CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“KINGDOM LIVING – KINGDOM BLESSINGS!”
It’s a day in “Christian circles”, whether schools, universities, churches, businesses, or homes, when the revelation truth of “Kingdom Living” needs to be resurrected ! I’m really not sure if even ‘seminaries’ have taught at all about this subject but rather majored on ‘church life’ void of what is called by most the “Lord’s Prayer”! I want you to read it carefully at least a dozen times in one sitting, and for a period daily of at least one month! I want you immersed in the Lord’s Prayer! It says in Matthew 6:9-13 the following words of Jesus as He trained His disciples, yet, it was months, even years before it sank in to their minds and hearts and wills – Hear His Prayer!
“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
But I wonder! How many prayers are engaged in the pure desire to see Christ’s Kingdom-Rule on earth, in their hearts and homes, overseeing and ruling in a redemptive Way in all they do, to His honor, His glory, and passionately praying to be equipped “in Him” in touching our world with His Kingdom mission and Kingdom blessings”?
Oh, and here’s the real “kicker”! In Matthew 6:33 the Lord Jesus said, “But seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” And, in seeking First “the kingdom of God”, is that willful submission and faithful obedience in all He tells you to do? “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”! Does that shock you or surprise you that the heart of Jesus’ prayer and your praying is to usher in heavenly living on earth?
And how interesting and awakening do you find it when in Matthew 6:25-27 the Lord Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, take no thought for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on? Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”
Your heavenly Father KNOWS your birthing, He knows how to bless you, He knows how to “bear with you” in life’s struggles, their turmoils, their ups and their downs, He knows how to bid and abide peaceably and confidently in your every step, and His heart and mind overflows in benevolence for your sovereign care! And, again, in Matthew 6:32b Jesus said, “…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things…”, so why ‘worry’ when you can worship the One who cares for you more than you care about yourself?
Do you grasp that Father-God, the Lord Jesus, and the convicting and convincing Holy Spirit wants YOU living day by day in the CONFIDENCE of God’s faithfulness? “Kingdom Living”? In Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus shared the parable of the sower. He said: “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone HEARS THE WORD OF THE KINGDOM, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.
But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Are you aware that in this 21-first-century that there are not many, if any, places where the Word of God has not gone? I traveled our ‘known’ world for twenty-five years, and I seldom found nations or countries without a church, but I soon learned that a local church does not necessarily mean their location had been saturated with the Word of “blood Redemption” through Christ Jesus! I saw people on the streets of foreign cities who had never heard the name of Christ Jesus or heard that He shed His own blood for their salvation, reconciling them to God’s eternal earthly, worldly purpose for their lives and families!
“Seek first the kingdom of God”, “Take no thought for your life (in the flesh)”, “Hear the word of the kingdom”, yet masses of people locally or worldwide have no understanding about “steadfastly in Christ possessing their souls” with the deed of their bodies, minds, spirits, and souls transferred to the ownership of Christ Himself!
Pause to reflect upon what it is that consumes most people in their everyday lives: “I know I was ‘birthed’ – and I’ll ‘try my best’ to make the most I can out of it, with others possessing not even a penny’s worth of concern about why they are here other than ‘self-indulgence’, trying to find something or someone to satisfy the vast emptiness of the mind, soul, and body!
“I’m here, and eternal purpose for me is not a consideration – I live motivated by what satisfies ME!” “I’m here, and it takes a job of some kind to supply what I want!” “I’m here – and I don’t want to live a ‘naked existence – I’ve got to clothe myself and my family!” “I’m here – and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks in between requires I labor!”
Do you sense at all that many Americans are more concerned about their “outward dressing” more than they are how they are “heart-dressed” before Holy God? Is it “physical bread” without any consideration of “the manna from Heaven”?
In Matthew 4:1-11 there are “soul-awakening, spirit-shocking” Verses! It says: Then Jesus WAS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT (THAT’S THE HOLY SPIRIT!) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him (Is it possible that the “tempter” has come to you many times nut you didn’t recognize him?), he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
But Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Is there a hunger in you for the “bread of Truth” and for the “meat of His Word”, or is it just three square meals a day physically that satisfies you?
