The Gospel of the Kingdom

The Character of God in You

The message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God has been veiled to most of creation for over two thousand years. These are the days when God is taking the cover off, and the light of the revelation of the Kingdom of God is being revealed in its completeness. The scripture is being fulfilled, "Arise and shine, for your light is come" (Is. 60:1) and the glory of the Lord is being revealed as never before, upon and from within His people.

The gospel of the Kingdom of God is so much more than we learned in traditional Christianity. It is not a gospel of being saved from hell to go to heaven. The gospel of the Kingdom is not for after you die, but "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you now." Most Christians do not realize what they inherit when they call on the name of Jesus and become born of the Spirit. Multitudes of people sit with the seed of God on the inside of them, yet they haven’t found the way to enter into the presence and spirit of God within them. They do not know how to escape the corruption that is in the world; they cannot get free from the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life. The gospel of the Kingdom will set you free and enable you to live godly in this present evil age.

Nations will come to the brightness of the rising of the people of God in these days. The Kingdom of God will not just fall out of the sky. Jesus will not just suddenly come down and set up His Kingdom. Christ is coming, but His coming is not just an event that will happen outside of us, He will also appear in us.

"He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" (2 Thess. 1:10).

"When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory" (Psalm 102:16).

"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:4).

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

"And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee" (Zech. 14:5).

"To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints" (1 Thess. 3:13).

God’s People Are Coming Together

There are three ways for us to go in these days. We can go the way of the world, the way of religious practices, or we can arise with the glorious Church of God that is coming forth clothed in majesty and honor. There is a people who have given themselves totally to be possessed by God—a people who have renounced self because of getting a glimpse of the true nature of God that abides within them.

These are the days when the people of God are coming together, coming out from all those places where they have been scattered in the dark and cloudy day, during the falling away and the apostasy. God’s people are coming out from the tombs in which they have been imprisoned—all the old dead theological teachings and dead denominational movements. They are coming together as the people of God, a glorious Church who is laying down everything of the old self, everything of the flesh, and is beginning to walk in the reality of the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The people of God who are experiencing the Kingdom of God are the most persecuted church on the earth, because we are not talking about being like God someday after we die. We are not talking about a theory, but we are beginning to experience and walk in the reality of the Kingdom of God being manifested within us today.

The gospel of the Kingdom and the living and abiding Word of God will divide you, and separate you, and purify you, and give you a clear and proper understanding of the Kingdom of God in you, not someday, but today.

The teaching commonly called The Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, 6, & 7, reveals to us the nature of the people of God who have discovered the reality of the indwelling Spirit of God within them. I do not for a moment believe that a person is saved today and instantly changed into the full nature and character of God. I also do not believe we should be saved for any length of time and not experience in some measure being transformed into His likeness and image. We should not believe the lie that we must wait until we die to be like Him. If you would die today, you would be no more like Him than you are now. Death has no power to change you into His likeness; in fact, the Word teaches that death is an enemy. Death is not your friend. Most of God’s people have their hope in the wrong things. Their hope is to die and go to heaven or to be raptured, and these are both false hopes. Our hope is clearly defined by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 1:27, "Christ in you is the hope of Glory." Paul also said in Philippians 1:20,21, "According to my earnest expectations and my hope, that in nothing shall I be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body . . . For to me to live is Christ." Our hope is to see the fullness of God arise in us so that we become a habitation of God in, by, and through the Spirit.

Everything that we read in the Bible is significant. Everything that is written has meaning for us. Jesus was about to begin, here in Matthew 5, to reveal the life and character of a person who lives in the Kingdom of God. He began to teach, "If you want to be in My Kingdom, if you want to rule and reign with Me, this is a picture of your life and nature. If you want to enter the realities of the Kingdom, this is what you will seek: a character that reproduces the ‘Sermon on the Mount’."

If you want to be in the Kingdom, you don’t have any choice but to accept this kind of life. Now this word is not for any condemnation. There is no way the natural human life can live this way; this is the life of God that is in every believer that will come forth and totally possess you. The issue is, do you just want a "ticket to heaven" or do you want to be transformed into His image? Do you want Him to take your life and replace it with His?

The Word teaches us that we are joint heirs with Him. That means that everything He has belongs to you. We give Him everything that we are and then He gives us everything He is.

An Elevated Consciousness

"And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him" (Matt. 5:1).

To be able to see and understand the things of God, you have to come up and away from the things of the world. Your consciousness must be elevated above natural thinking and understanding. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). The natural mind would never accept the fact that we can live as Jesus taught in Matthew 5!

John said in The Revelation 21:10 that "He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that great city, the Holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God." To see a heavenly vision, you will notice that the prophets were lifted up. Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:1, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."

We all know that our position in Christ is that we are seated with him in heavenly places, but our consciousness must be lifted up to the place where we walk in the experience of that reality or it does us no good. Our consciousness must be lifted up above the natural realm, lifted above the things of the earth, and the things that are coming on the earth, to be able to see the spiritual things that are now being revealed to his people.

True Deliverance

What Jesus reveals here in Matthew 5-7 is the nature and the character of the Christian. There is a deliverance ministry today such as has never been seen before, and it’s called receiving the Word of God. If you are in a dark room you don’t bind the darkness, you just turn on the light. For years, God’s people have been taught to bind the devil and fight him when all they needed to do was to receive and walk in the light of the Word. "God is light and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). If you will seek God for a revelation of His Spirit within you and you get a taste of that, you will no longer need to bind the devil. Darkness cannot stand the light, and if you will fill your consciousness with the Word of God, your whole body will be filled with light. Deliverance today is not a man who has a great deliverance ministry, but deliverance is in the light of the Word of God. "The entrance of thy Word brings Light" (Ps. 119:130). It was said of Jesus, "He cast out the spirits with his word."

The biggest lie of the carnal mind is that you cannot live godly. You know by experience that it is impossible, because you have tried it and failed. We must realize that our experience does not nullify the Word of God. If you will seek for God, you will find him within yourself. Then you will know the reality of living a godly life and you will watch yourself being transformed into His image.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 5:3).

Some interpret the above verse this way, "Blessed in spirit are the poor." They teach that poverty causes you to be blessed. This is why the Roman Church has a poverty vow for their priests. Some believe that if you want to be happy and blessed you must be poor.

On the other hand, some teach that if you walk in the reality of the Kingdom, you will always be prosperous, thinking that great gain is a sign of godliness. A poor Christian can be full of the riches of Christ and a rich Christian can be bankrupt of the riches of Christ. The things of the Spirit are always a matter of the heart.

To Be Poor in Spirit Is To Be Empty

To be poor in Spirit is speaking of our human spirit. What does it mean to be poor in our spirit? If you are poor you are empty. Before you can be filled in your spirit with God, you must be emptied of everything else. If you want to fill something, you can’t fill it if it’s full; it must be emptied first. We must be emptied in our spirit. Every day when we come to God, we must get fresh manna. We must empty ourselves and not hold on to yesterday’s manna and be satisfied with our past experiences. I may have enjoyed the Lord so much yesterday, but I can’t live on yesterday’s experience. I must empty myself and be filled with God every day. I may have experienced the heights of God yesterday, but that is not good enough for today. The Kingdom of God is in the ever present now. You cannot live in the experiences of the past; you must live in God now. "Behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). If people could learn to live in the ever present now they would begin to find it very easy to walk in the spirit. What keeps you from living and walking in the spirit now is that you look back at your failures of the past or you look to the future, thinking that some day you are going to be better, and you miss the Kingdom of God, which is NOW!!

Today, this very moment, is salvation available to us. If we sinned last week or the moment before, we can experience forgiveness now. If we were on the mountaintop yesterday, we can still experience fellowship with God now. We may not always be on the mountaintop, but we can always experience the flowing of the Spirit of God within.

Do Not Hold On to the Old Ways

To be poor in spirit also means not to hold on to the old things. God is always on the move, constantly bringing you into greater understanding of His Word. You find many people today who are proud of still being in a past move of God, still holding on to the old way and the old things. To be poor in spirit, you must empty yourself of the old things, and give up the old way. You must always take the new way and the new move of the Spirit. You can read in church history how God has used various men and women and moves of His Spirit to recover His people back to His original intention of building a tabernacle for His Spirit to dwell in. God wants to live, move, and have His being fully manifested in and through humanity. We must glean from all the past moves of God and then let Him take us on into perfection. Many of God’s people are satisfied with what they have of the past. They are full, and think the revelations they have had in the past are enough. "I am full now, God. I am satisfied being in an old move. I don’t want to change. I am happy here; I am already full."

To be poor in spirit is also to have a proper attitude toward yourself. One who is poor in spirit realizes his need for more of God in his life and is not afraid to confess it. You may be into positive confession and say, "I have all things and have need of nothing," but I have to say I need more of the reality of God in my life every day. We can give a lot of lip service to God, but if we don’t realize our need, and our shortcomings, and are not seeking to become like Him in every way, we will never know the reality of His life rising within us to scatter all our enemies.

