Category: SpiritFilledLiving

The Father’s Kingdom Revealed

It would seem that upon His act of proving life beyond the flesh, He also revealed the “place” of His Father’s kingdom…

Meditation Thought: “I shall not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29)

The “next time” Jesus ate (and presumably drank) with His disciples was after His death and resurrection. This would indicate that He considered His “Father’s kingdom” where He and the disciples were eating together – which was in Galilee, which was in the world, where the disciples were – where Jesus had requested they meet Him.

It would seem that upon His act of proving life beyond the flesh, He also revealed the “place” of His Father’s kingdom: the place being wherever the resurrected Christ meets a believer. Or perhaps, more accurately, the place where a believer meets the resurrected Christ, as he proceeds according to directions given to him by Christ.

The directions for us are “spelled out” in His direction to His original disciples. His teachings concerning God and God’s kingdom were intended for all: this was His very purpose of birth and death and resurrection in the flesh.

As was true of the disciples, we can be with Him only by joining Him – and He is in the Father’s kingdom. This is where we shall find Him: not in a church building, nor in another’s faith – but in our own inner spirit and mind, with a contrite and searching heart. Only when we begin to grasp the awesomeness – and the power – of the resurrection can we have the courage and fortitude to find the kingdom where we can meet our Lord, and allow Him to teach us about our Father and our Father’s kingdom.

This kingdom is so unlike our physical environment that it takes adjustments in many areas to even begin to comprehend it. It is more like traveling to a new planet than a new country. Not only is there a difference of language (consider how many ways Jesus attempted to describe what the kingdom is like – there seemed to be no adequate words in our language to reveal it accurately) – but a difference of cultural values, of perception of priorities, and a totally new environment, requiring a different style of living in every area.

No wonder it takes us a long time to have even a remote conception of what we are encountering in this kingdom where we meet Him!

It is made even more difficult to stay with Him as the world attempts to get us to remain focused upon it, and remain concerned only with the physical and with the self-interest aspects of life. Only by conscious, consistent effort are we able to stay focused on Christ and thus remain in His Presence in the kingdom.

We simply do not have the stamina to do this alone: we must admit we do not have that much power within ourselves, and ask Him to hold us close, and lend us His strength to do all that we need to do as the Father’s children – obedient and reflective of Him in character and in deeds. This is the only way that it is possible to be with Jesus in the Father’s kingdom.

In one respect, it costs us dearly – our pride must be paid as ransom – but in another respect it is free – Jesus has paid the ransom for our sin of rebellion against the Father.

When we are able to be willing to pay the pride and to accept the gift, we have found the key to unlock the gate to the Father’s kingdom. April 26, 1983

Keeper of the Kingdom

The kingdom is administered differently than the world is administered.

Meditation Thought: “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me… Truly I say to you, as you did it to the one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'” (Matthew 25: 34-36, 40)

Your Father desires that you, as His child, inherit His kingdom. But you must be responsible before He can entrust it to you, knowing that you will be competent to deal with the inheritance, using it as He he has used it, or more properly as has administered it.

The kingdom is administered differently than the world is administered.

The ‘keeper of the kingdom’ must be, as is the Father, loving, gracious, forgiving, righteous, helpful, compassionate, zealous, energetic, orderly, competent, kind, perceptive, wise, knowledgeable, powerful.

How can you be such a ‘keeper’ – particularly as you have the ways of the world beckoning you to follow them? – the ways of selfishness, greed, self-seeking, slothfulness, deceit, slander, ruthlessness?

Only by disciplining yourself to know the Word (which is the law of the kingdom)) and to emulate your Father from whom you inherit, doing His works as He instructs you and reveals His ways to you, can you be entrusted to be a ‘keeper of the kingdom”: an heir.

The Son has clearly demonstrated the type of heir that is pleasing to the Father, the methods to be used in being a keeper of the kingdom while at the same time being in the flesh. While in the flesh, you are to be a keeper of the kingdom precisely as you will be behaving when you leave the flesh.

The physical manifestation is the training which you will need, and the development of your skills needed to administer the kingdom in the realm other than physical. You are to become skillful at using many talents in such a way as to multiply them, bringing joy not only to your “master” who entrusted them to you, but to those whom He benefits with them including yourself.

A Future of Good Return

…the present determines the character of the future.

