This past weekend, Mark and I gave a presentation on the Gospel of the Kingdom for Luke 4:18 Ministries in Austin, Texas. As the time approached, I will tell you that I was a little nervous. Speaking in front of groups of people is getting easier for me, but it does not come naturally. Then my good friend, Mary, gave me a new perspective about this disposition of mine. When we arrived at the venue and I expressed my concern, she looked me right in the eyes, and said, "Oh, that's just your flesh. Your spirit is excited!" And at that moment everything changed. She was right! My spirit was excited about the opportunity to share this important message about the Kingdom of God to the people gathered there; all of whom I knew were never going to be the same after we showed them what they'd missed in their Bibles and in their Churches. After all, we wanted them to have the same experience of divine revelation we had when this amazing Truth was revealed to us.
It was such a joy to see minds being renewed to God's original plan for mankind. There was so much to share, and to be honest, I feel we barely scratched the surface of what God wants us to rediscover in His Word. There are so many aspects of the Gospel of the Kingdom that we need to bring to light, that we could spend days teaching on the "Good News" Jesus brought. For this day, it was important to show that the reason we were created was to be God's representatives and ambassadors on earth. The word representative is a very serious word. It means one chosen or appointed to act or speak for another; and someone in particular. I sometimes think we forget, or don't see, who we were made to be, and what is our role in the earth.
Genesis 1:26, 28 make it very clear that we are made in the image of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness]. I love a teaching by the late Dr. Myles Munroe, in which he says, "You don't have a spirit .... You are a spirit!" He goes on to teach that, as the Bible says, God formed man of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), so we are "a spirit in a dirt body, known as a human". This is important because we need to understand why God only gave humans the authority [to represent Him] on the earth. Dr. Munroe gives a quick etymology lesson: the word humus is the word for dirt. The word for man is Ish, and man is a spirit being. Man is a spirit, but his body is humus. In essence we are a humus man [spirit being in a dirt body], shortened to human. Follow me, so far?
When you think about it, that is a complicated concept, but it is important in knowing God's plan and our purpose. His plan began with giving humans dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26, 28): Let them (humans) have dominion over all the earth ... God said to them, subdue it and have dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth. So the only being that has legal rights and authority to dominate the earth [given by God] is a spirit being in a dirt body.
God's Word never changes, right? So, here is a nugget of wisdom from Dr. Munroe that rocked Mark and I, and I think it will you, too .... "Any spirit without a dirt body is illegal on earth. Now you know why demons are illegal. Your most powerful weapon on the earth is not your spirit. When we die and lose our body, we become illegal, too, and we have to leave the earth. We call it death. We need to understand that our bodies keep us legal on the earth, and this is why demons are looking for a body to enter. They are trying to become legal, so they can become functional on earth".
NOTE: I want to stop right here and interject an important point. I am not saying that someone who comes to us for Inner Healing and Deliverance and is being tormented by a spirit of anger, or a spirit of unworthiness, etc. is possessed. That is why when we confront these spirits [in a deliverance session] we ask if they have legal authority, and they say "no", because the person is being "oppressed" by the demon of anger, and is not "possessed" by it. It is a matter of torment and not possession, because the demon has not entered their body, they are just whispering lies that the Beloved is believing. That is why we can cast them out, because they have no legal authority according to God's own rules. And we must remember that our Father is a God of order and has set spiritual laws in place to govern His Kingdom, which is why our legal authority is so important. Obviously, I am not saying that our spirit is unimportant -- it is the connection with our Lord and how we have relationship with the Father. But in order to carry out the assignments our spirits have been given, we must have a body here on earth. Make sense?
Now, it is also important to understand Scripture as God intended. He gave man dominion over the earth instead of giving it to Himself. He created us to be His agents, or ambassadors, who would extend His Kingdom of Heaven to the earth. So He wants to use us in order to become involved in the earth. But it is the spirit in us [which is Him in the form of the Holy Spirit] that enables Him to rule through us. It is God's plan to rule the world through the unseen Holy Spirit, living in the unseen spirit of man, which dwells in our physical [seen] body.
Consider this, the Holy Spirit didn't indwell anyone in the Old Testament. He came upon men when God needed them empowered for His service, giving them special skills to perform certain tasks. For instance Judges 3:10 tells us, And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him (Othniel, younger brother of Caleb), and he judged Israel, and went out to war; Judges 6:34 says, But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him; Judges 14:6 says this about Samson: And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. And the Bible records that "the hand of the Lord" came upon all the Old Testament prophets to prophesy and do His will.
That's the difference between the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant and the New ... there wasn't a person who could permanently host the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament because there wasn't a sacrifice good enough to make them holy. The Spirit would come upon them to do God's will [through a miracle, a prophecy, or to be strong to do a great work] and then He would leave. And it is important that we recognize that while Jesus was on the earth in the New Testament, there is no record of anyone else hosting the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the power of the Holy Spirit entered Him at His baptism and He carried it from that day forward! And His ultimate assignment was to get the power and the authority of the Holy Spirit into us so that we could carry on His assignment to restore the Kingdom of God on earth back to man.
You see, while Christ was on the earth, He lent the power of the Holy Spirit that was in Him to men. Luke 9:1 validates this truth so well: And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. But after His resurrection, He appears in the Upper Room and breathed on the Disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, He said, As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. What was Jesus sent to do? As He says over and over in the Gospels, He was sent to bring the Good News that the Kingdom of God was going to be restored on the earth. And it would be accomplished through Saved men. How do we know that?
Every parable He taught was a lesson on what the Kingdom of God in Heaven was like, and how we are to walk in it on the earth. He told us to seek the Kingdom first, above all else. He told us to pray that His Father's Kingdom would come, on earth as it is in Heaven. He told us to "ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you." He told us that our Father in Heaven knows what we need, and if we, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those of us who ask Him! And, He told us it is the Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom... but it is incumbent upon us to use our free will to ask for it, seek it, and knock until it is opened to us. He will not force it upon us. And the door to enter into the Kingdom is our Salvation ... unless one is born [again] of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit indwells us at our Salvation experience and is the key to entering the Kingdom of God!
It is so easy to see once the veil is removed from our spiritual eyes. In fact, everything about the message of Jesus in the four Gospels takes on new significance. Just read the Word again with a new perspective ... underline every time Jesus talks about the Kingdom and ask the Holy Spirit to renew your mind about what your purpose is. We are a spirit in the likeness of our Father and Creator, sent here to live in a body and to continue the work of our Lord, restoring the dominion of the earth to God's original purpose... that earth would perfectly reflect Heaven. It is time we recognize the fullness of our purpose and take back the spiritual government of the earth, ruling it as it is in Heaven.
Mark 1:15 The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand [has arrived]; repent [change the way you think; seek God's purpose for your life] and believe in the gospel [the Good News].
Yup!
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