Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.  “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

John 14:23-24

What are the teachings of Jesus?  What are the lessons that He gave us?

Have you ever stopped to consider the parables?  Do you know what they mean?

Christianity today has done a good job with the main parts.  Jesus is the Way, there is no other.  No one comes to the Father, but by Him…   But, what of the rest?

The issue is not without qualifications.  On the one hand, Jesus taught regularly about the Kingdom.  Yet, on the other hand, He was not simply bringing a new “rule book”.  The perfect legal code had already been brought by Moses, and to bring a new one would have been superfluous.

The Law was given through Moses; Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 1:17

Jesus came describing something He couldn’t talk directly about.  Man, without Him, could not see, nor enter the Kingdom (John 3:3-5).  Yet, an invisible, spiritual Kingdom is in no way any less real than the earthly kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, or Rome.  In fact, it is precisely this spiritual Kingdom which crushes the earthly kingdoms in Daniel 2.

The Kingdom is Everlasting, and will never come to an end.  It was brought through Jesus, and it cannot be stopped.

If you ever attempt to pull out the teachings of Jesus, and assemble them, outside of His life, what do you have?  You obviously have the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and the Sermon on the plain (Luke).  You have the longer discourses toward the end of John before the crucifixion.  And, what else?  There are many wonderful bits throughout, but what is The Message?

The Message, the Gospel Jesus said would be preached throughout the entire world, was the Gospel of the Kingdom.  The Gospel of the Eternal Kingdom, wherein John the Baptist was the last prophet if the Old Covenant, since the time of John, people were forcing their way into the Kingdom (Luke 16:16).  That means, the Kingdom age began with the preaching of Jesus.

Jesus said the Kingdom was like a mustard seed, that it would grow into the largest of all garden plants, so that even the birds of the air would make their nest in it (Matthew 13:31).   Any teaching that supposes that this is talking about the “outward growth” of the Kingdom, that the Kingdom is grown into a mis-shapen, ghastly thing, that it talking about a bad thing,  is vastly mistaken.  No one can see nor enter the Kingdom unless are born again, born of water and the Spirit.  The Kingdom is pure, even as we are pure in Him.  There are no “sinners” in His Kingdom, only saints.

Rather, the word, the seed, is the seed of Truth.  It is the germ of the Holy Spirit.  It is the leaven of Him.  It is small, possibly overlooked.  It is pure.  Yet, in itself, it contains the whole.  Jesus, Himself was the seed, and, those that are truely His are like Him within.  But, as the parable of the weeds and the tares indicate, there are false seeds amongst the real, and the difference will not be known until they bear heads of grain.  Yet, never be confused.  Wheat is wheat, and weeds are weeds, as clear as day, as clear as black and white.  There is never any “intermingling” of seeds, there is never any hybrid or cross-breeding.  There is never a single plant that is NOT either 100% wheat or 100% weed.

Yet, in those who are His, the same seed that He laid down His life to multiply, the precious Holy Spirit which He received at His baptism, the thing required to see and enter His Kingdom, and His precious word, is now implanted within us.  His life, His word, His nature, his Character, His preaching, His Wisdom, His divine name.  We are “Christ”ians, little anointed ones.

What is the best way to know if you are in His Spirit?  Your attitude.  Most Happy are they….  See the Beatitudes.  What’s the best way to know whether you’re in the fleshly, soulish nature, which you are instructed to hate in Luke 14:26 in order to be His disciple?  Are you angry without cause at your brother?  Do you say “You’re stupid” or “You Fool!”?  Do you steal, slander, lie, commit adultery or murder (even in your heart)?  These are the simple ways to know where you’re at.

Do you take these things seriously?  God does.  He says, if you love Him, you’ll care, and do whatever it takes to seek Him.  You will, given enough time, energy, and focus, find what no one else can give you.  You’ll learn who God is.  People can help, preaching can set things in order, but, in the end, only you can learn where the well of salvation is, and only you can drink its springs.

