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1. Biblical Kingdom Reality – Part 3
What did Jesus really say about kingdom?
By Ron McGatlin
Child-likeness and Kingdom Reality
The world is groaning waiting for the sons of God bringing forth the return of the Kingdom of God on earth as it was designed to be in the Garden of Eden. (Rom 8:22).
Can such a magnificent transition and transformation be brought about in this suffering world of upheaval and stress? Yes, and it has already begun.
Pure revelation by the Holy Spirit from the Holy Bible has been and is now being uncovered for God’s people to see, and it is causing the whole world to be shaking with the potential transition from one major age of God to another. (Rom 16:25) (Mark 4:11).
As the fallen loveless world system is moving toward annihilation. The kingdom of God is quietly growing in the purified holy hearts of the people of God’s love.
Day by day and piece by piece the simple words of Jesus are being illuminated with powerful simple keys that unlock the mystery of the kingdom coming forth on earth as it is in heaven.
Not by man’s power and might but by the Spirit of God. (Zech 4:6).
Great armies with super weapons, brilliant technology, wise battle strategies, and even supernatural powers cannot bring forth the glorious kingdom of God on earth. The greatest strengths and best efforts of all collective mankind cannot build or establish the kingdom of God. (Mat 5:1-12).
Jesus said the kingdom must be received as a small child or not at all.
Only small children or a childlike people truly can have the potential to enter into the reality of the kingdom of God on earth.
Jesus said that we would have to be converted to becoming like a small child to enter this kingdom reality. It seems we must have missed the total reality of what he meant by “converted” to as a small child. (Mat 18:3).
According to this word it is no wonder that mankind has missed seeing the reality of the kingdom of God for these many centuries. Personally entering into the kingdom and corporately entering into the kingdom age has some similarity with being childlike.
To the natural man in the fallen adamic world, strife and cunning in competition with others is seen as the way to cure our sense of need and lack and to attain success and happiness in life. Being number one and having the most drives the best of natural societal order of life. Peace and rest become a casualty in the scheme of strife and frustration of seemingly never having enough or being good enough to maintain a sense of deep satisfaction in life. (Hag 1:6) (Mat 6:31-33).
Only a small child is immune to the press of mental and physical striving of life in a hostile competitive world. A small child simply trusts in his loving mother and father to provide for his needs and well-being.
The child does not know right from wrong but can instinctively recognize love in his or her parents. Even a baby knows and responds with trust to his loving mother and father’s voices. However, it does not take very long for the child to begin to be trained in the competitive striving ways of this world to get what he or she wants by cunning and strife.
God’s kingdom is an invisible Spirit kingdom that rules in the visible world.
Jesus said, that a natural minded adult person could not even see the kingdom of God. He further said that one must be “born again” to even be able to see the kingdom of God. Being born again means being born a redeemed Spirit being, a new creation – a child of Spirit Father God. (John 3:3).
When one is truly born again, all things become new as our life source of being is moved from the natural fallen world to heaven’s Spirit source of life in God within us becoming as one Spirit. As a new person, a new creation and child of God we, for the first time, experience the real all-consuming love from God and for God. (2 Cor 5:17).
We begin to feel the trust and faith that our loving Father will provide all that we need and set us, as His sons, in a high place of governance in our lives and in the world around us.
We no longer have any need for striving on our own, seeking to find fulfillment and love in this life. We are filled to overflowing with His love and provision to become a source of God life to the world around us. (John 7:38).
There is a strong desire in our hearts to never disappoint our loving Father. We are quick to obey His desire for us at all times. Our life is more than fulfilled in is His loving presence always with us. Joy and strength fill our lives. Peace and rest fill our souls as we trust Him for every breath and heartbeat of life. We are never alone in Him and Him in us. (John 14:21).
Channels of the River of God’s Love and Life
As humble sons (male and female) of the living God who abides within us, we have no need to elevate ourselves or to seek after the things of this life. There is no need or desire to build any monuments to our lives such as ministries, institutions, buildings, famous reputation, nor any other tribute or honor to ourselves. If indeed a person has need of these things and seeks after them, he cannot yet see the kingdom of God. His eyes and ears are closed to the reality of the kingdom of God. (Mat 13:10-17).
The brilliance of the love and life of God flowing through the true sons of God shines out to the world around us, and the people are drawn to the light of the love and life of God in us. (Mat 13:41-43).
Prophetic Vision of the Transformation from the Church Age to the Kingdom Age
As the people see the light and hear the sound of the love life of God, they step out of their drudgery of marching in a well-worn religious path of deep sand while carrying heavy burdens upon their backs. They will step out of the path of following one another in shades of darkness in an endless file, one right behind the other, and lay down the heavy pack of burdens that were upon their backs. They will turn toward the light and begin to move toward the sound coming from the mountain of God. On their way they quickly come to a shallow gravel bottom, perfectly clear cleansing stream of the joy of the love of God and are washed clean from all the past as they frolic in the fresh water of heaven’s refreshing life of love.