If we are truly poor in spirit, we will realize our helplessness and our hopelessness as far as being able to live the kind of life that Jesus teaches us to live in Matthew 5-7. How can we, as mere carnal men, ever live the God-kind of life? We realize we cannot do it with our carnal nature. It is hopeless! This realization makes us feel empty and poor in spirit and causes us to cry out to God for the reality of His indwelling Spirit to stand up within us and bring deliverance from our carnal nature. As we begin to seek God, a transformation starts to take place within us and we find that effortlessly, the life of God grows within us. In a small way at first, in different areas of our life, we begin to manifest the life of God. The river of life will begin to flow in us. Let us be like Abraham, who learned to trust in God, Who gives life to the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were. You might be dead to the kind of life that Jesus talks about here. You may not be able to walk in the abundant life that Jesus offers, but God gives hope to the dead, and He will cause His life to come alive within you.

A Prideful Attitude

"Two men went up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week and give tithes of all that I possess’" (Luke 18:10-12).

We must not allow that kind of attitude to develop. We can look at others and be just like this Pharisee and thank God that we are better than they. That is a critical religious spirit, and it is one of the most damaging spirits in the Church today. This comparing ourselves with others’ weaknesses can give us a false sense of worth. Whenever you criticize or judge another person, the only thing you are saying is that you are better than that person. One who has been exposed to the light of God, and who realizes his need, could never judge or criticize another.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." This is not some place you go when you die or something you get after you die, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Living in the Kingdom is something to be experienced now. We do not experience this by natural means, ways or methods, but the Spirit of God in us will bring us into this reality. Don’t worry so much about being good, or failing; just seek fellowship with God, and day-by-day you will find yourself becoming more like Him. 

The Realization of the Kingdom

The realization of the Kingdom comes when you begin to experience the Kingdom. The reality of the Kingdom is to just know that it is real. Many today know the Kingdom of God is real, but they have no experience. They may even be able to teach about it, but have little or no experience of it.

You can know the reality of good food by reading a cookbook. You can even study it, and learn all the recipes, and then teach others all about it, without any experience of the actual mixing of the ingredients and the eating of it. Most of Christianity today is like this. We know all the doctrines; we know Jesus lives in us; we know so much, yet so many are not filled with Jesus, but with resentment, bitterness, backbiting, hurts, and anger, and they do not know how to live the Christian life. Our Christian bookstores are filled with self-help books and psychology on how to be a Christian and how to live the Christian life. We even have books on how to love our wife and children! There is nothing wrong with these books or the reading of them, but I must ask this question: "If Jesus truly lives in us, why do we need them?" We can learn to be a better person, but what we need is Jesus living in us! If Jesus lives his life in us, we won’t need all the "how to" books. Please don’t be offended with these words, but examine your own life and see if Jesus is realized in you or whether you are manifesting self. The Word says, "They will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears . . . always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 4:3, 3:7).

To have the realization of the Kingdom, you must begin to experience the life of God coming alive in you, filling your consciousness with the awareness of the ability of God to live His life within you. As Jesus said, "You must be born again." Everyone who is born by the Spirit of God has the realization of the Kingdom of God. To be born again means just what it says—you must have another life (the life of God himself) born into you. You cannot be born again without something happening to you on the inside. There are thousands of Christians, especially in America, who have an intellectual gospel, and have never experienced the touch of the Spirit of God on their lives. Oh, they know and believe that Jesus is their Savior, but, they have no experience. To be persuaded that Jesus died for you and to accept him as your Savior without an experience is not enough. YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN! There must be an inner experience that takes place in your life. We must receive life from above. To enter into the realization of the Kingdom is to have the King himself born within your heart. The life of the King, the zoe life of God, the nature and character of God, must come alive within your consciousness.

The Manifestation of the Kingdom

Not many of God’s people manifest and reveal to the world the reality of God being lived in their lives. That’s what the Kingdom of God is all about—having the character and nature of God revealed in humanity.

The principles that Jesus laid down in Matthew 5-7 are not a new set of rules and regulations. Jesus did not say "To be a Christian you must try to live this way." He did not say, "You must do this and not do that." What He is saying in the Sermon on the Mount is, "If you are a Christian, truly born of my Spirit, something happens on the inside of you and you will begin to live this kind of life. This is a growing and a transforming process, not a natural learning process. My life will begin to operate and manifest within you as you put to death the old man (for this corruptible must put on incorruption). As you do this, the New Man will come forth."

We Begin With Baptism

We begin the Kingdom life with baptism. "Teach and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of (not the names of) the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19).

Until you are willing to be baptized, until you’re willing to go down into the death waters of self-life, you will never be a disciple, or be able to manifest the Kingdom life. You may know all about it, and even experience it to a degree, but you will never manifest it until you’re willing to die out to self. If you are not willing, just seek God and He will make you willing. Baptism and discipleship always go together. Paul said, in Romans 6:3, "So many of us as have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death." If you think that going down into the water changes you, without an inward reality, you are sadly mistaken. To baptize someone is not to just simply put them into the water. As you baptize, you must believe that as you are baptizing them in water, you are literally placing them into God. They must be willing, and clearly understand, that as they go down into the death waters they are placing themselves into God and they are not to come up the same. They are leaving in the death waters that old man, the old self-life.

In Whose Name Are We To Be Baptized?

Paul said, "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). There are so many different doctrines about baptism, but not much teaching on the experience of it. Some teach that you must be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Others teach that you are not baptized unless you are baptized in the name of Jesus. To be baptized into the name of Jesus is to be baptized into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Word says that Jesus was the embodiment, the fullness of the Godhead. The Father dwelt within him in this fullness; the Spirit was given to Him without measure. So if you want to be baptized in the name of Jesus, that’s wonderful, because the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is complete in the name of Jesus who is the fullness of that name. If you want to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that’s wonderful too, but if you start to fight over which way to baptize according to your concepts and opinions, you might go down into the water and not even experience baptism. You may argue over which way to baptize, by pouring water over the head or going under the water. You would be much better off to understand and experience the spiritual aspect of baptism. When you are willing to fall into the ground and die, when you are willing to put yourself aside, you go down into the water and leave the old life buried, and come up with the resurrected, transcendent life of God Himself. This happens simply by believing what the Word says. By faith we are resurrected to a new life, even the uncreated, indestructible life of God Himself. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. If you have not put on Christ, you have not been baptized, no matter how many times you go down into the water. To be baptized is to be immersed into the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The water is an outward sign of an inward reality. There is a change of heart that must take place. This is the miracle of baptism, a work of grace, done by God simply through believing.

Baptism is really termination, and germination. It terminates everything of the old creation and it germinates everything of the new creation. If you have not yet given the Holy Spirit permission to terminate you, you have not yet entered experientially into the Kingdom. You must be terminated before you enter the Kingdom of God. The Church today is not a shining burning testimony to the Kingdom of God, because of the mixture, the impurity that is allowed to remain.

Is It Possible To Live God’s Life?

Early in my Christian life, I was hungry to be like Jesus, and I asked the question many times: "Is it possible to live the sermon on the Mount?" I never found one person tell me it was possible. They told me it was a goal to reach for, but it wasn’t possible until you die! Jesus never said, "Try hard, do the best you can, and after you die you will be like Me," yet this is what most people believe. What He did say was, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like this . . ." If you truly experience the Kingdom life, then Matthew 5-7 will be your experience. Jesus said, "Blessed and happy are you if you’re like this—poor in spirit, mournful, meek, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker and persecuted." This is the character of God being reproduced within humanity. Again I must stress, this is not the natural human life. You could never be this way through natural ways or methods. This is the life of God that you have inherited through the new birth.

Blessed Are They That Mourn

Jesus said, "Blessed are they that mourn." Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? The lack of mourning among God’s people shows the true spiritual condition of the Church. If we are filled with the Spirit and reality of God, and are manifesting the love of Jesus, how can we not be mournful over the condition of God’s people? The whole system of Christianity is sick from the head to the feet, and most don’t even know it.

The Church is so full of hype, so full of the prosperity and health gospel, that the saints of God have no time to develop intimate relations with Him. God does not just want to give you health and wealth. God wants to totally possess you. He wants all of you, not just your time in church. If God fills you with His life until you are utterly transformed into, and conformed to His Son, you will have all things. If you seek after anything else, even something from Him, you may get it and still not be a spiritual person. Some of the most gifted men in the Church today are not spiritual men.

If there is not a sense of mourning in us at all, then our spiritual life is not in a proper condition. Why do Christians not mourn over their present condition? How can we look at our life that is so short of the love life of God and not mourn? We do not need to feel condemnation, but we should have a burning desire to be conformed into His image. When we see ourselves in the light of God, we will fall at His feet and cry out to Him.

