to the Church, so that Overcomers will be risen up in the Church. These overcomers will rise up and accomplish the whole task of God's purpose for the creation of Man on behalf of the whole Church. They will not just settle for redemption which is just the door into His Kingdom. They will act for and on behalf of the whole Church. The whole Church will benefit from the work of the Overcomers. When the Church has done Her job, then Satan will have been cast out and the kingdoms of this world will have become the Kingdom of God. God will accomplish all this by the working of the Lord Jesus in the Overcomers of the Church. When the Church has done her part then God will act, and it will be the end of this age, and the Kingdom of God will be ushered in.
Remember God's purpose in creating man in the beginning.......
In the beginning God's purpose in creation was for man to rule over all the earth and have dominion. In the garden of Eden man forfeited his authority and power, and gave it to Satan. Man ended up subjected to Satan as 'the god of this world' and the architect of its system. At the cross the Victorious Lord Jesus, stripped Satan of his power and his authority over a believers life, and redeemed man back to the position Adam had before he sinned. Then the Jesus gave us New Life so that we would have Gods very own uncreated Life. This is something Adam never had. In the Church, God has given back to man all that man had lost, and restored man in Christ to the position of rule with power and authority. This power and Authority of the Kingdom of God is over all the earth and over all the kingdom of darkness.
When we see the kingdom of darkness, we will see the World for what it is!......
When we see the kingdom of darkness as the kingdom of this world and its system, then we will see the extent of Satan's reign and operations upon this earth. When the Kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of God, then Satan will have been cast out and the world as a kingdom and a system will have been destroyed. God intends the Church as the Body of His Son to accomplish this feat. Let us now come to the point of Authority. The only thing in the Church, as the Body of Christ, that has Life is the Lord Jesus. The only thing in the Body of Christ that has Authority is the Life of Christ. It is His Life in us that is the Authority and the power. Only that part of us that bears His name is qualified to command. The part of us that bears His name is only that part which has come out of Christ in the first place and that is our new Spirit. The definition of the word Christian means 'of Christ' and the only thing in us that is 'of Christ' or 'Christ like' is our new Spirit that has been Born Again. Born as it were, out of Christ.
Wake up Church!..........
God dwells in our spirit not in our flesh. The flesh is still, at this time, subject to decay and death, but not so our Spirit, it has eternal Life because it is the House in us that has the Presence of God. Our Spirit is the container or the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We need to wake up and open our eyes to see these realities of what God has done with us and made us to be as the Body of His Son. We need to wake up and know that we are in Authority now because we contain within us the Life of the King. Jesus is Lord and He is the King of the Kingdom of God. He is the one that has given to us a New Birth that has caused us to be joint citizens and heirs of the Kingdom. We don't join the Church as the Kingdom of God by signing some membership card or making some declaration or statement. Unless we are born into the Church and born into the Kingdom of God then we are not in it at all. That is God's Word not mine. God has given to us a name that is His Authority over everything that is in Heaven, that is on the Earth and that is in Hell. In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Wake up Church!! We are standing on Victory ground!
We are Victorious in Christ!!...........
The Lord Jesus is in Authority over all that is to do with Heaven, to do with the Earth and to do with the Devil and his Angels. So also are we who bear His Name. God has been so patient with us as the Body of His Son. For nearly 2000 years God has waited for the Church to complete the work it was commissioned for in the first place. Many millions have been saved and born again, praise God, but that has mainly been for man's benefit and comfort. God still needs us to bring Him some benefit and comfort that will satisfy His heart and meet His need. God wants the Church to rid Him of the presence of His arch enemy. When Satan is cast out of the Earth, he will have no where else to go but to the lake of fire that has been prepared for him and all his Angels. Satan has already fallen from Heaven to the Earth and the sphere of all that encompasses the Earth. Satan has already been defeated by the Lord Jesus and no longer does he have any authority or power over a Christians Life. Yet he remains on this Earth as the god of this world and its system. When Satan is cast out of this Earth as his abode, God will be free for ever from his presence in Heaven and his never ending repertoire of accusations against us will be no more!!
Let God arise in the Church............
This is the benefit God desires to receive from the Church. If we continue to stop at the work of salvation and don't move on to executing the Authority of the Kingdom, we may have to wait another 2000 years before we experience the transition of the Kingdoms of this World into the Kingdom of God. The World and all its inhabitants are racing towards destruction at the hands of the god of this world, while all the time the Church looks on as if asleep; instead of being what they have been made to be, and doing what God has assigned to them to do. We need to wake up and act in Authority and power so that God will move. Let us allow God to arise in us and then we will see His enemies scattered and cast out.
Oh God! ......may we be as you have made us to be........
Every 'Born Again' Believer, from the strongest to the weakest has this same power and authority in them. The problem is we don't know it because we don't see it and that is because we don't go to the Lord Jesus for eye sight and revelation. We seem prone to continue to go the way we have always gone, adhering to our own particular doctrines and always looking at ourselves. If we would be rid of self by separation through co-death in Christ, then we would start to see ourselves as God sees us. This one thing we can be assured of, God will achieve His purpose, and there will be a Glorious Church ruling and reigning with Christ. God will bring this about through the principle of the few standing for the many. In that day the whole Church will be overwhelmed with joy for the Majesty of the Lord Jesus and the few that have stood in Him for them. Those few are the overcomers.
It is up to the Overcomres.............
Today, the overcomers are those who stand alone in the one new Man who alone has overcome all for them. That one Man is the new Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. The overcomers are those who have chosen to work the work of the Kingdom and exercise the Authority of the King. To exercise the Authority of the coming King tomorrow is to command in the Name of Jesus today. To pray in the name of Jesus is one thing, but to 'command' in the name of Jesus is something much more powerful! Commanding is excercising Kingdom Authority. The big question for us today is; will we be counted an overcomer that is actively engaged in the Kingdom of God, exercising Kingdom Authority or not?. Just as He is reigning and ruling in heaven right now; so also is His Life that is in us, reigning and ruling on this earth. ...How much we restrict Him! How much we have hindered Him and delayed Him as His Church for nearly 2000 years! For nearly 2000 years we have been subjected to Satan as the god of this world and its system. When are we going to wake up, Church!, put some oil in our lamps and overcome Satan by casting him out. The Bridegroom has been delayed because the bride is yet to make herself ready by casting Satan out. Yet the bridegroom will approach even now because of the Overcomers.
Ruling and Reigning with Jesus..............
Those who are co-operating with Him by exercising Authority in His name, are the overcomers who are ruling and reigning with Him. When we see and know what the Lord Jesus has done for us; what He has made us to be in Him, we will spontaneously commence to be actively engaged in the Kingdom. Now that we are redeemed and God has satisfied our hearts with Jesus, He is waiting for us to satisfy His heart and rid Him of the presence His arch enemy. When Satan is cast out of the Earth by the Church, Satan will vanish from the presence of God, the Kingdom of God will be in place on this Earth.