Revived and filled with the joy and peace of the love of God, they continue on walking side by side to the mountain of the reality of the kingdom of God that fills every area of their lives now in this world and in the life to come.
(For this full prophetic vision read, “The Sound of Transformation” Here:https://www.openheaven.com/2006/02/19/the-sound-of-transformation-ron-mcgatlin/
Love never fails and
His kingdom never ends.
Ron McGatlin
www.openheaven.com
2. Training for Spiritual Stability
By Henry Falcone
The article below “Becoming Spiritually Stable” by Wade E Taylor is a present word of the Lord for those the Lord is bringing into full maturity as full grown sons and daughters of God.
I mentioned in a post recently about the Lord making me a “runner” and the first work of the Lord in that process is to become “running spiritually stable.”
The Lord tells me where to run each week. Since the beginning he has taken me to run longer and longer distances. He has taught me to run at different paces for each run. He is teaching me when to slow down, when to run at a running pace and how to sprint.
Each run has a spiritual kingdom teaching and impartation on “how to become spiritually stable.” I have had to run 5 miles, 2 miles and at least 3.8 miles a day. He has me run on clay, asphalt and other surfaces to train different muscles and told me I couldn’t finish a marathon without stretching muscles and tendons and bones I didn’t ever use fully.
Isn’t that just like the Lord? Then he applies these truths to the work of the Spirit of God in my heart and where I have not used the spiritual muscles He has worked in me or given me. He told me that those who are going to finish are going through an intense time of training.
The training for me in the natural is to endure things that I never before have endured. For over a week I had to run 3.8 miles up and down a bridge that I would not ever walk over before. I was fearful to walk over it because the top part had metal slats you could see through and they moved when I walked on them.
The first time I did, I turned around a quarter of the way and said I am not walking on it. Now I run over the whole bridge 3 times. It was the hardest run that I had done up to that date. It took every ounce of strength to trust him to do it. It was hard. It is a step incline and decline. I had to listen to the Lord how to pace myself, how to put my ankles down, and how much effort to maintain at the same level up and down the bridge.
I don’t usually sweat much, but I was dripping wet after and the Lord said, I am burning fat off your body in ways you can never do. You are becoming a lean mean fat burning machine. Yes, even how I ran, the elevation of my knees the Lord had to train me and develop in me so I would become a stable runner
This last week before my trip I am now on, He had me run 3 days on the beach in the deepest sand. It was an impossible run for me. I started out and it was so hard I wanted to quit. The Lord told me to do 2 miles only. Why? I was not trained enough to go further right now.
In the sand, I had to overcome the depth of the sand each step. I had to watch every step so I wouldn’t fall. There was glass, sticks, debris, 4 wheeler tracks to overcome. Even when I was to run on the hard sand near the water, the sand went downhill so my legs were uneven.
It was so hard. I couldn’t believe how hard it was. It was the hardest run I have ever done. Before I ran I had to do 60 inverted pushups up, stretches for my legs for 5 minutes. He told me to walk backwards for 30 seconds at a time to stretch my back muscles, all so I could run in the sand.
Then I had to overcome the bird nesting areas. They pooped on me at least once a day. Gross, but I couldn’t stop running. I had to run at a consistent slow pace with my eyes focused on where I was running.
On one day I saw golden footprints, I had seen a few times over this last month, where the Lord’s feet went before me and I had to put my feet there. They were perfectly my size.
I barely made it to the end the first day. I had to so pray in the spirit to make it. I wanted to stop so badly and quit and the Lord said to me, Henry I made you a finisher. Trust me. I was almost in tears because every muscle hurt so badly. It was deep sand, so don’t be quick to judge me. J
I had to encourage myself in the Lord and remind myself the God who helped me make it over the bridge will help me now. The 2nd and 3rd day were no easier, but I had a renewed purpose to learn how to run in the sand.
The Lord told me that this training in the sand was the most critical that I had ever known spiritually and physically. This training was so important to be ready to do all God would instruct me to do including to raise the dead and the works He desired to do through me and in me.
He also said, “This would be the greatest work of character and nature development training I need to become like him and understanding the suffering he endured for me. Running doesn’t even come close to the price Jesus suffered for me, but the desire to say Lord, “If possible take this run from me,” was surely on my lips.
Every day I had to say not my will, but yours be done. This articles by Wade Taylor explains this spiritual process. I don’t know all the Lord is doing in me with this running, but I know I am not the same. I know I am learning to love those who hate me and the reality of the Sermon on the Mount is becoming alive in me.
