The Kingdom Within
“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Micah 4:1-3).
“But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever” (Daniel 7:18).
“And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Daniel 7:27).
I believe that we are beginning to enter into the experience of becoming the city of God.
“The mountain of the Lord” speaks of a high revelation, an unveiling of our mind, to enable us to walk in the high realms of the Spirit.
However, to receive this truth we must be willing to change.
I do not mean only a change in outward conduct.
If you are not walking in the reality of Christ in you, if God Himself is not coming alive in you, if His nature and character are not being formed in you, then either you are not regenerated, or your concept of God is definitely wrong.
Whenever the Bible mentions the last days, we always think of some far off future event.
This is one reason we need our concepts changed.
We have been in the last days ever since the resurrection of Jesus from among the dead.
God needs a people who will give themselves totally to Him, mixing faith with His Word, arising in His resurrection power, and becoming the saviors spoken of in Obadiah 21 — a people who will deliver all of creation from the bondage of corruption.
I believe that those days are now upon us. God is now ready and waiting for a people to take hold of His reality in their lives, and to begin to reconcile all creation back to Himself.
God is wanting to bring full salvation to the Church in these days, and If we will be open to hear His voice.
NOT HARDEN OUR HEARTS.
Salvation is deliverance from the fall of Adam.
We have been redeemed and restored back to the Tree of Life.
Salvation is deliverance from poverty, sickness and death.
Paul told Timothy that Jesus “HAS ABOLISHED DEATH and brought LIFE AND IMMORTALITY to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
It is very difficult to find even a few who believe these words.
There are many who believe in a prosperity and health gospel, but where are the people who are overcoming death?
Jesus said that He is the Bread of Life, and that a man may eat of Him AND NEVER DIE (John 6:35).
The time is now right for a people to begin to rise and take the kingdom and possess the kingdom.
The Jews, many years ago, were waiting for the Messiah to come and destroy their enemies and set up His kingdom. Today it is not much different.
The majority of Christians are waiting once again for Jesus to come back, destroy all their enemies, and set up His kingdom.
This concept was wrong for the Jews and it is also wrong for the Christians.
God is a reconciler, not a destroyer.
The only destruction He will bring is to your carnal man.
Your selfish, carnal desires are going to be burned away so that your spirit will rise up in you to take possession of you.
As long as we are passively waiting, there will be no manifestation of the Son of God in us.
One of the wrong concepts that some Christians have is in thinking that they have to wait for a corporate experience.
They think that the sons of God will all be changed and manifested at the same time.
I, too, believe that there will be a corporate experience, but according to God’s timetable for each person.
Every experience of God that you read of in the Word can be obtained by you as an individual.
In fact, until we as individuals realize we can obtain the fullness of God and begin to seek Him for it, the corporate body will not do so.
It was proven a long time ago by Enoch and Elijah that it is possible to overcome death.
We do not have to wait for everyone.
We as individuals must seek God for His reality in us, and then our lives will be affected and we can affect those around us.
The concept of God that we have been taught in the system of Christianity is, for the most part, a wrong concept.
We have been taught that God is “way out there” somewhere in another realm called heaven, and that if we accept Jesus and do the best we can, God will bless us and we will go to heaven when we die.
We are not taught how to live by the Spirit of God that is within us.
The religious system has taught us always to seek God in an outward way for our needs. This has given us a false concept of God.
This has caused us to seek everything of God as though it were outside of us.
We think that by all kinds of religious activity, what we need will come into us and bless us, or heal us, or prosper us.
In actuality, EVERYTHING THAT GOD IS is already within us, waiting for us to discover the truth that God in us is sufficient to meet every need.
We have a “Santa Claus God”.
God does not withhold His blessings from anyone at any time. He makes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Whenever we ask God to heal us or prosper us, we have a wrong concept.
What we are saying is, “God, You have all these good things and are withholding them from me.”
If you do not think God has all these things that He is not giving you, why would you ask Him for them?
If it WERE TRUE that God was withholding something from you, you could not get Him to change His mind by begging, crying or pleading.
We cannot bribe God by our Bible reading, praying, crying, fasting, our goodness — or anything else that we might try. The only hope we have is in discovering the truth of what Jesus taught:
“The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
Jesus said in John 7:38,
“He that believes in me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”
In John 4:14, He said,
“He that drinks of the water that I give him, it shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life.”
