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.
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.
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.
The first few clauses of Matthew 5 are so amazingly profound, and directly simple. They are plain words that anyone with simple understanding can receive. But, they seem trivial until you realize they are the life of faith, they set the attitude for the whole Christian walk, and they make us very, VERY happy. Read more…
But seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