In Deuteronomy 8:1 Holy God spoke: “Every commandment which I command you today you MUST BE CAREFUL TO OBSERVE, that you may live and multiply, AND GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND OF WHICH THE Lord swore to your fathers.” Dare I tell you that “the land” you are to possess wisely is the land of your own mind, heart, soul, and spirit, possessed wisely by yielding daily to the True Owner who “bought you with a price”, yes, the shed blood of the Lamb of God!
Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” And later, in John 16:7-15, we learn of one of the most important of “Kingdom Blessings”! Jesus said to young disciples, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said to you that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” ARE YOU KEEPING THE SOVEREIGNLY, ORDAINED APPOINTMENTS OF SPIRIT-ASSISTANCE IN GUIDING YOU IN ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH?
I find it extremely interesting and convicting to hear the Lord Jesus speak to me and you when He said in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you AND appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
And “Kingdom Living” through the grace, mercy, and love of God leads to the true remnant of faith involved in “Kingdom Blessings”! “Kingdom Living” comes about because of the “grafted in” “Kingdom Character” which abounds in “Kingdom Blessings”!!
And do you remember the First of the “kingdom Blessings” found in Matthew 5:3 where Jesus spoke the following: “BLESSED are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s “heaven on earth in the life of a ‘poor in spirit’ person who repents”, who turns from ‘self’ to the Savior and Lord, who abandons and exchanges the old sin nature for the “new Life in Christ”, who tires of his fleshly best, even seeing no ushering in of Kingdom allegiance by his endeavor to, at least, live acceptably by the world around! But ‘the world around’ is not going to lead one to True Kingdom allegiance apart from devotion to the King of kings and Lord of lords!
So, Matthew 5:4 declares: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What did the prophet Isaiah hear about the Spirit on Christ Jesus and His ministry to and through our Savior and Lord, even extended to us? Isaiah 61: 1-3 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach glad tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
In Matthew 5:5 we read, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek? They’re the “teachable”, not the stiff-necked, cold-hearted, or minds dominated by stubbornness and indifference when it comes to trusting Holy God! The ‘earth’ is the new invisible ‘kingdom of righteousness’ being built by the Master-Contractor who takes you and me as ‘stones’ in the building of His Holy Temple only seen by spiritual, re-born eyes in tune to His eternal will and purpose!
And the ‘teachable’ inheriting ‘the earth’? Because we achieve or we receive? Because we merit it or we’re mercied? Earned or credited? Pumped up or poured out on us by God’s grace and mercy? Bought personally or paid for by the Lamb’s blood? Self-genius or Sovereign grace? Talented or “touched by the Master’s hands and taken over in our minds and hearts? Entering Man-made doors or embraced by His amazing love? Personal initiative or the Prince of Peace’s intervention? Perplexed or persuaded?
What does Matthew 5:6 tell us? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.” We hunger and thirst, but the filling of us in righteousness is God’s doing! “Shall be filled” is in the “passive” voice – Someone else does the filling as we hunger and thirst before Him for His righteousness!
In Matthew 5:7 we read, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” It’s not in the human anatomy apart from God to be merciful – it’s much easier for lost men to be “revenge-filled”, but when Christ enters our hearts, He’s able to be Himself in us, and He extends mercy through us!
Oh, in Matthew 5:8, Jesus really gets “testy”! He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Get ready! Christ Jesus really stirred the waters among the “religious Jews” – and He can do the same in some ‘religious communities’! In Matthew 23:23-28 Jesus exposed ‘outward loyalty’ apart from true devotion to the Righteous One, the Lord Jesus. He said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them nay be clean also.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Would you say that modern-day Pharisaism is “pretense” at attempting to live ‘religiously’ apart from “re-birth” and “true transformation by the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb”? Are you a “pretender” or, yes, a “partaker of Christ’s Sufferings”? (1 Peter 4:13).
“Kingdom Living and Kingdom Blessings” come about by being finished with one’s own abilities and “resting” in the Resurrection Life of Christ! Personal ambitions and personal drives block “Christ in you the hope of glory”! Individual evaluation and individual determination that doesn’t begin at the Cross of Christ and His empty Tomb and His heavenly reign in you is fraudulent, deceived, and totally misleading! Your way is not God’s Way – never has been and never will be! Accept YOUR death with Christ on the Cross, and live in, through, and by His Resurrection Presence in you! What did Paul say in 2 Corinthians 5:17?
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things become new.” For you, is it “newness living in Christ” or the “gut-it-up mentality” of the “pretenders”?