I have not arrived, but I am pressing on toward the prize set before me and will endure this training by the grace of God so that I can show forth his glory alone in my life and become a full grown son. To God be the glory.
I pray we will all begin to rightly cooperate with the dealings of the Lord and see that he is using intense pressure to train us and mold us into his image and likeness.
Father, I pray today for all that are also going through this process. Your grace is sufficient for us and your power is made perfect in our weakness. Father as we wait upon you today, come and renew our strength. Let us today mount up on wings of Eagles. Let us run and not grow weary and walk and never faint, in Jesus name.
Blessings of God upon each of you,
Henry Falcone
www.openheaven.com
3. Becoming Spiritually Stable
By Wade E Taylor
In the early days of my being a Christian, there were times when I became spiritually stirred and promised the Lord all kinds of things. I felt that I had received specific direction and purpose and thought, “at last, I am on my way.” The next thing I knew, I had fallen apart, and all spiritual vision and inspiration disappeared. Then I picked myself up, shook off the dust, returned to the starting line and began again. This was repeated many times.
This pattern may also have taken place in your spiritual experience, or, it may be a present problem that you are seeking to overcome. Life is never easy. We all have our ups and downs. There have been times when I told the Lord, “I will never doubt you again.” Soon, I was saying, “Lord, where are you?”
It is time for us to grow out of these patterns, and begin to move upward and onward without vacillation. It is very important that the foundation upon which we stand is “The Rock,” our Lord Jesus Christ, and that our life is hidden “in Christ.” If our spiritual experience is resting on sand, that is, if we are trusting our own abilities, we will fail when the pressures of life increase.
When difficulties affect us and we begin to lose our spiritual direction, if we will become quiet and look to the Lord, we will recognize that beneath our vacillations is a layer of spiritual strength and hope that had been deposited within us through our identification with Jesus in His death and resurrection, which was confirmed in the peace that came when He took up His abode within us.
We need only to realize that we are a new creation – that old things have passed away and our life is hid in Jesus, and that our strength comes from Him. With David, we should be able to say, “The Lord is my light and my salvation….” (Psalm 27:1). If we will meditate on the past victories that we gained by placing our lives in His hands, this will become personally real to us.
Paul said, “I press toward the mark….” (Philippians 3:14). This “mark” is the finished work of Jesus upon the cross in our behalf. The Lord looks through our vacillations to see if there is within us a deep inner determination to press through to the place where our responses no longer emerge from our Adamic nature, but from the new creation that we have become.
Most of us have a settled “knowing” that we have gone too far in our spiritual experience to go back, and that at any price, we have no choice but to press upward and onward. Once we realize that we have gone beyond the “point of no-return,” we can only say, “Lord, for better or for worse, my life is Yours.” The Lord is pleased with this, for He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit….” (Matthew 5:3). That is, “Blessed are those who have come to the end of themselves, and of their own abilities.”
We are called to be “overcomers.” However, we cannot overcome unless we have something to overcome. Thus, when one of these “spiritual lows” hits us, we have a choice opportunity to deny our feelings, refuse to feel sorry for ourselves, and rise above our circumstances, as an overcomer.
“Overcoming” is not seeking to defeat the enemy in our own strength, but rather to recognize that our Adamic nature is dead and buried, and that we are a new creation in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then we enter into the life of Christ, and overcome in His strength.
The varied struggles that each of us face are very real. However, it is not the “struggle” that is important, but rather the way we view and respond to it. We live in a worldly environment where all sorts of things war against us, and many times, it seems that there is more against us, than for us. This gives us ample opportunity to either feel sorry for ourselves and fall into despair, or to rise above these things and meet our Lord, as an overcomer.
There is a desire in the heart of the Lord for those who will stand on the bedrock of the full redemption that He accomplished in their behalf, and trust in His faithfulness alone. This requires of us a breaking out of the mold of our past insecurities, and an entering into the security of our being seated with Him in His Throne, at the right hand of all power and authority.
Here, as we rest in His victory, the Holy Spirit who brought Jesus forth from what appeared to be a total defeat, will also lift us from our place of discouragement and vacillation into an overcoming victory in His presence.
Have you ever felt, when others are entering in or being blessed, that “this” is for everyone but me? Each of us desires to be wanted, appreciated, and understood, as this is built within our makeup.
Since we were created in the “likeness” of the Lord, this desire is also in the One who created us. Thus, the Lord desires that we come to Him alone in trust and appreciation for His redemption in our behalf. These vacillations in our faith can rob us of our being able to give this satisfaction to our Lord.
“And said, Verily I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3
In relation to our new creation life, if we will hold the potential that rests within us before the Lord in simple child-like trust, we will be enabled to rise above the limitations that we place upon ourselves, and enter into all that He has made available for us.
Now, we can walk in stability and confidence with Him.
Wade E Taylor
www.wadetaylor.org