KINGDOM COME #2
SEEING THE KINGDOM
Why is it important in the Kingdom of God that we are able to see? The answer is because to see is to have vision - to have direction and purpose. Without vision, people; cast off restraint, dwell carelessly, perish, scatter, run wild, are unrestrained and so on, according to which version you’re reading.
In the kingdom of God seeing involves a number of factors, all of which have in common that they are not based on our natural eyesight. Thus in many ways seeing in God’s kingdom is counter intuitive. Jesus tells us not to judge by the outward appearance, Psalm 34:8 exhorts us to taste and see that the Lord is good – taste is not normally related to seeing
BORN AGAIN
John 3:3 “Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
1 Pet: 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
John 1:12-13 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
2 Cor 5 :17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Galatians 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Genesis 1:2 "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
2 Kings 18-19 Handy Link
NOT BY OBSERVATION
Luke 17:20-21"Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
NEW COVENANT:
Holy Spirit dwells within - he brings kingdom to us, rather than us using our eyes to figure it out
Jeremiah 31:31-34
31; Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34: And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Hebrews 8:10 - For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Hebrews 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
PURE HEART
Matt 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
How?
Confession of sin / forgiveness
1 John 1: 19 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The word
John 15:3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
The blood
Revelation 12:11 "They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
Hebrews 10:22 “ Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."
The Holy Spirit
Matt 3:11 "“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”Heb 12:25-29 "25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaksfrom heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,”indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire."
Pure religion
James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
What we behold
2 Corinthians 3:18 "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Romans 6:12-14 "12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace."
SEERS
FAITH
The great paradox of kingdom reality - Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In God’s kingdom sight comes by Faith because anything that we get to see in the kingdom is not of our own efforts, it’s shown, revealed to us by God through His Holy Spirit. We have to believe He is, in order to receive
2 Cor 5:7 “We walk by Faith, not by sight”.
Romans 10:17 " So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Psalm 119:105 “His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path”
Jesus is the light of the world and so can we be!!!
John 9:5 “ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”.
I John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
REVELATION
Matthew 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed itunto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Ephesians 1:18-20 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places
Eph 1: 17: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Rev 1: 1 – 3
1: The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
2: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
3: Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
2 Peter 1: 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts”
John 3: 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.
Lu 1:79 “to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Mal 4: 6 “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse”
Luke 1:17: “And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
BAPTIZED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT & OPERATING HIS GIFTS
1 Corinthians 12-14 Handy Link speaking in tongues, prophesying
Vision and dreams: Joel 2:28 & Acts 2:17 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions”
THINGS THAT STOP US SEEING
Logs, planks and beams
Matt 7:1-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Thinking we see
Blindness in part see Romans 11:25 "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,”
Living in darkness
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Evil eye
Matt 6:23 “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Luke 11:34 “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.”
Preoccupation with Self
Putting self, family, traditions creation, and problems/challenges before God.
Foolishness, flattery, fear, envy and pride lead to doing these things
One of the things we needed to deal w/ as a family in terms of fully realizing what God wanted to do in our midst, both as a family and individually, relates to what we see in Matt 10:34-42
“Perhaps you think I’ve come to spread peace and calm over the earth—but my coming will bring conflict and division, not peace. 35 Because of me,A son will turn against his father, a daughter her mother and against her mother-in-law.36 Within your own families you will find enemies.37 “Whoever loves father or mother or son or daughter more than me is not fit to be my disciple. 38 And whoever comes to me must follow in my steps and be willing to share my cross and experience it as his own, or he cannot be considered to be my disciple. 39 All who seek to live apart from me will lose it all. But those who let go of their lives for my sake and surrender it all to me will discover true life!40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the One who sent me. 41 Whoever receives a prophet because he is God’s messenger will share a prophet’s reward. And whoever welcomes a good and godly man because he follows me will also share in his reward. 42 And whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of my humble disciples, I promise you, he will not go unrewarded.”
On the surface, these verses can seem like God is more into separating families, then unifying them. However it’s our conviction that what God is looking for is the outworking of his plans in families, rather than the families own plans. These of course can be the same, but are not necessarily so. Our reading of the full context of these verses is such that we see the main thing God saying is that, as in Psalm 68 - he is the God who puts the solitary in the family, but He does so in a way where the individuals and the family as a whole must put their priorities in such order that their love for God and His will comes before their own personal aspirations.
Romans 1:25 "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.”
B.I.D.
Are you born again?
Can you now see the Kingdom?
Do you know that you are a new creation?
Do you know that you are a son/daughter of the living God
Do you know that you have repented of your sin?
Do you know that you have the seal of the Holy Spirit within ?
Do you know that you are seated in heavenly place?
And are you seeing things according to God, His word, His ways, His will, His works and His wisdom?
Are you ensuring that your heart is pure?
Are you receiving daily revelation?
Are you functioning as a seer in the Kingdom?
Are you operating the gifts that provide the unction to function?