Nov 30
Setting the Stage of the Kingdom, Part II
“In this manner, therefore, pray: 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.” Matthew 6:9
Jesus knew that until the stage was set for the introduction to the Kingdom, the chances that the message of the Kingdom lasting much beyond His crucifixion was very small. But, if the stage was set, belief in the Kingdom and faith in the Kingdom would be entrenched. Jesus set out to do this in His disciples. The same is true for you.
The entirety of the Kingdom message then and now rests on the shoulders of faith. Faith is kindled by understanding and understanding is often enhanced as we become curious about knowledge and what makes knowledge - knowledge. We see the system of the how, when, where, and why, of the Kingdom. The Centurion soldier is an example of this type of understanding of the Kingdom system and faith in it. Subsequently, when Jesus saw the Centurion’s understanding of the system and the resulting faith He marveled.
THE FAITH OF THE CENTURION
From the moment I was first assigned to Jesus, and told to keep an eye on the Hebrew Rabi, I knew this man was cut from a different cloth than the rest of the self promoting Hebrew teachers. Day after day, whenever this man came to Capernaum, I would gladly fulfill my assignment and watch everything He did.
Over time I began to observe something almost magical happened as this Jesus would walk the streets. He was humble and soft spoken yet he carried a radiance about Him. At first, I wondered if everybody saw the light or was it just my own imagination responding to a deeper magic than I had been familiar with? Like me, Jesus carried an authority. However, this authority reached far beyond my own. It encompassed not only the known world but moved and shuffled an invisible world that, until now, I had no clue existed. Moreover, the authority Jesus carried seemed to disrupt everything the other Hebrew leaders thought.
After some months of watching this man I recognized there were two types of people who were affected by His presence - the proud, who became angry, and the sick who became whole. The proud, as if driven by some invisible entity, would become agitated and angry when Jesus came around. Funny, but I could actually see that spiritual being in their eyes. In a strange way, it was their heightened repulsion to the Hebrew that actually attracted me to Him.
The other type of people I observed being affected by Jesus were the sick. They had a very different reaction to the Hebrew than the Scribes and priests had. I saw the response of the sick in their eyes as well, but what I saw was not anger, it was hope. Hope that this man, with just a touch, would change their life.
As I took it all in, I had the distinct impression that something far more important was happening. There was an invisible fortress being forged. Perhaps even a Kingdom was being established. I easily saw that Jesus didn’t try to capture the heart of the leaders, but He certainly captured the hearts of the people.
I was keenly aware that invisible forces always seemed to react when this man came near and there was often a conflict between the hope of the person and the presence of the dark invisible spirit. Without fail, when this man would simply come near to someone afflicted by these spirit forces their eyes would light up and hope within that person would cry out. I watched as each time Jesus reached out His hand to touch each one, the spiritual entity left and the person was healed.
I was amazed, I had never seen or even heard of anything like it. This invisible world was not my imagination, it is very, very real and so tangible I saw it transpire right before my eyes. In some way or to some extent, I came to understand that this invisible world must be responsible for the entire affliction that I was seeing in my friends and others.
I had just finished wiping the dust from my armor when I received the message that my trusted servant had an accident. My heart stood still and then broke as I was told my servant was paralyzed and in unbearable pain. My heart was so heavy, I could hardly follow the Hebrew. This was not just any servant, this servant had been with me for years. He even saved my life when I was young. Over time, we formed a bond and I did not want to lose my friend.
Immediately I knew the only hope for my servant was to ask the Hebrew if He would heal him! But, how could a Roman citizen, let alone a Centurion ask a Hebrew to help him do anything. What would my peers think of me if I stooped so low? Just as quickly as the thought came, it just as quickly left. My love for my friend overcame every argument I had. But, now as time had raced by, I had to act quickly, my servant was dying.
I ran toward Jesus and shouted, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” It was then that what I hoped would happen actually did happen. Jesus simply looked up at me and said, “I will come and heal him.” But time was of the essence. I knew there was little time before my friend died. I was concerned that if Jesus took the time to walk there my servant might not be alive when He arrived.
It was then that another strange moment happened. It was as if an invisible force caused me to remember the reality of the invisible world and all the wonders I had seen take place. I absolutely knew that if Jesus would use His authority He could just speak to that world and my friend would be instantly healed. Time would no longer be an issue.
So I answered Jesus and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, “Go,’ and he goes; and to another, “Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
I’ll admit I was startled at what transpired next, the Hebrew marveled at what I said. He actually turned to those who were following Him and spoke to them saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! The next words the I heard were beyond the scope of my hope - they were life transforming.
In one statement, in an electrifying moment of time, all my questions about the Hebrew Rabi were answered. I will never forget the love in the Hebrew’s eyes as He said to me, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.”
