LOVE THIS TRUTH THANK YOU FATHER GOD AMEN ! ENTERING THE KINGDOM In an earlier article of this series I wrote concerning the difference between seeing and entering the Kingdom of God. Permit me to rehearse those thoughts for a moment before proceeding further into the supernal glories that lie before us upon our entrance into the full inheritance that belongs to each and every son of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of God means different things to different people, according to their understanding. This is only natural, because of the many figures under which the idea was presented by Jesus, and also because people are at different stages in their progress along the way to the Kingdom, which means that they have attained different degrees of growth as children of God in the family of God. What a familiar topic the new birth is! How many thousands of sermons have been preached about it! But how many have perceived the true purpose of the new birth? Jesus said that one must be born again in order to “see” or “enter” the Kingdom of God. The reality He presented was the Kingdom! The purpose of the new birth is not to get us into the church or to some far-off heaven somewhere. The purpose of the new birth is to enable us to enter the Kingdom. I fear very few who fill the pews of the churches today have this conception of the new birth — that thereby God has infused into us His very own divine life so that we may be able to partake of His Kingdom. Here we find Jesus laying down the preliminary requirement for an understanding of the Kingdom, as well as entrance into the Kingdom. When men come into the world, they are born outside of the Kingdom of God, and they cannot see into it. They may go round and round it, and examine it from the outside, and pass an opinion on it. But they are no judges. They are not seeing what they are speaking about. For that which is born of spirit is spirit, and that which is born of flesh is flesh; and flesh cannot see into the realm of spirit. Fleshly men can only give an uninformed and unenlightened criticism about something spiritual that they can neither see nor understand. Therefore the critical value of a natural man’s opinion on spiritual matters is nothing. His opinion is simply ludicrous — he is talking about a thing that he has never had experience with. If I am to partake and participate in the Kingdom of God, then I need to possess a life other than the life I have by nature. I must be born again into a higher realm. I must receive the life of God, the life of the Kingdom, for not unless I possess His life can I begin to enter into and explore and experience the realities and powers of His Kingdom. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3). Everyone with spiritual understanding knows that the words “see” and “know” are identical in their spiritual meaning. When I tell a friend something he did not see before, and I am trying to get him to see it, all at once there passes over his face the illumination that indicates understanding. He says, “maggie , I see it.” What does he mean? He does not mean that he sees anything with the eye of flesh. He means that he “understands” or “knows” it. How many times a day do you say, “I see!” So Jesus is telling us that apart from the new birth a man cannot understand, comprehend, or know the Kingdom of God. It is better to know the Kingdom of God by the spirit than to see with physical eyes any “age” or “external government” that might be called the Kingdom of God. Here is the mighty power of the New Creation: it sees what others cannot see! It sees, amid the thousand things natural men see and are guided by, something infinitely greater and more real — it SEES GOD. No wonder it leads a man to think and act differently from other men. On everything it looks at, the bright light of eternity is shining. The depths it perceives are infinite. The heights it beholds are immeasurable. The truth it understands is without flaw or error and is eternal. Seek to walk in the light of HIS countenance. Seeing the INVISIBLE will make it easy to forsake this world and do the will of God! The heavens are shut up from the natural man. He cannot see eternal things. He hears only the lower sounds of earth. But you see beyond all this into the very heart of God, into the depths of His great plans and purposes, and the “whys” and “wherefores” of all things since the creation of the world and unto the consummation of all ages. You see the Kingdom of God! Far away in the depths of my spirit the perfumed breezes of the Kingdom of Heaven sweep over my being until my very soul weeps for joy and laughs for gladness. I write to you today of a realm of reality that is wonderfully real, solid, awesome. Jesus Christ intends for us to actually enter into the Kingdom of God here and now, and to begin exploring it in its height and depth and length and breadth. “Get thee out of thy country...unto a land that I will show thee,” the Lord commanded Abraham. Just as on any earthly adventure, we must be willing to be surprised. And we will be, for “eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard,” what God has prepared for us. To “enter into” the Kingdom is, as we should readily understand, more than to “see” it. Moses stood on the heights of mount Nebo and saw the Promised Land, but he never got into it. God kept him on the other side of Jordan, although he was the leader of God’s people, because of his disobedience. In this realm of entering the Kingdom we discover the Kingdom realm as a gift. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32). God is a giving God. Because He is love, He would have to be a giving God. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (Jn. 3:16). “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” (Mat. 7:11). “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). To His footstep followers today the Lord says, “Fear not, little flock, who already has the gift of eternal life; fear not, little flock, who already has bountiful gifts from the hand of the Father; fear not, little flock, who already has possession of the gift of the Spirit of God. It is now the Father’s good pleasure to give you more yet than you have. It is the Father’s good pleasure to GIVE YOU THE KINGDOM!”
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:03:31 +0000
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