Meditation Thought: “…if the householder had known in which part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and not let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:43,44)

You must anticipate the future, realizing that the present determines the character of the future. This will give you strength to conduct yourself as you ought, even when the required behavior is not to your liking at the moment. Not all moments will be “sacrificial” moments – in fact, as you come to rejoice in the perceiving and doing of the will of the Father, more and more activities will be joyful, and fewer and fewer perceived as sacrificial. It is this change in perception that is the moving of the kingdom upon the earth. It comes only by discipline and sacrifice of selfish desires – but the rewards of the discipline and sacrifice are as bountiful as the promised “hundred fold” harvest. It is this knowledge which gives you courage to labor for the moment, particularly when the labor is not to your liking.

The times of reaping the harvest – the unfathomable joy of actually having the promised return, will be carried in your memory as your tools to make the labor easier during the “tilling” times.

The more you experience in planting, tilling and harvesting – whatever area (field) it is in, the greater your wisdom and knowledge is to prompt a bountiful harvest.

This is consistent with the rewards of using whatever “talents” are provided int the most productive ways possible, and also the more provided, the more required. Each portion is either multiplied or not, and the more portions the more dramatic the contrast of results. The “Son of man coming at an hour you do not expect” compares to the owner of the fields checking out the status of your care of them. You cannot “set up” a good appearance for the “inspection” because you have no notice of the inspection time. Therefore, care must be constant and inspection will always reveal good care of the field because good care never ceases, when the laborer is as concerned about the harvest as the owner.

IT is the laborer who realizes that the owner will share the harvest with him who is able to be motivated to do a good job. If he is lazy he eventually cheats himself. It is those who will remove concentration from self alone who will know this, and thus use the present to provide a future of good return for themselves.

Perception, Thoughts and Emotions

What is the key then to life enjoyed, appreciated and welcomed?

Meditation Thought: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

The thoughts of the mind, the emotions, are not seen yet these are the “substance” of life: it is these which determine the quality of life whether life is welcomed, appreciated and enjoyed – or whether it is a burden and despised.

It is our perception of life itself that determines our thoughts and emotions – but our thoughts and emotions determine our perception.

What is the key then to life enjoyed, appreciated and welcomed, if there is not a “starting point” – if we are already “in the middle” – caught up in a perception affecting thoughts and emotions – and caught up in thoughts and emotions affecting perception?

The key is an absolute outside ourselves: The Truth – the whole Truth of life. Though that absolute of whole truth exists with or without our perception  of it – it is in the perception of it that we interrupt the “merry-go-round” existence we have been living, and become “new creatures” moving on to find new vistas – this gives us a sense of discovery, a new hope, and at one and the same time our perception enhances our thoughts and our emotions, and they enhance our perception.

God constantly “stops the merry-go-round” to give us opportunity to get off – if we but notice; if we are not too preoccupied with our own entrenched position to perceive the change of pace. The “stopping” can come in an infinite variety of ways – anything which is designed to jolt us from our focus on ourselves and our immediate position is an opportunity to jump off the merry-go-round. It can be a thought proposed by another, a circumstance good or bad, an observance of beauty – or ugliness in nature or in action, or participation in a situation which brings out our best – or our worst – thus causing us to analyze it.

Jesus’ message was the most jolting stop of the merry-go-round of which so many were aware. To this day, the awareness of that stopping affecting those of His days on earth make us able to recognize the stopping for us in our day. For Jesus opened up the eyes of those who had become blind to God’s intent by going round and round on the inertia of the law instead of seeking to move on to finding new vistas beyond it.

Today the Holy Spirit which Jesus brought continues to jolt us, asking us to notice that there are places beyond our routine path, our circling path of sameness, which we coast under the the inertia of self and of entrenched habits of perception and thinking and emotions.

We may look “silly” to those who see us suddenly jump off the merry-go-round and run off into the unseen places beyond  – but if they are alert enough to wonder, rather than falling back to their own entrenched position, they too, one day, will jump off to discover what lies beyond.

There is only one way to find the courage to move beyond our “safe”, or at least “familiar” place: it is to call upon our faith enough to believe that there is One who cares, who cares for us wherever we go: that He would not encourage us to leave where we are if there were not better places for us to be.

Powerful Generator

I shall, in exchange for your gift of your self-will, give you the unfathomable power of My will as the motivating force in your life.

Meditation Thought: “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive it, if you have faith.” (Matthew 21:22)

“Your faith is the power generator. It is My energy flowing to you that is to be your motivation and ability to move. But in order to actually “generate” power to bring change, you must be a freely-moving generator, not wedged motionless by ignorance of My energy which seeks to move you, or by concentration of your own concerns to the exclusion of thoughts of others.