Tears flooded my eyes, my legs were no longer heavy, my heart was alive again. I immediately ran for home. Just as I expected, while I was approaching my house, my servant, my friend came running to meet me. In the wonder of that moment we both discovered that he was healed the very moment Jesus spoke it. We are both forever changed. Nothing can ever change the truth that this Hebrew man called Jesus rules a Kingdom far superior to any earthly Kingdom, my servant and I experienced it.
THE KINGDOM WAS TO BE THE FOCUS OF THEIR PRAYERS
So is it then any wonder that when the followers of Jesus asked Him how they should pray, Jesus gave them the core focus of the prayer in the words - “Pray like this, Your Kingdom Come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven …” (Matthew 6:10). Prayer justifies God in releasing the Kingdom to those who ask, and because we asked God is righteous in doing so. A darkened world is waiting for His light.
THE KINGDOM IS TO BE EXPECTED
At His last Passover meal, on the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus reassured the disciples that He would share with them the fellowship and happiness to be found in the Kingdom (Luke 21:22-30). He further promised He would appear to them once again on Earth, in His glory, to bring the blessings of the Kingdom to those it had been prepared for (Matthew 25:31, 34). Thus the Kingdom is here and the Kingdom is coming.
WE ARE TO SEEK THE KINGDOM
MATTHEW 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
The Kingdom is not neutral, it does not just happen, we have to seek it. But seeking the Kingdom does not work without seeking the accompanying attribute of righteousness. Righteousness is the substance that separates us from darkness. It is what justifies God acting on our behalf and adding to us things we did not even know enough to ask for - “all these things” that will be added to you are priceless, and they are part of life in the Kingdom. Righteousness cannot be obtained nor lived without taking up your Cross to follow after Jesus. The denial of self that the Cross represents is part of the cost for the deeper authority and power of the Kingdom.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS A PRESENT REALITY
Because the Kingdom begins within us, the first evidence we experience in the Kingdom comes from and is found within us. The reality of Jesus descending into the core of the Earth after His burial to forever change Sheol is unmistakable. In parallel with that, you can understand that as the Kingdom began in the bowels of the Earth by breaking the authority of the tyrant, the Kingdom via the Holy Spirit, beginning with in you by braking the authority of the tyrant and what he took years to build in you. The Kingdom changes everything from the inside out, after that the evidence of the Kingdom’s existence is seen on the outside.
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.”
THE EVIDENCE OF THE KINGDOM WITHIN
Those who allow the Kingdom to work its work within their lives experience righteousness, peace and joy which are fruits of the Holy Spirit. God gives this fruit to those who yield their life to the rule of the Holy Spirit within them. Then, as the Kingdom forms it rule within us, these fruits spring up from the deepest chasms of our inner being. They then begin to form an internal foundation that character, all gifts, and spiritual authority can be built upon.
Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
The stage of the Kingdom is being set within us and faith is building. Once the foundation is dry, and we understand the internal setting of the Kingdom, we can embark on other more obvious Kingdom matters.
Blessings,
John Paul
Nov 23
Setting the Stage of the Kingdom
“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.” Luke 17:20-21
NOTE: Some feel my posts are too long and cover too much territory. I will try to shorten them and be more succinct.
The world was pretty dark in 28 AD. Think what it would be like if you were to go back in time. Now imagine you are orbiting the Earth in a spacecraft, and when you look out the window of the spaceship the only thing you can see is the spiritual light of those who worshipped the one, true, God. Think about it. The reality is, you would not see one shred of light on any continent on Earth - except in a little tiny country on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Even there the lights are few and growing dim. Further more, the bright light that should have been coming from the spiritual leaders is fading fast. You might say that once again darkness is covering the face of the Earth. It was into this dark world that God sent His son - this was the “fullness of time.”
THE CIVILIZED WORLD
To make matters worse, Rome was in control of the civilized world and Israel was under Roman law. Roman garrisons were constantly in the streets of Jerusalem. Beatings were not uncommon. The spiritual leaders were corrupt and had lost sight of what righteousness means to a culture. It had come to a point where good was thought to be evil and evil was thought to be good.
ENTERING THE KINGDOM
From the last post, you have a start in understanding why the central message of Jesus was focused on the Kingdom. God knew something had to change. The urgency of the times and the necessity of the Kingdom coming is seen in the more than one hundred times it is mentioned in the Gospels alone. Jesus obviously wanted the message of the Kingdom to not only be introduced, but to continue and spread.
