Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Matthew 7:24
[H]e is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.
Luke 6:48
Growing up, spending a lot of time in Matthew, I sort of got the impression from Matthew 7:24, that listening to and following Jesus was kind of like considering real estate on the beach. You have sandy portions and you have rocky portions. In some places, there are only dunes, and in other places, namely, upon Jesus, there is a rock sticking out, and it is at this place that one should build their house, rather than upon the sand. The “choice”, if you will, was simply to follow the instructions or to live a different way, which, of course, would be wrong, and result in failure.
But seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Matthew 6:33
There are many things we see in church today.
We have programs. We have buildings. We have ministries. We have ministers. But seek first the Kingdom.
James 3:16 says that where there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is confusion and every evil thing. Competition between brothers rises, looking to a particular gifting or position in order to get attention abound. Attempts to fill unmet needs in the soul by some level of attainment in the spirit are present in our ministers.
Faith is a substance. Faith is a communicable dis-ease with the status quo. Faith makes a way where there seems to be no way, and calls those things that are not as though they are. Faith looks beyond the facts, and sees God’s Truth, what He has said. Faith hopes beyond all hope, and is righteousness to God.
When one hears a Word of the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it away. This is the word of the Kingdom. This is the Word of Faith, which we speak.
1 Corinthians 13:13 says that these three remain: faith, hope, and love. Hope is what we wait with expectancy to happen. Faith is the substance of that, now. We might hope for a piece of bread to eat, but Faith is to have the substance of that, despite my natural hand still being empty.
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
The question that comes around today in churches a lot is, How much authority does the believer have? As much as Jesus can trust you with.
All authority comes from God. God created government, stewardship, and the one authority structure that pertains to us everyone on the Earth today, the family. God delegates His authority, that is, He gives individuals the responsibility to manage certain things, and so much as they faithfully execute their duties, they are permitted to continue.
An entire oak tree is contained well within a tight, easy to carry package. It has it’s own leathery cover, and even a handy carrying cup attached to the top. You could, in fact, carry a hundred complete oak trees just in your pants pockets alone (assuming you’ve got big pockets). The only thing you need to add, in order to convert your easy to transport oak tree into an immovable pillar is some sunshine, a plot of dirt, some water, and a hundred years or so!
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, that when planted, it is the smallest of seeds, but when it grows, it becomes the largest of all garden plants, and the birds of the air make their nest in it.
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.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the eternal reign and realm of God. It is not God, yet is inseparable from Him and His attributes. It is the perfect picture of government, as we understand such, in that it is perfectly just and righteous, perfectly merciful, humble, and powerful. Indeed all true human government derives itself from it.
We must not confuse the Kingdom with the church. The church is related to the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is related to the church, but we must not look at the outward expression of what we know as “church” and equate it with the Kingdom.
The more I read and understand the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-12, the happier I get. Hugely Happy. Ultra Happy. Maximumly Happy. Macro happy even, which is what the word translated “blessed” actually means, if you look it up. It doesn’t mean “blessed”. That would be eulegio. This is Macagredso… horribly transliterated, but… macro + agredso… macro meaning big, agredso meaning… well… HAPPY! Read more…
But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Luke 11:20
We have lost sight of the Kingdom. Jesus came to set the captives free. We can prophesy, we can cast out demons in His name, we can do might works and miracles, but we have lost the Kingdom.
I am not waiting for another dispensation for some grandiose allotment of power and authority from heaven. Jesus declared sufficiently, after His passion and resurrection, that ALL authority in Heaven and Earth was His (Matthew 28:18). We are not waiting for God to flip a switch in heaven; He already did that. All we are waiting for is for the switch to be thrown in us.
Now, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
Substance is “hypo-stasis” in the Greek. Hypo meaning “beneath”, and stasis meaning “the state, status, or structure of a thing”. That is, the underlying, inherent nature of an object, its foundation, its unseen, non-physical yet spiritual essence. Whether it is an apple, a thought, or a person, to have faith in or for something is to have it for real, whether or not you see it manifested in the natural. For example, if you say, “I believe such and such will happen”, that is hope. If you have the substance of the thing hoped for, the very reality of that thing, though yet unseen, that is what Faith is.
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
