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.”
Just how well can those who are born again see the kingdom of God? What is the kingdom of God like?
1. Testimony regarding the kingdom of God
From a very early age, when I was a young child learning to speak despite the profound deafness, my parents taught me and my two sisters to say the Lord’s Prayer and a prayer of blessing over our family. Each night, they would come to each of us when it was time to turn out the lights and hear us say our prayers. Thus, from a very early age, each night, I decreed: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven …”. We attended the local Anglican church most Sundays. In my late teens, my church attendance and prayer routine dropped off and for the next twenty years reflected my community aspirations rather than my relationship with the Lord.
Years later, in my late 30’s, I was born again and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and started attending church again, but the more charismatic and Pentecostal types. After being born again, I loved the church and attended regularly with joy, even though I found it very difficult to follow the worship with the overwhelming noise of the instruments drowning out the words of the songs, and pastors covering the mouths with the microphones, or walking around making them very difficult to lipread during preaching the Word. I enjoyed church because of the presence of God. However, I became rather frustrated and cried out to God for a solution to not being able to fully hear the word preached and to join in on the worship. His response was for the Holy Spirit to teach me about the kingdom of God rather than the church and to experience kingdom life, living and livelihood.
2. What is the kingdom of God like?
Luke 13:18-21
“Then He said, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.’ And again He said, ‘To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.’”
The seed that was planted during my childhood had started to grow and bear fruit as the Holy Spirit taught me and lead me to experience kingdom life. I believe that the Lord planted this kingdom seed in me at a very early age to prepare me to receive what He is now releasing to the FGBA and beyond.
The reference to the mustard seed points towards the ‘visible’ growth of the kingdom outside a person creating a place or a bubble to where others can come to rest. The Welsh revival is an example, with virtually the whole nation being impacted. The reference to the leaven points to the ‘invisible’ growth of the kingdom within a person, three meals indicating the three parts of man, spirit soul and body, and the leaven being a preservative (1 Thess 5:23).
3. It is a mysterious kingdom
Luke 8:10
“And He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’”
The kingdom of God is a supernatural kingdom that cannot be described in words, only in parables. It starts off as a seed within us and grows until we can see it in full. As we live, practise and meditate on His rhema word DAILY, we develop our spiritual senses, our spiritual sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.
The key to being able to see the kingdom lies in the word “DAILY”. God had said in Ezekiel 36:27
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
And in Jeremiah 31:33-34
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
And in Matthew 6:11, Jesus taught us to pray:
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
It will be very profitable for you if you search the bible for the words such as “daily”, “each day”, “day by day” and meditate on them. The kingdom of God then grows in us daily, and the prophecies in Ezekial and Jeremiah are then fulfilled.
The Lord cares about us daily, and blesses us daily as in Psalm 68:19
“Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation! Selah”
Some examples are:
• Daily call upon Him – Psalm 88:9
• Daily ask for wisdom – Psalm 90:12
• Daily bread – give us this day our daily bread – Matthew 6:11
• Daily die – 1 Corinthians 15:31
• Daily praised – Psalm 72:15
• Daily blessed – Psalm 145:2
• Daily discern the spiritual activity by the spirit and by the word – Acts 20:31
• Daily seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness – Isaiah 58:2.
• Daily keeping the covenant – Psalm 61:8
• Daily keeping and watching the gates – Proverbs 8:34
• Daily take up the cross and follow Him – Luke 9:23
• Daily exhort one another – Hebrews 3:13
4. It is a covenant kingdom
See Jeremiah 31:33-34 above and 1 Corinthians 11:25
“In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Because of the blood covenant that applies to all of us, we become one with each other and with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, as Jesus prayed in John 17: 20-23
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
We live in a covenant relationship, which is stronger than friendship. Friends come and go. A blood covenant is the strongest way of confirming the relationship between two parties. Such relationships do not come and go. The price or penalty for breaking a blood covenant is death, but thankfully Jesus paid that price.
5. It is a kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
It is not the powerless righteousness, peace and joy as the world gives, but each has supernatural power that impacts on the natural and dramatically changes the atmosphere and circumstances. I have seen God’s righteousness silently and totally crush a legal class action just before it went to Federal Court, God’s shalom peace that crushes demonic activity and presence around me, the joy of the Holy Spirit filling me with total joy in the face of great adversity, crushing despair and hopelessness.
I encourage you all to seek the Lord DAILY, to spend time in His presence and be impacted by His kingdom. It is an eternal kingdom and, if you are born again, it has already started to grow within you. All you need to do to see the kingdom of God is to do the things the bible encourages us to do DAILY.
Shalom and with every blessing to all,
George
GEORGE PERRY
National Chairman
FGBA Gatekeepers
FULL GOSPEL BUSINESS AUSTRALIA