Herein we discover the mission of Jesus. It was designed to show mankind how they might enter the Kingdom while here on Earth (Matthew 5:20; 7:21). The great signs and wonders or “works” Jesus did were intended to prove that the Kingdom had come near to those who were touched, changed, and transformed by its unearthly authority and power (Matthew 12:28). Moreover, the eight Kingdom parables of Jesus were intended to illustrate the truth concerning the present and future reality of that Kingdom. As the concept matured, it would define the where and how the Kingdom operates and define the internal and external matters of the Kingdom.
JESUS PERPETUATES THE MESSAGE
The main trumpeter of the Kingdom, John the Baptist, was now in prison and could no longer herald the coming Kingdom. What was to be done? Jesus picked up the message, to perpetuate the Kingdom, insuring that the Kingdom and its message would not be stopped. Thus Jesus begins His ministry.
Matthew 4:12, 17 “Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. … 17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
WITH THAT MESSAGE JESUS CALLED HIS DISCIPLES
Jesus calls His disciples to follow Him with this message. He would spend each day demonstrating the Kingdom to these twelve men He would mentor. They would watch Him and they would learn. He would empower them and teach them how to utilize and apply the Kingdom gifts.
Matthew 9:37-10:1 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.
WITH THIS MESSAGE JESUS SENT HIS DISCIPLES OUT
It is with this message that Jesus sends His disciples out into the harvest fields. He told them the grain was plentiful, ripe, and ready for harvest. The world was starving for the implementation of the Kingdom. When these disciples came to tell Jesus what had happened, it became obvious that soon they would know the Kingdom was for everybody who would follow Jesus.
In the span of three and one half years He would impart to them all He could and He would leave them the command to teach others about the Kingdom. In so doing Jesus placed these men in charge of advancing that Kingdom on Earth. The Kingdom hinged on their obedience.
Matthew 10:7-8 “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”
Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.”
Everything Jesus taught His disciples concerned the Kingdom. Every gift He imparted to them concerned the Kingdom. There was nothing Jesus taught them that did not have direct application to the Kingdom of God coming to Earth.
This is our mandate as well … so we pray, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” What if the Kingdom hinged on your obedience as well?
Blessings,
John Paul Jackson
Nov 13
The Beginning of the Kingdom Message
“Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. …”From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:12, 17
THE COLLAPSE OF THE KINGDOM
In the time around 28 AD, no one in over four hundred years had talked publicly about the Kingdom of God except John the Baptist. Oh, one might once in a while hear it queried about in religious conversations here and there, but to the amazement of the synagogue leaders one could hear it everywhere. That is until John the Baptist was imprisoned, and hope quickly dimmed.
How quickly the cloud of hopelessness covered the land. You could walk through the streets of any city or town and not only see the effect of this dark moment, but tangibly feel the darkness. The people once again walked with their heads down, their shoulders a little more slumped forward, their breathing a little more stressed … hope had come and was taken away, hearts were sick. Their faces wore the poignant thoughts pummeling their minds as they wondered, “Has the Coming of the Kingdom been stopped?” “Would it still come?” “Had Herod stopped the return of the Messiah?” So close … so close … Rome won again.
Then came Jesus …
JESUS BEGINS HIS MINISTRY
You might ask why did Jesus wait to begin His ministry until John the Baptist had been imprisoned? You might also ask, why did Jesus make the message of the Kingdom the central focus of His ministry? It was all part of a plan, laid out from before the foundation of the world.
Jesus and the Kingdom came in “the fullness of time” which was precisely at the darkest hour on the face of the Earth. Thus He was prophesied to be the “Light of the world.”
To understand this you have to understand the timing of the kingdom. It is important to recognize John was correct, he had to decrease and Jesus must increase. Perhaps John knew the manner in which this would happen, perhaps he didn’t. Either way John too would question if Jesus was really the Messiah and Jesus would answer that question before John would be beheaded. The forerunner had done what the “one who appeared” to him had commanded.
SATAN HATES THE KINGDOM MESSAGE
Satan hates the Kingdom of God and clearly he thought he had won the battle and his empire would stay intact with the murder of John. Satan had enjoyed ruling the Earth for more than 4,000 years. He felt he had been so cleaver in the manner in which he had deceived Adam and Eve. In so doing he gained not only the rule over the very Earth he had been cast down to, but he also gained the legal rule over God’s greatest, and special creation - mankind. All it took was to plant the little tiny thought that man could become like God. Satan never imagined that God might one day come as man.
Yes, Satan hates the Kingdom, he knows it is the only thing that can stop his empire from transforming and truly becoming a Kingdom, and Satan was and still is determined that nothing is going to stop his empire - not if he can help it.
THE BREAKING OF ALL DARK FORCES
The heart of Jesus must have sank with compassion as he heard his cousin John had been imprisoned. He must have also known it was a sign that it was time to step up the pace of the Kingdom. So He headed straight to Nazareth, the city where He was raised. There he would stand in the synagogue and read the words written by the Prophet Isaiah some seven hundred years earlier. Words that defined the Kingdom and what the power and the authority of the Kingdom would mean.