If there is no mourning in your life, it is usually due to the lack of true repentance. It is not popular these days to preach against sin. Now I know there was a time in the Church when all you heard was preaching on sin and repentance, and it did give people a sin consciousness, but now we have gone over to the other side where we don’t mourn over our shortcomings anymore. We think we always must have a happy face and think only of our righteousness before God. We must be happy and bubbly and never downcast. There is a realm in God where you can experience that, but I dare say very few live there. If you are in mourning, people will come to you and say, "What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you have the joy of the Lord?" They are not used to seeing God’s people mourn.

When some people sin today, instead of repenting, they start making a positive confession, "Well, bless God, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus." God tries to deal with you and you say, "Devil, I do not receive that condemnation! That was my old man and I’m not under the law anymore, but under the grace. Take that, Mr. Devil." That may be the truth, but are you using positive confession to cover up the fact that you are missing God in your daily life?

Righteous Disposition

Righteousness means right standing with God. If all you have is a positional righteousness, you’re in a heap of trouble. Your righteousness before God in your position must become your disposition. God’s righteousness must be worked into you until you are experientially walking in it. All of God’s characteristics must be wrought into your being, not just your mentality. You can speak positively and quote the Word all day long, but if your heart is not right, if you are in rebellion, it will do you no good. We should be positive and speak positively, but not in order to cover up our carnal nature.

Isaiah 61:1 says, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek, He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of prison to them that are bound, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God, and to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion [Zion is the city of God. Today the Church is the city, the dwelling place, the habitation of God.], to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." This is why Jesus said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

I say again that there is no mourning because there is no real repentance in most of our lives. It is a very good practice at the end of the day to open yourself to the Lord, and ask Him by His Spirit to reveal to you and bring to your remembrance all the areas in which you missed Him. Most of us know that to sin simply means to "miss the mark", and we miss the mark many times in a day and sometimes don’t even realize it. Pray for the light of God! These things must be by the Spirit of God; no man can do these things in himself. God must open our eyes. If you seek Him, and ask Him, he will enlighten you and rise up within you and give to you a true spirit of repentance. Many times during the day we miss the mark. We get angry and shout at our husband or wife, we argue with one another, we allow anger to be expressed in us. If you are beginning to walk in the reality of the Kingdom, these things will make you fall and mourn. Jesus said, "Blessed and happy are those who mourn," because mourning will bring healing, cleansing and restoration to you, and the return of the peace of God.

What Is Our Hope?

Many people today are waiting for a rapture, but I can assure you that if you are waiting for a rapture, you are waiting for the wrong thing. I have written before about how Jesus can not come back until all His enemies are made His footstool. "The last enemy to be destroyed," according to 1 Corinthians 15:26, "is death." This means that before Jesus can come back, there must first be a people on the earth who have overcome death. "Behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump . . . for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying, Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:51-54). If you will meditate on these verses and open yourself to the possibility of overcoming death, the Spirit of God will begin to teach you present-day truth that will bring fresh anointing to your life.

"For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to know the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:22-23). This is our hope and our expectation—to see Christ appear in us in His fullness. This is what we are waiting for! Anything else is a false hope. If you are waiting to die and go to heaven, you have a false hope. The Word of God clearly reveals to us that NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION—not after you die. The only hope we have is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. Paul cried out in Romans 7:24, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Then in 8:2 he says, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death."

We are entering into the greatest manifestation of God that has ever taken place on the earth, for those who are willing to have the character of God worked into them. "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

 Coming Into His Presence

We need to be reminded every day that we come before the Lord based on the shed blood of the Lamb. We are able to come to God because of what He has accomplished for us, not because of anything we have done. We are worthy to come before Him because He has made us worthy. I stand in His presence without any sin, without any condemnation, without any sense of inferiority, because of the work of Calvary. There is no one on this earth who is so vile or sinful or degraded that the blood of Jesus cannot reach them. The Church should be preaching the gospel of reconciliation, not condemnation. We can tell the most sinful person that there is now no barrier between them and God, because God has reconciled them by the Cross. "God was in Christ, reconciling the whole world unto Himself, not holding their trespasses against them" (2 Cor. 5:19). There is an old hymn that says, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling." The only thing that you can offer God is that which He has placed in you. The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. We cannot even love God until we experience His love flowing in us. Man with His natural carnal nature has nothing to offer God. If you love God at all, it is only because He came to you bringing the bread of His Word and the wine of His enjoyment. When He begins to touch our lives, we realize the vastness of His love. This causes us then to seek Him and to love Him back, but not with our own love. The love we offer to God is the love that He places within us when we begin to experience Him.

We Are Holy Ground

We must begin to realize that we are holy ground. We are holy because wherever God is, is holy ground. When Moses stood before the burning bush and was told to take off his shoes, it was only because God was there. The Spirit of God is living and pulsating in us today, and that is why we are a holy people. If you do not have the reality of the Spirit of God in your life, you cannot live a holy life, no matter how hard you try. However, when the Spirit begins to live through you, you will not even have to try to be holy. The Christian life is not one of trying to be good and failing, or even trying to be anything. The natural, carnal man never has to try to live the human life; he just lives. Living the God-kind of life is no different. Once the Spirit of God comes alive on the inside of you, you just live! Of course, this is a matter of growth and transformation. We are changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another degree of glory, day by day. What makes you holy is not your conduct or your self righteous attitude. It is not your trying so hard to do what God wants you to do. What makes you holy is the fact that the Spirit of God has been placed on the inside of you and He is a HOLY SPIRIT. Therefore if you seek Him who is within you, you will become a holy person. If you will seek Him, He will cause you to lay down your life and begin to serve others, and you will become that which He is. You can become very religious, and be very good, and go to church and dance and sing, and still not be a holy person. Holiness is God’s character coming alive on the inside of you.

Your body is holy ground. Man was created from the dust of the ground, and when God’s Spirit comes alive on the inside of me, I become holy ground. I am just like a garden that you plant seeds in, and it grows beautiful flowers. Paul told the Corinthians that they were God’s husbandry. The word "husbandry" means a farm, a place to grow things. All the lovely things of the Spirit of Christ are to grow in us. We are holy ground. Our lips are holy lips. Our lips are to be consecrated to God, and are to speak only the lovely things of Christ, to build up the saints of God and edify one another. When you learn to control what you speak to yourself and to others, what you speak will change your life. Our hands are holy hands. Why do we have holy hands? Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. When I touch you under the inspiration and anointing of the Holy Spirit, there will be a dispensing of God to you to meet your need. If you need healing and I lay hands on you, there is a transference of the Holy Spirit to you that begins the healing process.

A lot of people are confused in the area of healing because they think only in the terms of miracles. Thank God there are miracles! I have personally known people who have been confined to a wheel chair, and have seen them get up and walk. So many times when we pray for someone and they don’t instantly recover, we lose faith. Jesus said in Mark 16:18 that those who believe in Him would lay hands on the sick and they would recover. Recovery is not an instantaneous miracle, but a process that takes time. This does not mean that you should lay hands on everyone who is sick, but if the Spirit of God directs you to pray for someone, then from your spirit is transmitted the healing power of God, and healing immediately begins to take place.

God Will Bring Forth His Character

The gospel of the Kingdom is that which God is bringing to the Church today. Until you experience the Spirit of God producing His character in you, you will never manifest the Kingdom of God. Many people today are experiencing different aspects of the Kingdom, but they must not only experience the Kingdom, they must manifest the Kingdom. Today, the people of God are learning how to raise up the Spirit of God within them. The Spirit is putting to death their carnal nature and manifesting the character of God within.

Blessed Are The Meek

The teaching of the Kingdom of God is offensive, both to the worldly and to the religious people. Everywhere Jesus went, He offended religious people when He taught about the Kingdom of God and did things that were contrary to their traditions. He healed on the Sabbath day and they were violently opposed to it.

Becoming a meek person is not a very popular subject in the religious world. To become a meek person is in contradiction with what religion teaches you. There has been a teaching in the Church in the last few years on improving your self image and being self assertive and attaining self realization. If you are a bad person, you will probably have a poor self image. If you have a bad self image, psychology can teach you to have a good self image. It is definitely better to have a good self image than a bad one, but remember—in the beginning there were two trees in the Garden. They were the "Tree of Life" and the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Psychology deals with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you have a bad self image, through psychological counseling you may change your natural life and become a better person with a good image of yourself. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but we must know that a good person is not necessarily a godly person. God is always good, but good is not always God. The only thing that satisfies the heart of God is not for you to be just a good person, but for you to be a godly person! The teaching in Matthew 5-7 is to cause you to seek a godly character.

When Jesus came, His people were not looking for one who was poor in spirit and meek. They were looking for a king who would come and destroy all the kingdoms of the world and set up a new Kingdom under God. He did do that, but not in the way they expected.

What Meekness Is

Meekness means gentleness: enduring injury with patience and without resentment; the absence of vindictiveness.

