Glory’s Hope!

The Kingdom!

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you – Luke 17:21. He made it possible for every person to be a habitation for the Spirit of God! When Jesus was questioned by Pontius Pilate concerning whether or not it was true that He had claimed to be a king, as the Jews had accused Him of, He told Pilate that what he had spoken was right, but that His kingdom was not of this world – John 18.  In fact, it is not a kingdom of the physical world we see around us – it is a kingdom of the unseen spiritual world around us and in us. He longs to be the King of every person’s heart! He desires for us to walk in His kingdom by faith, rather than by sight – 2 Cor. 5:7.  When we read the book of Hebrews, we see that faith is actually obedience to the Holy Spirit. In other words, we are sheep who know our Shepherd King’s voice and follow Him, and a strangers voice we will not follow – John 10:27. It’s that still, small voice of His Spirit in us leading and guiding us into the best that He has for us and those whom He wants us to influence for His kingdom.

The word kingdom means the king’s domain…  Jesus’ domain is in the Spirit.  He also came to restore our dominion over the physical realm we live in.  Luke 19:10 says that “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  The reason He refers to Himself here as the Son of Man, rather than the Son of God is because He is dealing with things that relate to His human nature and the physical realm.  That which was lost was our identity as children of God and our dominion over the earth.  In the garden of Eden, which means “the place of His presence” Adam and Eve relinquished our dominion over to Satan and gave up the very image and nature that we were created in, taking on the sin nature of Satan and therefore being banished from intimate and eternal relationship with God in the place of His presence.  Jesus has restored everything to those who choose to follow Him!  As a man dependent upon the Holy Spirit(He willingly gave up His divine rights) He defeated Satan and won back our identity as children of God and our dominion over the physical realm we live in.  So because we agree with Jesus’ dominion over us and surrender our hearts to Him, we have dominion over our flesh and the physical world around us.  Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God – Romans 8:14.  God gave one Son to redeem many sons – Galatians 4.  This is what the kingdom of God is all about, and Jesus has commissioned us to advance His kingdom into all the earth, reconciling everyone to their Father so that we would all come to the understanding that we are hidden in Christ Jesus our King, whom God has seated us with in heavenly places(Ephesians 2:6) and made His enemies a footstool under His feet.