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” Luke 4:18-19
From there Jesus began to go to all the towns surrounding Galilee (Luke 4:43-44) and to tell the good news of the Kingdom. This is the first time Jesus called it the “Good News.” Why was it called the good news? Because, if you read it with eyes that see, you will notice that every force both natural and invisible, that is meant keep you from your purpose, can be broken or removed through the power and authority of the Kingdom.
7 FACETS OF THE KINGDOM
Thus it is with this remarkable message of the Kingdom that Jesus begins His ministry and instantly the message of the Kingdom took on many more facets than the one facet of repentance with baptism that John shouted to all who would hear. It was Jesus who brought the clarity for what would become a 3 ½ yearlong Kingdom campaign. In it’s basic format, this Kingdom Campaign contained seven elements and with these seven elements everything on Earth would change. These elements were meant to:
- Remind us that righteousness is the first requirement for the kingdom to work and repentance is the first step toward righteousness (Matthew 6:33)
- Change how mankind thought about the Father (John 12:48)
- Redeem the world from sin (John 3:17)
- Destroy the works of the evil one. (1 John 3:8)
- Impregnate the world with the leaven of the Kingdom (Matthew 3:33)
- Reveal to mankind how they might enter the Kingdom of God while alive on Earth. (Matthew 5:20; 7:21)
- Repeal the earthly sovereignty of Satan (Hebrews 2:14)
One might say that when Satan had John the Baptist killed, Satan jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The Kingdom began to surge rather than slow down. While Satan thought he had killed the voice of the Kingdom, he actually released the King of the Kingdom. Soon it would cost him his empire of darkness.
Jesus did not come to attack the sovereignty of man, but the sovereignty of Satan.
That was proved as He read the prophecy of Isaiah and from that time forward, Satan would no longer have the legal right to force people to serve Him.
“Inasmuch then as the children have flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him had the power of death, that is, the devil,…” Hebrews 2:14
Through sin, we submit ourselves to Satan, therefore he is called the god of this age by the Apostle Paul. And as such, Satan had a right to rule the Earth and mankind.
“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
THE KINGDOM CAMPAIGN
Herein is a spiritual law, “The Kingdom advances at the rate Evil is destroyed.” Thus the Son of God appeared in order destroy the works of the devil. That empire had to fall. Jesus could not come in the form of God to establish and instigate the system of the Kingdom. No, Jesus would have to come fully as a human in order to overcome that which the first human had failed to do. Adam was not God therefore, Jesus would have to become man.
To establish a Kingdom, there has to be a strategy. Thus, the first thing that would be necessary in order to destroy the work of the evil one, and establish God’s Kingdom would be to create a system that can stop the legal access Satan and his minions have to humanity. This system would have to so fully cover sin in man that mankind could actually become pure, spotless and white as snow. In fact they could become so pure it would be as if that person never sinned.
Because an individual commits sin, repentance must be on an individual basis alone. The repentance from dead works could not be a form of collective salvation decided by the consensus of the masses. Sin began within an individual and it would have to be eradicated by an individual. After all that is where the dead works of sin begin - inside us. While we may have been tempted by elements on the outside, we gave in to it on the inside.
Thus the crucifixion campaign must precede the Kingdom campaign. This would provide the system or soil that the Kingdom campaign could take root in, and grow to become so large it could provide for everyone who chose to live within its parameters (Matthew 13:32). If Jesus was, as John states, “the Word” and what Jesus taught was His Word, then the Kingdom is also His Word and it can be sown in many types of soil and bring in a harvest of 30, 60, or a 100 fold. Of course there are those whose soil is not prepared, for many different reasons, and they allow the seed of the Kingdom to be stolen, choked out, or die. But, repentance allows our soil to be prepared for the seed of the Kingdom to flourish.
One of the greatest things about repentance is that it removes everything one has in common with Satan. Therefore, it removes the legal right of Satan to attack you as well as his legal right to accuse you before the Father. This is a foundational and elementary principle of the Kingdom (Hebrews 6:1-3). It is why the Kingdom must begin within you, which is where repentance begins. Thus the necessity of the individual having godly sorrow over their sin becomes very important (2 Corinthians 7:10). It creates deep soil, which qualifies you to not only be a carrier, but a doer of the Kingdom rather than just one who talks about it.
As you know, Jesus not only talked about the Kingdom, He designed and became the system whereby the Kingdom could reside within us, and empower us to overcome the works of the evil one on a personal basis.
Truly, the wisdom of God is beyond that of mankind.
Blessings,
John Paul
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