It is your faith in Me as loving, good, powerful, righteous, a promoter of order and harmony, that enables you to be flexible and able to be turned easily by My energy. As you turn, then My Spiritual energy is converted to physical energy through you, and it is this physical energy which is directed to wherever it is needed to be an answer to prayer.

I need you – as I needed Jesus – to do visible work. You need me – as Jesus needed me – to do visible works. If you want to go along in the ordinary, non-miracle producing life, that is your privilege and your choice. Stay stuck in your own concerns, your own desires, your own little world.

But if you want to be vibrant, if you want to direct energy to change the world into the character of the Kingdom – then concentrate on Me: My character, My modus operandi, and direct your faith to perceive My will and to accept it gladly, knowing that it will spin you at a dizzying rate of speed to generate good: “good” being defined as all that is a reflection of Me in character and in behavior. Let this thought capture your imagination and your emotions, for it is by these that your faith can be enlarged and enhanced. The larger your faith, and the more it resembles Jesus’ demonstrated faith, the more effectively it will prepare you to be “loose”, thus responding immediately and powerfully to the touch of My energy upon you.

You can change the world – by being My spinning generator directing energy to transform darkness to light, to do great works impossible without this energy. One thing only is needed: your faith and commitment to follow through when your faith draws My energy to you. Trust Me. Believe in My Word as Truth. Stake your life upon this trust and belief. In this way, the very “losing of your life” (by giving it to Me to direct rather than you directing it) shall be the gaining of life for you: I shall, in exchange for your gift of your self-will, give you the unfathomable power of My will as the motivating force in your life.

If My force is turning you freely, at My chosen speed, will not the power thus generated be of the proper voltage to perform the works that I choose for you to do? This is My “Modus Operandi” in every one who is my obedient, devoted child. How many ways must I propose My wisdom and love until it is accepted by My children?

Do not any more delay in believing My messages and acting upon them.

The world needs you to beat swords into pruning hooks. The world needs you to light the darkness of blindness to the Kingdom.

Allow me to turn you freely: you may spin only slowly now, but you shall, as time goes on, work up to our full speed needed for maximum generating power – if you believe and commit yourself to that belief.”

Rejoice

If I carry God-inspired thoughts in my head, have God-inspired love in my heart, do God-inspired acts with my body, and have God’s Spirit enveloping my spirit by my faith that this is so – then nothing shall be impossible to me, because nothing is impossible to God.

Meditation Thought: “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live…May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.” (Psalm 104:33-34)

I rejoice in the Lord, for the Lord first rejoiced in me: He conceived me in love, brought me into existence in love, sustains me in love; He shows me the way to live: by love.

I do not always perceive his works as a loving ministry to me. Nevertheless, His thoughts, His actions (even inaction in allowing me to learn by ‘logical consequences’) and His words are all based on love. Words which seem harsh to me are to turn me away from harmful pursuits – they are not intended to wound me.

So long as I sing to the Lord and rejoice in Him, I am recognizing Him as loving; I am grateful to Him for His care; I am following the path which is best for me in every way.

If I seek to meditate to please Him, then I am thinking thoughts which are life-enhancing; I am in an attitude of listening to His whispered ‘secrets for success’.

If I carry God-inspired thoughts in my head, have God-inspired love in my heart, do God-inspired acts with my body, and have God’s Spirit enveloping my spirit by my faith that this is so – then nothing shall be impossible to me, because nothing is impossible to God and He is in control of my mind, my heart, my body and my spirit. When God controls all of these, then my emotions will fall into line with the other areas of my life, sooner or later. That completes the ‘new creature in Christ’ – the baby grown into maturity: no longer demanding, rebellious, arrogant, brash – but reflecting the character of the Father: loving, giving, righteous, forgiving, wise and adhering to the principles of the highest order of the best that life, spiritual and physical, can offer.

The rains may come
And winds may blow.
I tremble not, nor fear.
I am sheltered,
Secure inside
My Father’s house.
To be here,
Where peace, and light, and love
Bring joy unto my soul
Is the birthing of a grateful heart,
And life transformed.
I look upon the chaos
Beyond my safe abode,
And give thanks
To Him who brought me here.
Praising my Father for sending One to rescue,
That I may dwell in ‘the shadow of the Most High’ –
For His shadow
Tells me He is here with me;
I am safe; I am happy, and at peace.
For I am home,
The place where love gladdens me,
Where the rains and winds cannot reach;
Where I am nourished, rested, and become content.
I put the restless striving behind,
Knowing that the world beyond this home
Seeks to use me, abuse me,
Though it beckoned me by promises
of my independence – freedom from the confines of my home.
The world became my prison,
And I a slave,
To forces evil,
And dwelling in dark places.
Then He came, opening the door to the prison,
Bringing light and freedom to return home.
It is not the home I left –
Not the stifling, cramped place I’d seen –
But glowing now with the light of truth,
the beauty of wisdom,
the graciousness of love perceived:
As spacious as I could desire,
For I need only space enough
To do my Father’s will,
Living in His shadow,
And knowing his love.