If you are serving God’s people and giving of yourself to others, do you resent it when they don’t appreciate you, or when they do you wrong? Do you feel sorry for yourself? If so, you are not a meek person. One who is meek seeks only to serve his fellow man regardless of how they treat him.

True meekness has gentleness, but with power. A meek person has true spiritual power, and, like Jesus, will not fight against flesh and blood. A meek person knows how to do warfare in the spiritual realm. Jesus did not attack people, but He cast out demons, healed the sick and brought light into the darkness.

The great danger in the Church today is the preaching of an intellectual gospel. God is not interested in just saving us so we can go to heaven when we die! Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. This is not a place to go to when you die. If all you receive is an intellectual Jesus whom you think will take you to heaven when you die, you have missed the kernel of the gospel. The Word teaches us that when we truly receive Jesus, we become a different person. If you come to Jesus and there is no change on the inside of you, then you need to keep seeking Him until you experience His life, and you will change. Once you experience God’s life, you will never be happy until God leads you into a life of holiness. If you have truly received Him and you are not living for Him, you will never be happy again, except for fleeting moments. The Spirit of God on the inside of you wants only one thing: He wants to be let loose. He wants to possess you totally. He wants to fill your mind, emotions and will with the life of God. He wants you to be totally transformed on the inside, so that Jesus once again can live in the flesh and manifest the life of God to a lost and dying world.

A meek person will not be self assertive. If you begin to be self assertive and to stand up for your rights, it will make you start to feel better about yourself but you will be far from meekness. I have seen Christians destroyed by becoming self assertive. A meek person never has to defend himself. Whenever you begin to defend yourself, you are walking away from meekness. If someone begins to criticize you for the way you minister or the way you do something, and you begin to rise up from within to defend yourself, you are not a meek person. Jesus taught that you are to love your enemies and do good to those that persecute you—not rise up against them. A meek person will bless his enemies and pray for them. If you know someone has wronged you and you are a meek person, you will do everything within your power to bring restoration to them. If someone wrongs you, do something good for them. Take them out to dinner or buy them a gift. If you will be good to your enemies, by putting aside your self and your natural feelings that want to rise up and blast them, and then blessing and praying for them, God will use your godly character to save them, and bring them into a relationship with Him like you have.

I have had the experience many times in my life of winning people to love me when they didn’t like me, by being good to them and blessing them and praying for them. If you are married, you definitely need to learn this principle. You can win the respect of your mate by having a godly character.

A meek person never thinks unkindly of those who do not understand them. Does it really matter if someone doesn’t understand you? Only if you are a proud person! If you have pride in yourself, what others think bothers you. A spiritual person needs only one recognition, and that is the Father saying, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." If you have God’s approval, you don’t need man’s natural approval.

Having True Spiritual Value

Meekness is having a true value of oneself. We do need to have a true estimation of ourselves in God. If you really are manifesting a godly image, and you know that Jesus is living on the inside of you, you will have a proper, true value of yourself. The Word of God teaches you that when you have the life of God in you, you will not try to live godly, but you will be godly. There is a big difference between trying and being. The true Christian is one who does not try to be holy. He is holy because the Holy One lives inside of him. Two lives cannot live in the same temple. You will either live a life of self-exaltation and self-manifestation, or you will let self fall into the ground and die to bring forth the manifestation of the life of God. The true character of the Christian is the character and attributes of God flowing from his being.

When you have a wrong value of yourself, it is very difficult for you to change. If you are naturally a good person, it takes the Holy Spirit to bring the light of God to shine into you and reveal to you those hidden dark areas that need to be changed. Every person that lives by their self-life lives by that knowledge of good and evil. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is a life flowing from you that is both good and evil. One day you may be very good and the next day very bad. One day you can love me and the next day when I do you wrong, you don’t even like me anymore. If you are a holy person, it is evidence that you are receiving life from the Tree of Life, which is God Himself, and not just from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you can say that the character of God is being formed in you, and that day by day you’re being conformed to His image, then you know you are living by the right source. When you are godly, it is only because the nature and character of your Father God has been reproduced in you. Every seed produces after its own kind, and when the seed of God in you gets the proper watering and nourishing, and you learn how to lay aside your natural likes and desires, and you learn to live for God, then that seed in you will reproduce after its own kind and will produce in you the God-kind of life. That is so much better than religion, so much better than just trying to be good.

Pride Is a Deadly Enemy

A meek man is not a proud man. He is not proud of himself. Pride is a deadly enemy to the life of God in you. Pride keeps many Christians from being able to operate in the power of God. Self will always become exalted when you begin to move in the power of God. A meek person is really a humble person, a very gentle person.

Abraham was a meek person. He did not assert himself with Lot, but he gave him the choice of the best land. When you can just stand back and let others have their choices first, and you’re willing to take what is left, that is meekness. A meek person will say, "Brother, I want you to have first choice." Abraham said, "Lot if you go this way, I’ll go that way. You have first choice."

The Word tells us that Moses was the meekest man on the earth. He was a gentle person, but he had true spiritual authority. When the children of Israel made the golden calf, God said to Moses, "Stand aside, because I will destroy this people and I will make a mighty nation out of you." How many of us could have stood that test? How many of us would have said, "Yes God, that’s right. Kill them all, because I know that I’m a good person and if you raise up a people from me, they will be the best." Moses didn’t do that. He said, "God, You can’t do that because you promised these people. You made a promise to Abraham that his seed would inherit the land, so you can’t destroy them." Moses said, "If you are going to blot them out, blot me out too."

"For what glory is it, if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently, but if you do well and suffer for it and take it patiently, this is acceptable to God" (1 Peter 2:20). If you suffer because of doing good and you take it patiently, that is meekness. He goes on to say, "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: Who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to one who judges righteously."

This is the character that God wants to produce in us. If people are misusing us, talking about us, we bear it. We don’t threaten, we don’t rise up against them and make accusations, we simply commit ourselves to God, who judges righteously.

A Meek Person Is Not Self-Centered

A meek man is not sensitive about himself. How many people do you know who are so sensitive that they wear their feelings, so to speak, on their coat sleeves? One who is being conformed into God’s image will learn not to be sensitive about himself. You can learn to deal with hurt feelings and sensitivity by not responding to it. If you are a sensitive person and you are hurt easily, it is hard not to hurt back. A spiritual person is very sensitive also, but when they are hurt, they hurt for the one hurting them, not for themselves. I know this is foreign to our natural thinking, but when someone talks evil against you, if you are a spiritual person, you will hurt for the one bringing the accusation against you. If you are easily hurt, learn to bear it, and take it to God. Sensitivity is one of the biggest enemies which can keep the character of God from being manifested in you. When someone hurts you, and you respond with your tongue, you hinder the work of the Spirit in your life. I know this is a hard word for some. You may be a very sensitive person and you can’t help that, but learn not to respond out of your hurt. You can learn to deal with it. A meek person will never respond in a negative way when someone hurts him.

Jesus is our example and He had His beard pulled, He was spit upon, He was mocked and nailed to the Cross, and from that Cross He said, "Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing." When you are wronged and learn not to speak out, that sensitivity will begin to die. A meek person does not have to defend himself, because they realize there is nothing to defend. A meek one will learn to leave everything in the hands of God. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t fret, he doesn’t talk about it. He submits everything into the hands of God.

Meekness, which is an attribute of God’s character, can never be manufactured—but if you have the Spirit of God living in you, you will find yourself becoming a meek person. Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Matthew 5-7 reveals to you the character of God and leaves you no excuse and no alternative. If you are a child of God, and you are going to live in the Kingdom of God, you have no choice but to learn to live this way. If you will daily seek after God, the Spirit of God within you will begin to be manifested in all that you do.

Hungry for God

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6).

This verse does not say, "Blessed are they who have no sin," or "Blessed are they who have no evil desires," or "Blessed are they who obey God." What it does say is that you are blessed if you hunger and thirst after righteousness. If you have a heart cry for God, if you are hungry for God, your outward condition is no problem for the Lord.

If you are hungering after Him, you will eventually be filled with Him and this will take care of your outward condition. Some of God’s people are under terrible condemnation because they have habits they believe God doesn’t want them to have. There was a time in my life when I thought that if I could only quit smoking and quit some other things in my life, God would be pleased with me and I would have better fellowship with Him. This is what religion teaches you. Religion says that God is a holy God, and if you want to have fellowship with Him, you must not do things He doesn’t like. If this was true, no one would ever be transformed. He came to save the sinner, not the righteous. There are multitudes of people who are hungering after God and some of them smoke and drink, and their lives are messed up; they are captivated by the world. They are in bondage to religion, and God wants to set them free—not condemn them. The only thing that is necessary is to have a hungry heart!

