If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:15

If you’re in it, you will live a certain way.

Most Happy are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 5:3

If you’re in it, you will feel a certain way.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

If you’re in it, you will think a certain way.

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Philippians 3:15

If you’re in it, you will believe a certain way.

But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

John 3:21

If you’re in it, you will respond a certain way.

Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.

Luke 6:22

If you’re in it, others will respond a certain way.

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

Luke 10:19

If you’re in it, God will protect you a certain way.

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

Mark 16:17-18

If you’re in it, things will follow you a certain way.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:6

If you’re in it, you will be rewarded a certain way.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13

It is the life in the Kingdom of Heaven, the life in the faith of the Gospel and in the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ that life is really possible.  Outside of it, there is no life.

Jesus talked about the Kingdom, but when He described it, He did it by parable.  He instructed on how to live in it, but it was through simile.

Part of the issue is that of seeing the unseen.  John 3:3 says that the un-reborn cannot see this Kingdom, so the Kingdom is not the church.  John 3:5 says that you cannot enter it without being born of the Spirit, so it is not outside of Him.

The problem is, the human soul is quite capable of reproducing many things that look like the Kingdom, on the outside, for a little while.  But, after a while, they show their true self.

In the parable of the weeds and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), it was when the wheat sprouted, and produced heads, but the tares did not produce heads of grain, that the owner’s servants indicated that weeds had been sowed.  The owner indicated it was the enemy that had sown the tares, and to wait until the harvest to clean up after the mess.

There is nothing that a man can do that can make him righteous.  There is no good that a human soul can do on its own that has any merit before the Lord.  Yet, the life lived in the Kingdom looks a certain way.

The whole of the Sermon on the Mount describes life in the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is because it is exacting down to every intent of the heart that it is prescribed.

It is only the heart completely submitted and yielded to the cross of Christ that can stand the storms.  Of all the ministers of the gospel that have ever fallen, and had disgrace come to them and their profession, we must conclude, with all mercy but all firmness, that at some level, they fell because, at some point, they were not built upon the rock.  That which is built upon the rock does not fall in the storm, and that which is not, does.

Yet, for everyone, it is precisely the place of stress that indicates our choosing to live another way.  It is precisely our anxiety that points to the place where we are not yet completely at peace in the totality of the Kingdom.  This does not have to stay that way, but, for the discerning, sincere, and honest heart, we can cry out to the Lord.  Not try to work it out ourselves and make ourselves better, but fall again upon the mercy, grace, and sovereignty of the cross.  To hate that which controls us outside of Christ.  To fast, pray, and seek until, out of a fully happy heart, we embrace God’s cleansing provision and come to know Him at a deeper level.  To be freed from every level of fear, until we are made perfect in His love (1 John 4:18).  And, if you fall down, to in His grace get back up again, and never give up.

But, the life in the Kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17).  There are struggles, there are trials, but they do not compare with the greatness of God.  Through our lives, it is when we get our eyes up, off the storm, and onto Him who is greater than the storm, and live by His Spirit, that we overcome the waves, and walk upon them.