Listen to Him

But I cannot be as Jesus with the mere desire, nor with my own determination, nor my own strength. I need the Holy Spirit to be the added dimension:

Meditation Thought: “…a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5)

And so today, the soft voice of the Spirit says to our spirit: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

I must seek to know Jesus that I may know my Father, and thus know who I am as his child.

I would be as Jesus: seeking the will of the father, doing good – and being alert and energetic and helpful and joyful while expressing myself through the flesh.

But I cannot be as Jesus with the mere desire, nor with my own determination, nor my own strength. I need the Holy Spirit to be the added dimension: it is the Holy Spirit which made Jesus more than a man, more than a prophet or a doer of good. And so Jesus passed to me the inheritance of the Spirit, if I but receive it.

The power and energy of the kingdom is released when I allow the Spirit to control my human desires and human activities.

And then the results are as effective and as visible in the world as if a voice proclaimed to all who know me: “It is not she, but Christ whom you have seen doing these works. ‘In Him I am well pleased; listen to him.'”

An Open Door

Ask, seek, knock: you will learn, you will find, you will have the barrier removed – the door opened – to the kingdom.

Meditation Thought: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

Your physical existence and your physical environment are your artistic tools with which to express your physical life.

You have understood rightly the spiritual affecting the physical – but you have not understood that your choice of living out the physical is reflected directly into the spiritual and eternal.

Though the spiritual precedes the physical, once both exist, the one affects the other.

You have not perceived that the physical is as necessary as it actually is. If you get enthused about expressing yourself through the physical as an act which looses and binds in the spiritual, you will accomplish more visible results in your life.

You like to contemplate and dream – fine. But do not overuse time in this manner.

To use energy to improve physical manifestations is not an inferior occupation: it is merely another expression of your life to complement the intellectual and spiritual aspects.

Therefore, when through circumstances and the prompting of he Spirit you are led to be aware of physical needs or desirable physical deeds – do them – gladly, enthusiastically, competently. The quality of performance is reflected in the spiritual realm as surely as the quality of your spiritual life is reflected in your physical life.

You must be as willing to express one as the other, depending upon the requirements of the moment.

The “keys of the kingdom” are the principles upon which creation – in my image, as pure and holy, as creative and lovely, as peace and harmony, as wholeness and unity – is based.

Wherever you bring filth onto being purified, sacrilege into holiness, inertia into creativity, ugliness into loveliness, strife into peace, discord into harmony, fragmentation into wholeness, and friction into unity, you are using the keys of the kingdom to open it wide, to bring the fragmentation – the separation – of spiritual and physical into unity. You combine the kingdom and the earth, as the original combination was conceived and came into existence. You return to the innocence and purity of life without sin. This is the reflection of the Father; this is the imitation of the Son; this is life as it was intended to be: by choice, not by demand.

You do not understand much of what exists, either physically or spiritually, but you do know that there are expressions in both areas, you do know that you are capable – intended, to be fully expressed in both.

Ask, seek, knock: you will learn, you will find, you will have the barrier removed – the door opened – to the kingdom.

You have asked where the keys may be found, you have sought them – and you have found them – in the Word, in the Spirit and in the physical.

Now walk through the open door, as you insert the keys and turn them through the measure of faith I have given you being used: in the spiritual through worship and prayer – in the physical through constant proper use and improvement.

Truly, what you bind and loose on earth shall be bound and loosed in heaven.

In the binding and the loosing shall be the creation of a “new heaven and a new earth” – fitting together, enhancing one another, becoming a whole out of fragmentation.

Hidden Treasure

You cannot find hidden treasure unless you make effort to dig – until you till the field which is your responsibility.

Meditation Thought: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44)

You cannot find hidden treasure unless you make effort to dig – until you till the field which is your responsibility.

If you are lazy, allowing the field to lie untended, you never find the hidden treasure.

There is treasure in every person’s field – if they work the ground, doing the job assigned them, they shall find it. And once they find it, their life shall be transformed. They were poor – and now are rich. They were ordinary – and now are extraordinary. They can have a complete change of lifestyle.