How To Cultivate a Hungry Heart

When I was the pastor of Springs of Life Ministries in Oregon, I used to tell the saints, "We can develop a hungry heart in you if you want one." One of the most exciting things in the universe is to be able to create hunger and desire in people for God, and you can do that by words spoken through you in the Spirit of God. Words are the most powerful and creative thing in our world. Jesus said in one of His parables that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who cast seed into the ground. The seed is the Word, and we are the ground the Word is cast into. So, if you want to increase your hunger for God, just stay around people who are always casting forth the seed of the Word of God, saints of God who know how to speak the Word in spirit and power. As you begin to hunger and thirst after God, His Spirit will begin to fill you and grow in you, and then you will be able to come out of all the habits and bondages in your life. When you begin to hear the truth, it creates a hunger in you and puts a hope in you. When you realize that God can come alive in you, His Spirit will begin to stand up in you and deliver you from every hang-up, and set you free from every bondage in your life.

Seek Only Righteousness

If you will hunger and thirst after righteousness, you will be filled. There are so many things in this day and age, even in the Christian world, that you can seek after and become distracted by. There is a multitude of teachers today on television and around the world who are teaching Christians to set their minds on things other than seeking after righteousness. There are teachers today who are putting fear in the hearts of God’s people, drawing their attention to those things that are coming to the earth. Jesus never taught us to look at natural Jerusalem to try and figure out what is going to happen. What Jesus did say is, "People’s hearts will fail them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth." You get your charts and graphs out and start looking at those things, and start teaching people about all the terrible things you think are coming on the earth, and you sow fear in the minds of God’s people, and get their attention off of seeking after righteousness. Jesus said, "When you see these things begin to happen, look up." Don’t look at what’s happening—look up!

Seek Those Things That Are Above

"If you then have been raised to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the rich eternal treasures that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." (Col. 3:1, Amplified).

Don’t look at what is coming on the earth, but look up! Raise your consciousness to seek those things that are above the natural thinking. Set your mind on and aim at the higher things, not on the things of the earth. You have died to the natural thinking and the carnal way of living. Your new life is hid with Christ in God. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who have a burning desire to bring forth within them this life that is hid with Christ in God. The Christian must get his attention, and his sight, and his aim, off of everything but seeking after God and His righteousness.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we could get Christians around the world to take their attention off of things that are happening, even in the Church? Our attention for the most part is centered on division, strife and debate. We argue over who has the right doctrine, which is the best church, and numerous other things. When Christians will take their eyes off of all these things and set them on seeking the reality of God and His righteousness coming alive on the inside of them, we will see the glorious Church without spot or wrinkle begin to be manifested on the earth. This would fulfill Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that we all would be one. If there is no oneness in Christians, it is only because they are not seeking God and His righteousness. The majority of Christians are seeking so many other things. Jesus never said, "Seek after God and His blessings," or "Seek after God and healing, or prosperity." How many are seeking after God and a position in the Church? It is not that these things are wrong, but what are you hungry for? What is the desire of your heart? Are you hungry for position and recognition, or are you hungry for the righteous, holy character of God to be formed in you? You may hunger after and receive many things, even things of God, and still miss the high calling of God. The only people who are truly happy are those who are hungering and thirsting after God and His righteousness. If you seek after prosperity, you may receive it and still be empty inside. When you seek after righteousness, you will be filled with the nature and character of God, and then all things will be added to you without your seeking them. God’s design, intent and purpose is to fill you with Himself. Man’s true happiness comes only as he is filled with God. Jesus promised that if you seek after God and His righteousness, you will be filled.

Death to Self-Life

There has been much teaching in the Church on putting self to death, and for the most part it has caused us to get into the workings of the flesh, trying to put ourselves to death. Death to self is nothing you can do within yourself. Death to self is in the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45 says that Christ was made a "life-giving Spirit". In this life-giving spirit is everything you need. There is divine life, the fine uplifted humanity of Jesus, His death and resurrection, His ascension and enthronement. Every time you touch the spirit of Christ within you these elements are transfused into you. When your self-life begins to rise up, if you will turn to the Spirit of Christ within you, you will sense the killing aspect to your flesh and you will rise above it.

Hungering and thirsting after righteousness will solve the problem of self. You cannot hunger and thirst after righteousness and be self-seeking at the same time. When you are hungering after righteousness, you cannot always go where you want to go, and say what you want to say, and do what you want to do, because the Spirit of God will draw you to Himself.

A Burning Desire To Obey God

If you are hungering and thirsting after God, you have a burning desire within you to obey God. You may not always do it; you may have character flaws, and bad habits, and problems with your will, but I’m talking about an inward condition of your heart. You have a burning desire on the inside of you that Jesus would become Lord of every area of your life. If that is your desire and you are hungering to be conformed to His image, you will be filled. From my own experience, I can assure you that this is so. There have been times in my Christian life when I have been under so much bondage it seemed as though God was nowhere near, but I never stopped seeking and hungering after God. I lived many years in Lancaster, California, and I would drive out into the desert every day and park my car and seek after God. I used to say, "God I must have the reality of your presence come alive within me. Nothing else is worth living for. I must know the reality of your Kingdom within me. If You do not become the Lord of every area of my life, I have nothing to live for." I had met the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I had touched the God of glory, and once that happens nothing can satisfy you except being conformed to His image. The more you hunger and thirst after righteousness, the more you will be transformed day-by-day into a mature son of God.

Hungering After Righteousness

We know that the doctrine of righteousness means to be in right standing with God. We know that everyone who receives the "Life-giving Spirit" of Jesus is taken out of the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s Son. Those who hunger and thirst will be filled. I began to hunger after God at about the age of eleven. I wanted to know God in a real way. I was raised in church, but I wasn’t satisfied with the church. I wanted to know the reality of God on the inside of me! I continued to hunger after God, and it wasn’t until I was 29 years old that I met the God of glory. I spent many years seeking, but He was worth waiting for. I will never forget my first experience of the reality of God. I wept for several days in His presence. A lot of people get caught up in what I call a "Christ fast-food mentality." They want to be changed now; they want to be like God now; they don’t want to wait on God and spend much time seeking Him. They want to be like Him, but they don’t want to take the time for the transformation of the soul. They want everything now. The Word says, "In patience possess ye your souls" (Luke 21:19). We must be consistent and steadfast, because Jesus said, "When you seek me with all your heart, you will find Me" (Jer. 29:13). You are not going to find Jesus in Sunday-morning religion; you are not going to find Him just by going to an altar and saying some words. You are not going to find Him until you hunger and thirst after Him with all your heart. Hebrews 11:6 says, "He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." He rewards you by filling you with His nature and character, so that you are transformed into what He is!

Righteousness means to be in right standing with God, but it must become more than just a doctrine. If you are really hungering after righteousness, a doctrine will never satisfy you. I can talk to you, convince you, and show you from the Word that if you are born again you are just as righteous before God as Jesus is. You can become intellectually convinced that Jesus is your righteousness and that there is no need for condemnation in your life, yet if your life is not right before God, if you are not experientially becoming the righteousness of God, the doctrine of righteousness will never satisfy you. The doctrine of righteousness is to show you your position before God—to stir you up to seek the experience of righteousness in your disposition, not just your position. God speaks and you say, "Amen." He says, "Go," and you go, not trying to figure out how to get there. We read in the Word about men like Abraham and David and we say, "I would like to be like those men in Hebrews 11." To be like those men, you have to live like they lived. Where are the Christians today who live like those men lived?

The Cloud Is Moving

The cloud is moving in the Church today, and when the cloud is moving you had better move with it. We all are baptized into the cloud. In the wilderness, the children of Israel had to move with the cloud—they had no choice. Today we have no choice either, if we want God. We must move with the cloud. Today God is setting His men in the Church—pastors after his own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. They are moving in the anointing, under the authority and the Word of God. We need to move with them. We need more leaders in the Church who can say, "Follow me as I follow Christ." If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, there will come a day when you can say that. A doctrine will never satisfy you. You must have the experience of righteousness. You may have many habits and areas in your life that are not pleasing to God, but if you will seek Him, you will experience complete deliverance from all bondage.

If you are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, you will also have a burning desire to be free from sin. If you’re in sin and it doesn’t bother you, I feel sorry for you. If you don’t want to hear about holiness and righteousness, and you don’t want to hear about God’s character being formed in you, you really need to seek God until His reality begins to arise within you. There is still hope for you, but you should take the time to seek God daily until He stirs within you. Everyone who hungers after righteousness wants a character that conforms to Matthew 5-7.

God takes us just as we are. We have nothing to give Him, but He takes that nothing and transforms us into the image of His Son. Jesus once again comes alive on the earth, and ministers and strengthens and builds up the Church. If you think you are something in yourself, you are nothing. If you think you could do a better job leading the people of God, I feel sorry for you. God takes those who are weak, who feel they have nothing in themselves, and He gives them His strength and ability.

