The Kingdom Within
The concept of God that we have been taught in the system of Christianity is, for the most part, a wrong concept. We have been taught that God is "way out there"somewhere
in another realm called heaven, and that if we accept Jesus and do the best we can, God will bless us and we will go to heaven when we die. We are not taught how to live by the Spirit of God that is within us.
The religious system has taught us always to seek God in an outward way for our needs. This has given us a false concept of God. This has caused us to seek everything of God as thoughit were outside of us. We think that by all kinds of religious activity, what we need will come into us and bless us, or heal us, or prosper us. In actuality, everything that God i
s is already within us, waiting for us to discover the truth that God in us is sufficient to meet every need. CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY.
We have a "Santa Claus God". God does not withhold His blessings from anyone at any time.He makes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Whenever we ask God toheal us or prosper us, we have a wrong concept. What we are saying is,"God, You have all these good things and are withholding them from me." If you do not think God has all these things that He is not givingyou, why would you ask Him for them? If it were true that God was withholding something from you, you could not get Him to change His mind by begging, crying or pleading. We cannot bribe God by our Bible reading, praying, crying, fasting, our goodness -- or anything else that we might try. The only hope we have is in discovering the truth of what Jesus taught:
"The Kingdom of God is within you"
(Luke 17:21). Jesus said in John
7:38, "He that believes in me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." In John 4:14, He said "He that drinks of the water that I give him, it shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life."
To have a proper concept of these things, we must realize who and where
Christ is. The word Christ means "God’s anointed". Jesus was called the Christ. As the Christ,He was the fullness of God. Colossians 2:9 says, in the Amplified version,
"For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form -- giving complete expression to the Divine nature." I don’t think any of us would have a problem believing that, but we have never been taught the next verse:
"And you are in Him, made full and have come
to fullness of life -- in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead: Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, and reach full spiritual stature." Ephesians 1:23
(Amplified) speaks of the Church,
"Which is His body, the fullness
of Him Who fills all in all -- for in that body lives the full measure of Him
who makes everything complete, and Who fills everything everywhere [with
Himself]."After meditating and praying over these verses for some time, we will begin to have some understanding of how to fellowship with God. We will have our concept changed about how we are to pray. When we go to God, we won’t ask for so many things.
We will begin to realize that Christ is the fullness of God, and Christ in all His fullness is now being poured out from within us. God is at all times pouring His Spirit out, filling everything everywhere with Himself. When we see someone in lack or in need, instead of asking and begging God to meet that need, we realize that in us dwells the fullness of God to meet that need. We turn to the Spirit of God within us and we realize that "I and my Father are one"
"He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with the Lord"
(1 Cor. 6:17). So from(John 10:30), and
within me, from within my spirit, I release the ability of God to go forth and
do His will. My prayer then becomes not an asking of God, but a realizing of
His ability within me to meet the needs of others.
God’s desire is not that we ask Him to heal the sick and bless with finances or supply whatever the need, but that we yield our bodies to Him. He desires to fill us and flow through us to meet the needs of humanity. God's desire is to flow through a many-membered body with all of His
riches in glory. There is no greater joy in all the earth than being filled with God’s presence and then sensing that presence flow out of you and into someone else, meeting their need. Paul told
the Ephesians that the Church is His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:29-30). God fills us with Himself so that we become channels of blessing to the whole world. When you pray, seek after God and His wisdom. Seek Him for His light and glory to be revealed in you. Hunger and thirst after His presence, so that you may experience His resurrection power coming alive in you, enabling you to do the works of God.
What a joy it is when you begin to understand that everything of God that you have been seeking is on the inside of you, just waiting to be revealed. Then is fulfilled those words
of old,
"Arise and shine; for your light is come, and the glory of
the Lord has risen upon you" (Isaiah 60:1). As I was sitting in the quiet one day, the Lord spoke this to me:
"I am not withholding
anything from anyone at any time. I am always pouring forth My Life, love,
healing and blessings. I am your life, your healing, blessing, or whatever you
need. When you are set free from something or healed, it is not because I have
suddenly changed toward you and decided to bless you. It is because you have
changed toward Me, or opened to Me and come into My light. It is that which has
allowed My Life to flow out from your innermost being to meet your need.
Everything that you need is in My Spirit dwelling within you. You need not
reach out to Me in an outward way, but turn within and contact My Spirit within
you; then I will flow from your innermost being to meet your need. He that
believes in Me, out of his innermost being will flow living water that will
bring healing and deliverance wherever it flows. There is nothing in this
universe that can hinder you except your belief in another power to do so. I am
God, and besides Me there is no God who can hinder you, no other power able to
stop you. I am constantly filling everything everywhere with Myself. Open to the
flowing of My Spirit within you, and I will flow into your mind and r
enew it
into My mind. I will flow into your will and subdue it, and make it altogether
pliable to do My will. I will flow into your emotion, so that My Love will flow
out of you. Stop having faith in the power of evil to hinder you. I do not
withhold from one and give to another. I am always so available, so rich, and
so free -- just like the air that you breathe. Come to Me and I will rest you.