They can choose to use the treasure to enhance their life and other lives, or they can leave it lie, hoarded, but making no more difference than before finding it. This is what happens when God is perceived, but not obeyed, when the Spirit whispers, but is ignored, when Jesus is known historically but not experientially.

You have found treasure in your field. And you shall have it grow and grow the more you put it to use, particularly to aid others. When discipline is difficult, when emotionally you are sad, when circumstances seem discouraging – those are the times to work diligently, knowing that the day will come that is the interest-bearing time of the treasure: you will see visible results of investing your treasure to help others; you benefit, as have they.

This works in the material realm – believe that is works in the spiritual realm. Your joy shall be great if you believe and if you act upon that belief.

Rescued and Restored

What are stumbling blocks but stepping stones when one is transformed by the nurturing Light?

Meditation Thought: “There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths.” (Job 24:13) “I am the light of the world: whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

All who stumble in the dark, and who rebel against the dark, thus seeking the light, despite all obstacles, despite all errors in the direction of movement, shall find the light.

The light is difficult to be found only for a little while – only for the time necessary to: soften a hardened heart, tame a rebellious will, open up a closed mind, teach a foolish one wisdom, cleanse a sin-stained past, and to make real the promise within the conception of the one who seeks light. That is, to make the vision of light so intense that there is no doubt that the light exists and that the one who seeks it will find it.

And when the light dawns, when it is seen in reality, just as it was seen in the vision, then is a totally new life possible.

Consider the contrast of living in a totally dark prison – and of living on the mountaintop, where vistas are seen in every direction: where light enables abundant growth, and nourishes all living things – where light reveals the truth of all which is under it.

This contrast is the comparison of life in the flesh without the Light of the Spirit within and living with the Spirit within.

The one living in the dark confines of prison may, by the description of the vistas coming from the mountaintop, be able to conceive somewhat of the life lived on a mountaintop – but cannot truly understand nor feel the reality of that life.

Only as the prisoner is brave enough to grope for the key offered, and to grope for the lock, and to make effort to fit the key in the lock, to turn it, and to walk out of that confining place to blink in the light, and to adjust to it, can he begin to know experientially the total ‘new creature’ life in a ‘new’ environment (the mountaintop kingdom). The joy of realization of what he has left and what he is experiencing is almost unbearably sweet, almost unbelievably exciting, almost impossible to comprehend.

But the ‘almost’ is not the same as ‘definitely’. This is our cause for leaping in the ecstasy of thanksgiving! This is our power to live a new mountaintop life! This is the knowledge that the words which described the mountaintop life, and thus led us to find the key to release us to this life, were not exaggerated words, but even those words were not adequate to describe the truth, to describe the quality of the light, or the quality of life lived within that revealing light.

When we allow our minds, our emotions, our bodies, our spirits, to flow freely, to go freely over all this wonderful new terrain, we dance with delight of constant new discoveries of beauty, wisdom, truth – of love encountered along the way! Of Love accompanying us along the way.

What are stumbling blocks but stepping stones when the tiny emaciated prisoner is transformed by the nurturing Light into the grand, ‘filled-out’ figure: a strong, wise, willing, and eager new creature which is the reflection of the Creator of all he surveys and encounters, which is the container of the inherited wealth of the Creator, and which is the authority of the Creator expressed into the world covered by Light.

This ‘new creature’ did not evolve by chance, or by self – but by being transferred from prison to freedom.

One came to offer release – and the prisoner chose to seek a new place when the opportunity “knocked at the prison door”.

The ‘Rescuer’ comes in many forms – at many times – trying, always trying, to convince the prisoner that the escape from prison will lead to a better place.

There is no law which is broken when the prisoner ‘escapes’, no punishment for his leaving prison: the ‘law’ that sentenced him to prison was the confining of his spirit in a body which gives expression to his freedom of choice.

But the ‘law’ is his law: the ‘law’ is subject to his interpretation of that law: thus it cannot be ‘broken’ by him, thus causing him harm. It can only be perceived by him, and acted upon by him.

The moment he realizes that he has authority over the law, and he tells the Rescuer of the moment to give him the key to the prison door, and he takes authority over all who would try to tell him that their interpretation of the law is more authoritative than his, thus keeping him in prison – then not only is the prisoner rescued, he is restored to his rightful prominence as being one in authority.

He is not the highest authority on the mountaintop nor over the prison, but he is privileged, he is endowed with wisdom, he is endowed with authority, he is endowed with power, he is given knowledge. The key words are ‘endowed with ‘ and ‘given’: so long as he recognizes to whom he owes allegiance and all that is given to him, he is in a great position and leads a fulfilled, exciting and abundant life.