God Wants To Fill You With Himself

If you really hunger after and want the life of God to be manifested in you, you need to study the life of Jesus. Look at this man Jesus! He is the tabernacle of God; He is the fullness of the Godhead. All things were made by Him, through Him and unto Him. You were created for His pleasure. What is His pleasure? He wants to fill you with Himself. He wants to fill your desire for righteousness and holiness. He wants to fill your desire for a right relationship with Him. Jesus is not someone whom we try to be like. He wants to fill us with the Godhead so that we become what He is. When He enters you with His "life-giving Spirit" and you seek Him, you will become like Him. God wants a group of people who realize their hopelessness in trying to be like Him, and then seek Him until He begins to do in them what He wants to do.

There is a very simple way to know the perfect will of God for your life. God’s will is the same for every person. He wants to completely fill you with Himself. Many pray sincerely to know the will of God, thinking that He may want to send them to Africa, or any number of places. If you will take the time to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, He will fill you with His Spirit and then you will know His perfect will for your life.

To hunger after righteousness means that you put everything that you are into what you are seeking. People do this in the natural all the time. People put everything that they have, all of their time, all of their finances, all of their study, into what they want to become. We will do the same if we hunger and thirst after God. We will want more than anything else to see God’s Kingdom manifested on the earth.

"As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2). We must condition our souls to seek after God. We must learn how to release that flow of life, the life of God within us, to flow into our souls so that our souls will hunger after God.

"How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yea even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God" (Psalm 84:1-2). Our heart and our flesh does not cry out for sin and the lusts of the flesh, but for God. This will be our experience if we exercise ourselves to hunger and thirst after God.

If you never become hungry and thirsty after God and His righteousness, you will never know true spiritual blessing. You may know good health, prosperity, and a certain amount of peace, but if you never become one who seeks after God with all your heart, you will not know true spiritual blessing.

Receiving Abundance of Grace

We all know that it is impossible with our carnal or natural nature to become what this Word is requiring us to be like. However, if you are not like this it is not God’s fault. People say, "I would like to be holy, but if God doesn’t do it, it’s not my fault." Paul says in Romans 5:17, "For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Have you received the abundance of grace? Notice it does not say they which are given abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, but to those who receive it. God is no respecter of persons. God does not give to some and withhold from others. You must receive that which has been given. This is the gospel of grace. Before you experience being born of the spirit, you are in bondage to sin and death. You can’t be righteous; you can’t be holy; and you have no power to change. God says that to live in His presence you must be holy. There is no sin, and no injustice that can live in His presence. He demands that you be holy as He is holy. This is where grace comes in. Everyone who will receive grace, who will take the Word of God and receive it unto themselves, mixing faith with the Word, will begin to reign in life. If by one man’s offense death reigned, much more the gift of grace is more powerful than the law of sin and death. God has already poured out all of His grace. In His Word is all the knowledge that you need to make you realize that all you need to do is open yourself to receive all that He is. Grace takes all the try out of becoming a Christian. If you are still trying to be righteous, you have missed the simplicity of the gospel. If you are truly a Christian and Jesus is alive in you, He will live His life in you. Either you are born of God or you are not; either you are still lost or you are found; either you are perishing or you are receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

How To Receive This Grace

You may say, "I have tried all my life to be a righteous person and failed; what am I to do?" It is so simple that most don’t see it. You simply need to receive it. What you are today is a product of what you have been receiving all your life. What you receive into your heart you will become. Man cannot by himself or by his carnal nature produce the life of God, but he can receive it. If you are not manifesting the character of God, then you have been receiving the wrong things into you. If you are receiving the things of God then the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, are being produced in you. If you are living this way, you don’t have to conform to an outward law of rules and regulations. You hunger and thirst after God and these things grow in you.

We Must Learn To Eat Jesus

Learning to eat Jesus will be the most profitable thing you will ever do in your spiritual life. Jesus said, in John 6, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and never die—as the Father has sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eats me shall live by me." We can learn to feed on Jesus moment by moment in our daily life, and as we do, His life will grow in us and we will begin to live by that life.

You will express whatever you receive into you. When you are around some people, all they express is sports. They constantly take sports into themselves. They eat, drink, think, and breathe sports. You can always tell where a person’s heart is by hearing them speak for a while. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Whatever you are filling yourself with will come out of your mouth when you speak. Whenever I’m around the saints from Church, you can’t talk to them very long before the Lord starts to be expressed through them. You can tell that they are filling themselves with spiritual food, because that is always the main topic of their conversation. Whenever we get together, even a few of us in our homes, the presence of the Lord is so sweet.

If you want to receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, this is what you must do. You must learn to avoid everything that would hinder His life from flowing in you. I know that this is not an easy word, but Jesus never told His disciples that to be a Christian would be an easy life. The Christian life is only hard for you as long as you hold on to your own ways and your own desires. Proverbs says that it is the way of the transgressor that is hard. I have said many times how hard it is to be a Christian, because I was at that time a transgressor holding on to my own way. If you are truly hungering after righteousness, you will avoid everything that is against righteousness. You must also avoid and not receive into you those things that hinder your spiritual appetite. Many Christians do not hunger after righteousness because they are a product of what they have been receiving all their life. They have never been diligent to cultivate a spiritual hunger. Even in the natural, we can develop a taste for things we do not like by being diligent to eat them. If you do not have a hunger for righteousness, you must learn to discipline yourself to take in spiritual food. The gospel of grace is not a gospel that allows you to remain in any unsatisfactory condition that you are in. When you experience grace, it will cause you to hunger after righteousness, and will lead you out of bondage.

Cultivating Spiritual Hunger

You need to cultivate your spiritual hunger. Sometimes you need to drop even things that are not sinful, but which take your time away from seeking God. You can receive into you all the fullness of God by spending time in His Word and in His presence. Many Christians spend more time reading the newspaper, or any number of other things, than reading and studying the Word. They can’t understand why they are not hungry for the things of God. It is our choice. We can receive and develop spiritual hunger, or we can receive and develop natural fleshy desires. God has provided everything that we need to grow up into Him in all things. Our natural selfish life must fall into the ground and die. Every day of our lives, we must seek after and receive spiritual nourishment. I know people who are so hungry for God that all they do is listen to tapes, read spiritual books, and go to church every time the doors are open (provided they find a good one). Sometimes they listen to the same message again and again so they can grasp the truth. That is hungering after righteousness.

If you are hungering after righteousness, you will want to be where the anointing is. You will not run from the light; you will run towards the light. Sunday-morning religion is not enough! You will want to be with the saints every time they come together. If the presence and anointing of God abides upon a people when they come together, you need to be there every time. If you can’t find a church where the presence and anointing of God abide, then you need to meet with some saints in your homes where you can fellowship together in His presence.

The following was received by the author while meditating on eating Jesus:

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matt. 5:7).

These teachings of Jesus in the so-called Beatitudes are systematic. They follow an order. You could never be a merciful person unless you have already experienced being "poor in spirit". Every day, we must empty ourselves and seek God for something fresh. We must realize the areas in our life that are lacking the character of God. The more you experience God’s life, the more you hunger after Him. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. After I experienced the life of God coming alive in me, I began to mourn over my wretched condition. Jesus comes and fills that longing of your heart, and one day you awaken, and you realize that God in you is sufficient, and that causes you to be a meek person. You begin to hunger and thirst after God and His righteousness, and only then can you be a merciful person.

We should always examine ourselves in the light of Jesus. If you are ever to be a merciful person, you must realize that everything you have obtained in God is an act of His divine grace. Everything that you have experienced in God is the result of two things: God giving His grace and you receiving that grace. No man can work for what God has to give; he can only receive it.

"They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise" (2 Cor. 10:12b). Do not look at someone else and compare yourself to them. When we do that, we can easily see what is wrong with them, and compare ourselves, not with their strengths, but with their weaknesses. One who is merciful does not compare himself to another person; he will only compare himself to Jesus. No amount of comparing yourself to another can justify you before God. You can never be like the Pharisee in the temple who prayed, "Thank God I’m not like this publican!" One who is merciful will always have the attitude of, "God, be merciful to me."

The Kingdom Is Based on Who You Are

The gospel of the Kingdom is not based on what you do, but on who you are. If we truly want to do the works of Jesus, if we want to experience what it is to be one who moves with the anointing and the authority of God, we must first be saturated and permeated with God. We must take the time to soak up the presence of God in our daily life. Don’t get caught up in outward religious activities. It is not a matter of working, but of being. One who walks in the realization of the Kingdom does basically two things: They learn how to contact God within themselves, and then become filled with Him. When you are filled with God, you become a carrier of His presence on the earth. I used to get so upset when I heard about obedience and holiness, because I tried for years to be holy and obedient and couldn’t make it. However, today I realize that I am a holy person, because holiness is wherever God is. If God is in you, you are a holy person, and when your eyes are unveiled to see this, you will experience it. All you need is to learn to enjoy that living anointing and presence of God that abides within you.

