The Kingdom of Heaven

Gaining understanding of God's ways through His covenants with this realm and with His people is a means of understanding the terminology used in the New Testament. Jesus opened a new Way with His teaching, ministry and the cross. When He told His disciples "unless I go the Comforter cannot come," He was explaining the essence of His ministry on this earth was because the Holy Spirit was in Him without measure. They would be able to receive this ministry of the Holy Spirit because Jesus was going to the cross and they would receive New Birth because of His sacrifice. Jesus had commissioned them to do "practice ministry" while He was with them, but by His going, they would receive the Spirit resident in them with the same power they had seen in Jesus' ministry. After He was resurrected, He ministered the gift of the new birth to them by the Holy Spirit. But He instructed them they were to wait and receive the residence of the Holy Spirit when the Father would send the Holy Spirit to this realm with the same ministry He had had in Jesus as He was ministering among them. The Holy Spirit was only able to abide in people with power after Jesus had "walked out" the Law and fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant with perfect response. When Jesus proclaimed "it is finished" on the cross, that finish was for all eternity. Everyone of us can claim God's fulness and walk in that finished work if we are willing to give God the response He required in the New Covenant. We are living under the enlarged, or "better," covenant of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Read the promise God made to David of an "everlasting kingdom." (II Samuel 7) God was establishing a kingdom covenant with David's house. Solomon failed to follow God completely and give God the covenant response of total obedience, so God divided the natural kingdom of Israel. But Jesus came as the son of David, and so completely fulfilled the requirements of David's covenant that He anchored that covenant and brought in the next step in the Kingdom covenant. He came preaching the kingdom of heaven that was resident in Him. He declared and demonstrated that the Kingdom of heaven had come in their midst.

Response is so important for it guarantees the authorization of God's covenant response to us. As God had given Adam the authority over this realm, Lucifer could not gain more than usurped authority. Jesus, as a man, took that authority back and gave it to His Church by giving His Name. In His Name, the Church has the authority over disease and all evil power. Why is this important to the kingdom covenant? In the progression of the kingdom covenant from a nation on this earth it moves to God's Church on this earth. The authority of the nation was in the Law and the king keeping that Law in obedience and trust. The authority of the Church is in the Name of Jesus Who purchased the right for the kingdom of heaven (the realm of spirit where God's throne is) to come to this earth. When He returned to the Father, the Holy Spirit came to empower God's Church to move in and abide in that kingdom. When Jesus said in my Father's house are many abiding places, He was speaking of the Royal House of God's Kingdom. He went to the cross to prepare the place for us in God's Royal House. We are of His House. We are in the Kingdom of heaven now and the response we need to give is the response Solomon failed to give.

Solomon becomes the parable for us as His Church to remember the One Who is our Covenant Friend. His Word to us must be our focus as the Spirit enables us to obey and honor Him. Solomon became so entrapped with his wealth and success that he forgot the essence of the covenant God had made with David. As the church became enamored with the "business" of the church, success in this realm became more important than success in the Kingdom of heaven. The covenant Jesus made is not of this realm but is to ensure His kingdom comes to this realm in us. We become the bearers of the responsibility to respond to His covenant with us. I often think when I pray His prayer for God's kingdom to come, that it is to come into my earth body and His will is to be done by me. I take the responsibility to myself to honor His covenant. I cannot wait for someone else if I am to follow in Jesus' footsteps.