Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

Proverbs 4:23

Our thoughts are what determine our success.  It is our thoughts which determine our behaviors, but more than that, it is our thoughts which determine how we feel, and our values.

Beyond the natural, it is also in the realm of our thoughts in which our faith is founded.  We have faith in God’s Word.  Faith in His promise to heal.  And, it is in keeping the realm of our thoughts rooted and grounded in God’s Word that we are able to keep our hearts from doubting what He has told us.  So important are our thoughts that they are, indeed, the realm of our salvation, as it is written, if we confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved (Romanbs 10:9).  Our thoughts are what make our lives.

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Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Mark 10:29-31 NIV

Jesus called us to forsake all (Luke 14:33), and yet promises our needs will be met from above (Matthew 6:33).  This parodox underscores the nature of the Kingdom.  It is not of this world (John 18:36), but it is all sufficient to meet every need (Philippians 4:19). Read more…

And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

John 1:16

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:14

We understand that it is by God’s grace that we are saved.  It is not our own efforts, but is His efforts.  It is only by coming with no merit of our own, but as sinners who sin, with no excuse or righteousness of our own merit, and by coming to the bloody cross with our own souls, that we enter into Christ’s life within.  It is only in the fullness of that finished work that we have any life whatsoever.  Paul called any efforts besides simple faith in the cross to be “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1).

On the other side of this is Jesus’ Words, saying, that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, we will in no way ever enter the Kingdom.  He said that the gate was small, and the the road to life was hard and narrow.  Only a few find it.

Between these two places on either side, which we could call ditches, we find the road.  Narrow as it is, it is still the road, and it must be traveled.

When we learn to preach the fullness of His Grace hand in hand with the narrowness of the road, we will have begun to understand the finished works of the cross.

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They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy [corrupt]: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Psalm 14:3, emphasis added and edited

There is no one in this world that is righteous outside of Christ.  The quicker we see that this world is completely condemned, that there is not a single person who seeks the right outside of His Spirit, and hate it, the quicker we will realize that the only good we have is in Him.

They have all turned aside, and they have all become corrupt, of filthy.

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Superlative: [O]f the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others; supreme; extreme: superlative wisdom.

via Dictionary.com

It is almost a wrong label to call the Kingdom superlative.  It is Beyond that.  John the Baptist was the superlative of human attainment.  A life of solitude, of extreme separateness and consecration to the Lord was his.  Jesus gave the man this testimony, and the comparison to the Kingdom.

Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:11

John was a man, a prophet, of the Old Covenant, under the law and order of Moses.  He signified the demarcation point between Old an New Covenants.  As the Law came through Moses, and Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ, the exchange between the two marked the transition from the age of the Old Testament and the coming of the Messianic Age.

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

Luke 16:16

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I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.

Luke 12:4

Life is more important than food, and the body more than clothes, Jesus said (Matthew 6:25).  If we can trust Him with Eternity, we can trust Him with our lives here on this Earth.

The ultimate thing in this life we can seek is Him.  The highest goal in all of Eternity is His face. We know, that if we lose everything else we have here, we still have Him.  And, if we die seeking Him, we die in Faith, and that is okay. Read more…

[B]ut he who is doing the truth doth come to the light, that his works may be manifested, that in God they are having been wrought.

John 3:21 YLT

The Kingdom and the earth cannot be compared.  They are so drastically different from each other, that Jesus says the only way to really live “there” is to not live “here”.  This obviously does not have to be fully understood to be lived, but for those who look to understand and see what Jesus was saying, in order to live by it, it becomes evident.

He who begins to build a tower must first calculate the cost, lest he run out half way through (Luke 14:28).  Jesus said that unless you hate your former life (Luke 14:26), every part, including family ties and who you used to be, you cannot be His disciple.  Luke 14:33 goes a long ways and says that unless you give up everything you have, you cannot be His disciple.

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If you would see the Kingdom, you must be born again.  If you would enter into His life, His Word of life must come into you as a seed and begin to grow.

Everything starts small.  It starts obscure.  We do not despise the smallness, but we understand that everything which is planted, in its full time, grows to maturity.

From the yeast beginning with just a small bit for the entire dough, to the mustard seed which would grow, the life of the Spirit must begin very small, yet grow to its size.

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