The message of the gospel is not what you can do for God, but who you are! The Bible was written to reveal to you who you are in Christ. The Bible tells us who we are, but because of veiled minds and religious teachings, your mind will not accept the simple revelation that Jesus lives in you. We must diligently seek God until we come into the experiential knowledge of Jesus arising on the inside of us. Whenever you get into the presence of God, something stirs on the inside of you, and you begin to realize it’s not what you can do, but what you become when filled with the realization of His presence. Once you realize who you are, then what you do will be an out-flowing of His life. Your work for God will not have the stench of human nature on it, but it will be a pure flowing out of the life of God. You have to be a Christian before you can act like one. To be a Christian means to be like Christ. Our churches are full of people trying to be Christians. I had God on the inside of me for many years and I was always trying to be a good Christian, because I didn’t have a revelation of His life in me. I had a doctrine that told me Jesus lived in me. I was told that when I received Jesus, He came into me, but I didn’t have the revelation of Him arising within me to live His life instead of mine. He died, not only to save me from my sins, but to become a life-giving Spirit to live inside of me, instead of me. There are multitudes in churches trying to become something that they already are. They have the life of God on the inside of them, but they don’t experience it.

Jesus Is the Only Christian

Matthew 5-7 is not presenting a new religion with rules and regulations, nor a higher standard for us to try to live up to. Jesus is very simply saying here, "If you are a Christian, if I live in you, this is what you will be like: Every time you come into My presence, I will expose you. All the darkness, all the rebellion, everything in you that is not pleasing to Me I will expose, and then you will have to fall at My feet and receive My forgiveness." So many people have not learned to receive God’s forgiveness. They try so hard to be good and they have such a poor image of themselves because they’re not making it. You will never have a good image of yourself by trying to be good. Self must fall into the ground and die, and Jesus must arise within us. When Jesus begins to stir within you, it does not matter how poor your self image is; you just fall at His feet, and receive forgiveness. If you are in sin and bondage, don’t run away from God. If you don’t find the character of Jesus coming forth in you, don’t run away from him, run to Him. Drop all your religious activities, forget all your religiosity and just seek Him. He will then begin to stir on the inside of you and you will become that which you desire. The only true Christian is Jesus. Human effort will never make it. You could never feel good enough unless you’re comparing yourself among others, to give you a self-righteousness. Jesus is the only one who can live the Christian life, and until He is birthed in you, you will never live the Christian life. You may as well forget your activities. Paul told the Galatians, "I travail in birth until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). Multitudes of Christians are busy working for God when all the time they need to have Him formed within them.

Doctrine Alone Will Not Satisfy

Jesus never said that we need to try to act like Him. We read the Bible with the natural mind and become confused and go try to do what it says. Jesus wants to reveal Himself within you, to reveal your new character. His seed of life is in you, and when you’re willing to seek Him, and lay down your life, He will come alive in you and live instead of you. You will never be satisfied with the greatest doctrine and teaching in the world, you must possess the realization. You can be taught for years that Jesus lives in you, and never experience it. You must spend much time in His presence seeking Him until He begins to grow within you. To be a Christian is to possess a certain character and be a certain kind of person. Christians need to realize that they already are what they are trying to become, and rest in Him until He grows within them.

He Has Given to Us All Things

"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue" (2 Pet. 1:3). The word "life" here is the Greek word zoe and it means "God’s life." The word "godliness" means "the expression of that life". If you have received Jesus, God has already given to you all things that pertain to that life and the expression of it. Everywhere you go you can be conscious of carrying the presence of God and expressing His life. In the Old Testament, the Priests carried the Ark on their shoulders. In the Ark was the expression of God. We can be conscious of carrying around the awesomeness of the presence of God. That is what a priest does in His daily life. We become kings and priests unto God, carrying His presence and His authority in the earth. This is the highest revelation you can have in the Kingdom of God. The two most important functions in the Church are the Priest and King. Most of God’s people think that there are only five offices in the Church: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor & Teacher. Not everyone is called to one of these offices, but all are called to be Priests and Kings. The highest calling you can have is the Priesthood and Kingship. The Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher are to equip you, and build you up, and to cause you to realize your high calling as a Priest and King. "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His father" (Rev. 1:5b-6). If you really want to be something in the Kingdom of God, then allow His presence to fill you so that you are a carrier of His life in the earth. We can’t all be Apostles and Prophets. We can’t all be leaders in the move of God on the earth, but we can all be carriers of His presence.

God’s Authority

The most exciting life you will ever experience is to live in the presence and anointing of God. His abiding presence will bring you into the authority of God. God’s authority is not for you to use on someone else. A man who exercises authority over someone else does not have true spiritual authority. When God begins to arise in you, His authority first and foremost is to bring you into subjection to Himself in all things. We must first subdue our carnal nature. We must first take the beam out of our own eye. We must first deal with the sin in our life. Then, wherever we go, people will say, "My, what is so different with this person? When they walked into our home a sweet presence and peace came in with them."

We Are a Holy People

"You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" (1 Pet. 2:9). Peter tells us here not what we should try to become, but who we are: "You are a holy people." Oh, how we need to seek God until we get the revelation: I am a holy person, I am sanctified, set apart for God. Jesus is "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7:26). This Jesus lives in us. We have the holy, righteous God on the inside of us. The realization that Jesus is in us will stop all the struggles and the strivings to be like Him. When you begin to realize His presence in you, you can’t help but be a holy person. I am a holy person because I have a new nature on the inside of me. For years, I tried to make myself holy by my actions. I was just like the Apostle Paul said of the Jews. He said they missed the righteousness of God by going about trying to establish their own righteousness. The revelation of having God in you will make you what you are trying to become, and you will never have the revelation unless you seek God with all your heart. It is so hard today to get most Christians to seek after God. They will go to church, serve on committees, teach Sunday school, or do many other things, but they will not take the time to sit quietly and seek after God. Jesus did not have to try to be righteous. He said, "The devil comes and he finds nothing in me" (John 14:30). We all can grow in God until we too can say, "The devil may come, but he finds no place in me."

The Word says, "Give him no place" (Eph. 4:27). This experience will come out of your hungering and thirsting after God. You do not have the natural strength to give the devil no place when he comes. You must have the strength of God. You must have a revelation that you are a temple that carries around the holy nature and character of God. How could Satan have any authority over one who realizes that? John 1:12 tells us that "as many as received Him, gave He the power, the authority, the ability, the right and the privilege to become the sons of God." If you have been born of the spirit you heart’s cry is, "Oh, to be like Jesus." The Word of God will reveal and unveil to you the reality of "Christ in you the hope of glory". That is why the Apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17-20, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when he raised Him from the dead."

In Us Is the Power That Raised Jesus from the Dead

Do we really believe this Word of God? This is a great problem in the Church today—we have a bunch of unbelieving believers. Do you believe that you have the resurrected power of Jesus living in you? We have that same power that raised Jesus from the dead now living in us. There are Christians who have read the Bible for years and have not experienced and do not know that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in the believer.

"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God" (Gal.2:20).

Oh, what a marvelous experience to be filled with God so that He lives His life in and through us. A Christian is one who has God living inside them. We talk about being Spirit filled. One who is truly Spirit-filled is controlled and motivated by the Holy Spirit. A doctrine of being Spirit filled will never satisfy you. I was told as a new Christian that all I had to do to be filled with the Spirit was to speak in tongues. Now, speaking in tongues is a wonderful experience, but it is only the beginning. I know many people who have received tongues and they certainly are not filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit. Again, I must say that if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you have a holy spirit. The Holy Spirit is not full of bitterness, resentment and anxiety. He is a very gentle, meek and holy person. If you will spend time in His presence seeking Him, His character will be reproduced in you.

The Apostle Paul said, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away and all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). We must continue to seek God until everything of the old creation does not affect us anymore. The old creation, including the world, sin, self, and the devil, were all terminated at the Cross. Self-life is very deceptive. In fact, there is no such thing as a self-governed person. You are either governed by and receive your life from the serpent, represented by the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil", which is living by a knowledge of good and evil, or you are governed by and receive your life from God, represented by the "Tree of Life". When you are born again, you receive a new life-source and your nature is changed. For this reason, you can never be happy again serving sin, because you have a new nature. This is why we must seek God until His life fills us and completely transforms our soul into His expression.

The life that we live is simply an expression of what is on the inside of us. If you are expressing a life that is sometimes good and sometimes evil, then you know that you are still living, at least in some measure, by the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". If you can be full of love today, and tomorrow be expressing bitterness, anger, anxieties, and hatred, then know that you are what you express. There are so many who will love you until you disagree with them, and then all their love turns to resentment. They think "Lord, how can they do that to me?" How did Jesus respond on the Cross? He said, "Father, forgive them" (Mt. 12:34). What is in you, you will express. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Jesus expressed mercy at the Cross. Mercy is compassion with a desire to relieve pain and suffering. Mercy does not carry any "ifs" with it—"If you treat me right," or "If you don’t wrong me." True mercy is full of compassion, and a deep longing desire to help and to relieve suffering, even the suffering of someone who is wrongfully using you.