To have a proper concept of these things, we must realize who and where Christ is.
The word Christ means “God’s anointed”. Jesus was called the Christ. As the Christ, He was the fullness of God.
Colossians 2:9 says, in the Amplified version,
“For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form — giving complete expression to the Divine nature.”
I don’t think any of us would have a problem believing that, but we have never been taught the next verse:
“And you are in Him, made full and have come to fullness of life — IN CHRIST YOU TOO ARE FILLED WITH THE GODHEAD: FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT, AND REACH FULL SPIRITUAL STATURE.”
Ephesians 1:23 (Amplified) speaks of the Church,
“Which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all — for in that body lives THE FULL MEASURE OF HIM who makes everything complete, and Who fills everything everywhere [with Himself].”
After meditating and praying over these verses for some time, we will begin to have some understanding of how to fellowship with God.
When we go to God, we won’t ask for so many things.
We will begin to realize that Christ is the fullness of God, and Christ in all His fullness is now being poured out from within us.
God is at all times pouring His Spirit out, filling everything everywhere with Himself.
When we see someone in lack or in need, instead of asking and begging God to meet that need, we realize that in us dwells the fullness of God to meet that need.
We turn to the Spirit of God within us and we realize that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17).
So from within me, from within my spirit, I release the ability of God to go forth and do His will.
My prayer then becomes not an asking of God, but a realizing of His ability within me to meet the needs of others.
God’s desire is not that we ask Him to heal the sick and bless with finances or supply whatever the need, but that we YIELD OUR BODIES TO HIM.
He desires to fill us and flow through us to meet the needs of humanity. God’s desire is to flow through a many-membered body with all of His riches in glory. There is no greater joy in all the earth than being filled with God’s presence and then sensing that presence flow out of you and into someone else, meeting their need.
Paul told the Ephesians that the Church IS HIS BODY, OF HIS FLESH AND OF HIS BONES (Eph. 5:29-30).
God fills us with Himself so that we become channels of blessing to the whole world.
When you pray, seek after God and His wisdom. Seek Him for His light and glory to be revealed in you. Hunger and thirst after His presence, so that you may experience His resurrection power coming alive in you, ENABLING YOU TO DO THE WORKS OF GOD.
What a joy it is when you begin to understand that everything of God that you have been seeking is on the inside of you, just waiting to be revealed.
Then is fulfilled those words of old, “Arise and shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1).
As I was sitting in the quiet one day, the Lord spoke this to me:
“I am not withholding anything from anyone at any time. I am always pouring forth My Life, love, healing and blessings. I am your life, your healing, blessing, or whatever you need. When you are set free from something or healed, it is not because I have suddenly changed toward you and decided to bless you. It is because you have changed toward Me, or opened to Me and come into My light. It is that which has allowed My Life to flow out from your innermost being to meet your need. Everything that you need is in My Spirit dwelling within you. You need not reach out to Me in an outward way, but turn within and contact My Spirit within you; then I will flow from your innermost being to meet your need. He that believes in Me, out of his innermost being will flow living water that will bring healing and deliverance wherever it flows. There is nothing in this universe that can hinder you except your belief in another power to do so. I am God, and besides Me there is no God who can hinder you, no other power able to stop you. I am constantly filling everything everywhere with Myself. Open to the flowing of My Spirit within you, and I will flow into your mind and renew it into My mind. I will flow into your will and subdue it, and make it altogether pliable to do My will. I will flow into your emotion, so that My Love will flow out of you. Stop having faith in the power of evil to hinder you. I do not withhold from one and give to another. I am always so available, so rich, and so free — just like the air that you breathe. Come to Me and I will rest you. I live and move and have My being within you.”
Many people are hungry today to see God.
The Word teaches us that we are the visible expression of the invisible God. You or I may be the only expression of God that people see.
We need to seek God until we can say with the Apostle Paul,
“I live; yet not I, but Christ lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20).
God is a Spirit, and by consecrating our bodies to Him, He is localized within us and can flow to the world.
Many today seek to see Jesus in His physical form.
However, if you were to see Jesus without coming to realize that YOU TOO ARE TO BE A SON OF GOD, then seeing Him might not help you all that much in a practical way.
Romans 8:29 says that Jesus was THE FIRSTBORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.
Stay Tuned…