I live and move and have My being within you."
Many people are hungry today to see God. The Word teaches us that we are the visible expression of the invisible God. You or I may be the only expression of God that people see. We
need to seek God until we can say with the Apostle Paul,
"I live; yet not I, but Christ lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2:20). God is a Spirit,
and by consecrating our bodies to Him, He is localized within us and can flow
to the world.
Many today seek to see Jesus in His physical form. However, if you were to see Jesus without coming to realize that you too are to be a son of God, then seeing Him might not help you all that much in a practical way. Romans 8:29 says that
Jesus was the firstborn among many brethren.
Knowledge vs. ExperienceLet’s look again at Ephesians 4:17-18.
"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord,
that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart."This is where most of the Church has been for two thousand years. A great mistake we have made is in being satisfied with good teaching alone. We think that because we know something of God intellectually, we have it. I know that God is in me; I know that Jesus lives in me; I know that I am the visible expression of the invisible God. Because we know these things, most of the time we settle for that knowledge without having the experience of it being made real in our lives. We must begin to enter into the experience of being the visible expression of the invisible God. We fail to seek for these things because of wrong concepts. I was taught as a young Christian that I should not seek for experience, that I should just accept everything without accompanying feeling. Now, I realize that natural feelings can get us into trouble, but to not feel and experience spiritual things means that you do not have real faith.
Faith will produce feelings. If we know something only intellectually, without th
e experience, it does not do us much good. The Word of God tells us of many wonderful things that belong to the one who has received God. If we never experience them, then what good are they? Paul says that
we are seated with Christ in heavenly places
(Eph. 2:6). We should hunger after God until we walk in the reality of this, and not think that we have it just because we know it.
Our knowledge of the Word must become experiential. There is nothing wrong w
ith knowledge. To know that Jesus lives in us is wonderful. To know that we are filled with His Spirit is also wonderful. The problem comes when we settle for only the knowledge, instead of seeking God for the reality. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, "Knowledge puffs up, but Love builds up"
(1 Cor. 8:1). Knowledge in itself can be very satisfying. Many Christians today
Picture by Carlos Iggy Shelton on his Online discernmentalist mafia spoof site are very satisfied with their knowledge of God. Some have great knowledge of the Word, and have become teachers without the experience. William Law said many years ago, in his book "The Power of the Spirit", that we are foolish to think that we can
go to Bible School and learn how to put off Adam and put on Christ. You cannot
know in reality what you have not experienced. Many today have been raised in
Church and know all about Jesus being the Savior of the world, but they have
never experienced His life-giving power to change their lives.
I said for years that "Jesus lives in me", yet I had very little experience of that knowledge. I was taught in Pentecost that because I spoke in tongues, I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I used to ask God, "If I am filled with the Holy Spirit, why am I so ungodly and doing so many things that are contrary to a Holy Spirit?" The Christian religious system is so full of confusion.
That is why Revelation calls her "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots" (Rev. 17:5). Babylon means confusion. There is
no hope
for that religious system. The only thing we can do is scrap it. That is why Revelation says, "Come out of her, my people" (Revelation 18:4). It cannot be fixed.
Paul says we are "alienated from the life of God through ignorance" (Eph. 4:18). Ignorance does not mean stupidity. Ignorance simply means that you do not know. I was a Christian many years in ignorance. I did not know that I could experience the quickening, life-giving Spirit of God in me to bring me into the reality of what I knew. You can have a lot of Bible knowledge and still be ignorant. We have also been taught a great deal of ignorance in Christianity. We are taught defeat and failure. We are taught how powerful the devil is and how he can defeat us. We are not taught that it is possible in this life to walk as Jesus walked. The Word clearly reveals that not only is it possible, but God expects us to mix faith with His Word and make it real in our lives.
The Word says, "He that abides in Him ought to walk even as He walked" (1 John 2:6). If we are not walking as Jesus walked, then we need to seek Him until His Spirit arises in us.
These verses are talking to "Being alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart" Eph 4:18 us, the present day people of God! We have had our understanding darkened to the abundant life that God has made available to us through Jesus.
Jesus did not go to the cross only so you could die and go to heaven. He died that you "might have life and that more abundantly" (John 10:10). The Life of God lies dormant within us. When that Life begins to function, we begin to change. We don’t try to change; it is a natural process of His Life coming alive within us. The Apostle Paul said that we
should be constantly transformed from one degree of glory to another (2
Cor. 3:18). To be continued
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