Mercy and Truth

God is merciful, but He is also just and full of truth. God will not be merciful at the expense of truth and justice, or at the expense of His righteous nature. There are some Christians who feel it is permissible to have sin and bondages in their lives, because God is merciful and He understands that we are weak and just human. The truth is, when you call out to Jesus, He comes into you, and you are in covenant with Him and there is no way out. The Apostle Paul told the Ephesians that they were sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Once the seed of God is activated on the inside of you, God is under contract to that seed to bring it into maturity. If you don’t understand right from the very beginning that your will must be brought into submission to the divine Will, you may go through a lot of suffering. God will bring to maturity in you that which He began! He is the author and the finisher of our faith. That is mercy, but not at the expense of truth. God in His mercy will put the rod of correction on you. Once you belong to God, He will never leave you alone. The Holy Spirit is sometimes lovingly called "The Hound of Heaven". He will never leave you alone until you submit to Him. He does this not by force, but by drawing you again and again by His love.

Learning To React in Love

If you are truly a merciful person, you will react in love when someone wrongfully uses you. When someone wrongs you and you express the life of the serpent in bitterness, wrath, and judgment, you do not know the mercy of God. Only God has the right to judge, and His judgment is always for purification, never for condemnation. The judgments, the fire of God, the tribulation, is always for the purification of His seed in you. When someone does you wrong, they are in your power. Jesus said to His disciples, "Whosoever sins you retain they are retained, and whosoever sins you forgive are forgiven" (John 20L23). So when a person wrongs you, how you react towards them will depend upon what kind of character has been formed in you. If you have the character of God, you will be merciful and say, "Father, forgive them; they don’t understand what they are doing." No one who wrongs one of God’s anointed understands what they are doing, or they wouldn’t do it. If you really see yourself in the light of God and His holiness, you will realize that no man can have that holy character formed in him if he has not had a revelation of God’s life and ability in him. Even Christians who wrong you do not understand what they are doing. They do not have an understanding of the forgiveness of God. If you really have an understanding of the forgiveness of God, nothing can keep you under condemnation, and you will not condemn or take vengeance on another. As a child of God, you can never get to a point in your life where forgiveness is no longer available. God’s forgiveness is unlimited, and when you realize that, it will bring you out of your bondage. Every time you miss God, every time you fail, you can run to the arms of your Father for forgiveness. When you learn God’s forgiveness for yourself, then you will be able to forgive others.

How Often Must I Forgive?

In Matthew 18:21, Peter asked Jesus, "How many times must I forgive my brother who sins against me?" How many times must we put up with the same person doing us wrong time after time and still forgive them? I know what the Word says, but how many times do I have to take this? Jesus then told a parable about the servant who owed ten thousand talents. This is a picture of us. There is no way we could ever pay the debt we owe God. We blow it every day of our lives. There is nothing we could do to pay the debt of sin in our lives. Jesus lived the example of a man filled with God, and went to the Cross and paid the debt for all of our sin. There is no sin in your life that is too big for the blood of Jesus to cleanse, so that you can stand in God’s presence holy, unblemished and undefiled. God has forgiven the insurmountable debt of all your sin. That is mercy, and that is God’s character. That is why He could forgive men who nailed Him to a cross. God expresses what is on the inside of Him—love, mercy and compassion.

Now, when we have someone do wrong to us, how do we react? That is what this parable is all about. If you do not forgive those who wrong you, then Matthew 18:32-35 applies. "Then his lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt, because you desired me to. Should you not also have compassion on your fellowservant, even as I had pity on you? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses."

The character of the Christian is one who forgives just as Jesus forgave. Anyone who has been exposed to their carnal nature realizes that in that nature they stand condemned before God. When we call out to God, He forgives everything we ever did or will do, and then asks us to do likewise to our fellow man! Jesus said if we won’t forgive, then we will be turned over to the tormentors. There will be circumstances raised up in your life to make you realize your total wretchedness. If you judge and condemn another, you may find yourself doing the same thing or even worse. This is why Jesus admonished us, "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt. 7:1). If you have problems in your life with unforgiveness, and resentment, you need to seek Him, and His character will wash all that out. When we truly experience God’s forgiveness, there will no longer be any pride in us. There will be nothing in us that will be vindictive towards another. There will be no insisting on our own way. In God’s Kingdom, you don’t always get your own way, if you’re submissive to the Spirit of God.

God is presenting us with the truth in these messages. Some for years have been claiming to be Christians, saying, "Jesus lives in me." Some have had the doctrine of righteousness and holiness without much reality. It is time that we seek God until the things of the Spirit are made a reality in our lives. It is time to let God take all our knowledge and let Him build it into us, so that He can raise up His corporate expression on the earth, the Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8).

How many times have you thought, "Oh, if only I could see God!" Seeing God is a promise made to the pure in heart. Thank God it’s a matter of the heart, and not the intellect or emotions. Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing what I should, but my heart will lead me in the right direction. The gospel of Jesus is a gospel to the heart. Thank God, it doesn’t depend upon how we feel. If our heart is truly seeking God, we will be able to take control of our feelings. Maybe the saints of God are meeting and I just don’t feel like going. We can rise up and speak to our body, "Feet, you are going to take me where the saints are this morning." I may not feel like worshipping God on a certain day, but if I follow my heart I will raise my voice to sing and praise, and I will find myself in the enjoyment of God.

What Is Our Heart?

Some say that the heart and the spirit are the same in scripture, being synonymous terms. "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saves such as be of a contrite spirit" (Psalm 34:18). You can look in your Strong’s Concordance and see that these two words are different. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken" (Prov. 15:13). "A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them" (Ezek. 36:26). These verses show that the heart and the spirit are not always used as synonymous terms.

We Contact God With Our Spirit

To make contact with the Lord is simply a matter of using our spirit. The well of Living Water, Christ, the life, the ability and nature of God, is in our spirit. The function of our spirit is to contact, receive, commune with, and worship God. If you want to worship God, you must worship Him in spirit, not with the natural mind and reasoning. If you want to contact God, you must learn how to worship Him with your spirit. Jesus said in John 4:24, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." When we receive Jesus, our spirit is quickened by the Spirit of God. Our spirit becomes energized with divine life. I Corinthians 6:17 says, "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." You are one with God, not in your natural mind, but in your spirit. This is why the Apostle Paul says in Romans 12:2, "Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We must spend time in God’s presence and in His Word to allow His Spirit in our spirit to flow into and transform our natural mind into a spiritual mind.

Touching God in Our Spirit

This can be illustrated by electricity. Electricity is a type of God. You have a base station where the energy is stored, and you have the lines through which the energy flows. Then you have a plug in your home. All the power of electricity is available to you, but you must plug into it to benefit from it. You cannot light your house with a lamp unless you plug into the electricity. God the Father is the source of divine life. God the Son is the course through which the life flows. The Holy Spirit in our spirit is the plug through which we make contact with the divine life. We have the flowing of God with His divine essence and ability available to us in our spirit. When we touch God in our spirit, we immediately sense the energizing life-giving power of His Spirit, just like you would be charged with electricity if you touched a bare wire. You can have electricity transmitted into you simply by a touch. There are testimonies of thousands of people who can say, "One day I received a touch from God." I can remember so vividly the day when I first felt the touch of God. When the divine electricity was transmitted into me, I didn’t understand what had happened to me for quite some time. I didn’t know why I would begin to weep when I would walk into an assembly of God’s people. My mind could not understand the things of God.

When you understand that to touch God is always a matter of your spirit, then your mind cannot cheat you out of touching God when you feel depressed, or you miss God, or do something wrong. Always remember that touching God is not a matter of the mind or the soul exercising its power, but a matter of you touching God in your spirit. No matter how bad a life you live, if you stick your finger in an open light-socket you will be energized with electricity. God’s principle is the same. No matter how many times you miss God, no matter how bad you are, if you will turn to God and exercise your spirit to touch Him, you will be energized by His divine electricity. Jesus went to the Cross to make God available to you regardless of your condition. If we could be righteous within ourselves and could walk the Christian life with self-effort, there would have been no need for the Cross of Christ. Because of the blood of Jesus, and the offering of His spotless life as the Lamb of God, we have access to Him. We can put our finger in the light socket, regardless of our outward condition, and have God flow through us. If you really understand this, you can always get to God. Your condition does not matter. So many try to adjust their outward condition to get to God. Every time you seek after God and touch Him, you get the divine electricity transmitted into you and that will adjust your outward condition. It is not what you can do in your own strength, but it is a matter of getting to the power source. When you realize the value of the forgiveness of the blood of Jesus, you can immediately enter into the Spirit and touch the divine electricity, and that will cleanse you and adjust your wa