You see, that little bity seed, planted by the Lord, nearly insignificant in that it is the smallest of all seeds, the very Word of God that brought us to Salvation, grows, and becomes a tree within us.  It becomes the tree of life, Christ is formed within us.  We become “possessed” of the Lord (the only New Testament word indicating “possession”, where a spirit of any kind possesses, as in control and ownership, of a person is the Holy Spirit possessing believers.  All references to “possession”, commonly referred to as “demonic possession”, are actually a mis-understanding of either the Greek or the King James language “possessed of”.  If a person is “possessed of something”, that is an out-dated English expression indicating that they, the person, possess it.  As I can be possessed of my Bible, I have it, it never, in any place in the New Testament, possesses me.  The Greek word is only one word in the original language, and means simply ‘demonized’ or ‘under the influence of a demon’).

This is the Gospel of the New Testament.  The Sermon on the Mount, while not able to directly relate the Kingdom to someone who doesn’t understand (the very phrase “joy unspeakable” can only truly be understood by someone who’s been there, not because it is some ‘gnostic’ thing, some hidden or secret wisdom, although it is that in a sense, but because the very definition of “unspeakable” denotes the inability to express, explain, or convey the selfsame joy.  It is the very nature of the joy that it goes beyond words.  Ultimately, with it and with the Kingdom, only someone who has seen it can fully understand, but once you have, you can remember the saying, and say with confidence, “This is that!”), while it is not able to directly describe it, provides the godly-perfect way of ascertaining whether we are in it.

Anyone can live up to a certain point in a form of godliness, but it REQUIRES the overcoming power of the Holy Ghost to stand the storms that come against the true believer.  The storms reveal, by necessity, every place where we are not fully built upon the rock.  If we use those places where we are exposed and pressed upon, the place we feel the burden of it, humble ourselves, repent, and call out upon the efficacy of the cross for the things within our heart, He will cleanse us, purge us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

As we continue to do this, despite our peaks and valleys, we will find ourselves cleaving to the Lord.  As we embrace His love, as John wrote later in the same epistle, we come to both know and believe the love that God has for us (1 John 4:16).  This tree that has taken root, spreads out branches.  And, as Song of Songs 8:6 says, love is as strong as death, and as unyielding as the grave.  The tree that has sprouted becomes the largest of all garden trees, so that the birds of the air make their nest in it.

If you have no understanding of how ministry works, you may get offended by this next statement.  Hebrews 1:14 says they are ministering spirits sent to minister to the heirs of salvation.  Much of the prophetic, healings, and other gifts are through the agency of the angelic.  “But I thought it was God touching me?”, people may ask.  Well, of course it is!  To receive a messenger of God is to receive Him, and to reject His messenger is to reject Him.  There is no power in any angel, any messenger, short of its source.  What they minister is the Father, in whatever capacity and manner He chooses.  This in no way detracts or makes any touch of the Lord any less meaningful, it is merely the chosen administration of God’s Kingdom.  To be touched by an angel of God, be it a heavenly messenger or an earthly one, *IS* to be touched by Him, and not the messenger.  The messenger is simply the envelope.  Pay attention to the letter, and you’ll do fine.

So, in my tree of the Holy Spirit, as a climate of the Heavenly Kingdom of Yah is cultivated, in the loving ministry of Jesus, we find giftings, abilities, and supernaturals (the word “gifts” is an English addition to 1 Corinthians talk about “spirituals”) are, well…  attracted to us.  The things of heaven are drawn to us.  As we learn, through the Sermon on the Mount, to abide in Him, and His words abide in us, as we are faithful in what He gives us, He gives us more.  As we are dilligent to walk, not in a legal code, but in the Holy Spirit, His Presence, His anointing, even through suffering, pain, disappointment, and delay, we will find a greater and greater increase of His Kingdom, His power, His supernatural life in and around us.  We truly become partakers of His divine nature through His precious and magnificent promises (2 Peter 1:4).  We are changed, from faith to faith, and glory to glory, as his spirituals, winged creatures many of them, come and nest in our life, in the overspreading of His fragrance, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).

Psalm 1

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.