A great Truth of the Kingdom: Letting go of Self-Sufficiency is Repentance.
When John the Baptist first started preaching, what was it that he said? "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come nigh!" What does that mean? Why do we need to repent because the kingdom "draws near" anyways?
John was preaching a warning that many of the peoples living in the land of Israel heard, even soldiers of the Roman Imperial Army (some of whom could have been Jews too). It was a message that woke people up to a reality that was beyond their control - that Righteousness was not something you can achieve by your efforts and that without this true Righteousness great wrath would be experienced.
He may not have understood a lot about Grace (not until Jesus began to preach anyways) but He was according to the Messiah - the greatest prophet of the Old Covenant and its Last Prophet, the one who paved the way for the establishment of the New Covenant by preparing people's hearts to receive Grace.
If you want to understand the Kingdom - you need to completely change the way you think and that is Repentance. To Repent means to ReThink to ReForm or to ReCreate.
In the second verse of the Bible, it says "and the earth became void and empty and dark over the face of [the] deep" but just it continues to show something amazing in all this - "and the Spirit of God (Elohim) flutters over the face of the Waters and Elohim says Light Be and Light Becomes." (Gen 1:2,3)
In a way that is Repentance - to understand that as a human we have become void and empty and full of darkness but when the Spirit of God comes in as we confess our state of sinfulness (our sins) a New Creation is made (this is your rebirth! see John 3:5) of this and we become New Creations, full of Light, God's Light!
All who have come to embrace what Yeshua did for them on the Cross 2000 years ago are New Creations. (This not something you have to keep doing in your walk as with Jesus, by the way, you ever secure in His Righteousness now!)
Jesus repeated the same exact thing that John said in the very beginning of His ministry (Mat 4:17). In other words, this is God saying, "pay attention!"
So repenting (recreating, remaking, reforming) changes how we see ourselves from being self-sufficient sinners, to Savior-Sufficient Saints... we now have sufficiency from God, from His Son Jesus who has made us the Righteousness of God and has given us His Righteousness. Righteousness means to be worthy of the Inheritance and we are now worthy of God's Inheritance and it is completely given to us without respect to what we have done or deserve, it is given freely (all we have to do is receive it, by faith, etc).
This is a huge precept of the Kingdom - the self-sufficient find it is so difficult to yield to the Kingdom of Heaven. If you want to understand the ways of God's Kingdom but have an overarching theme of self-sufficiency in your life, a sort of attitude that pushes God totally out of your picture, you are self-sufficient. And while this applies to everything from recognizing His goodness to you in the areas of relationships, health, finances, etc the first of the firsts is to see that as a human without God you will never be able to experience being Righteous (the Pharisees for example wanted to be Righteous by the standards of God's Law and didn't want God to have anything to do with it! This way of thinking is very much alive today, sadly, even in the church).
But you can decide to let go of your self-sufficiency: defined as a way of thinking and living as if you can be satisfied and fulfilled in anything without God - the other name for this is simply sin! So when you decide to receive the forgiveness of sins through what Jesus did for you on the Cross, you let go of your self-sufficiency. This is how the Kingdom becomes open to you.
The Saint may have initially done this at one point, but I have found that ridding our lives of self-sufficiency is a prime directive for every son and daughter of the Most High. Jesus said we had to do this everyday (Luke 9:23). I'm not saying we as born again saints of God have to now confess our sins to be forgiven or else our righteousness will leave us, etc. I'm saying that as we walk with God He will show us how to let go from trusting ourselves and teach us to rely on Him more.
This is how you begin to experience the Reign of Heaven.
Here's to living a Life where we discover what this truly means. Stay tuned for more... #Kingdom101
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| Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash |
He may not have understood a lot about Grace (not until Jesus began to preach anyways) but He was according to the Messiah - the greatest prophet of the Old Covenant and its Last Prophet, the one who paved the way for the establishment of the New Covenant by preparing people's hearts to receive Grace.
If you want to understand the Kingdom - you need to completely change the way you think and that is Repentance. To Repent means to ReThink to ReForm or to ReCreate.
In the second verse of the Bible, it says "and the earth became void and empty and dark over the face of [the] deep" but just it continues to show something amazing in all this - "and the Spirit of God (Elohim) flutters over the face of the Waters and Elohim says Light Be and Light Becomes." (Gen 1:2,3)
In a way that is Repentance - to understand that as a human we have become void and empty and full of darkness but when the Spirit of God comes in as we confess our state of sinfulness (our sins) a New Creation is made (this is your rebirth! see John 3:5) of this and we become New Creations, full of Light, God's Light!
All who have come to embrace what Yeshua did for them on the Cross 2000 years ago are New Creations. (This not something you have to keep doing in your walk as with Jesus, by the way, you ever secure in His Righteousness now!)
Jesus repeated the same exact thing that John said in the very beginning of His ministry (Mat 4:17). In other words, this is God saying, "pay attention!"
So repenting (recreating, remaking, reforming) changes how we see ourselves from being self-sufficient sinners, to Savior-Sufficient Saints... we now have sufficiency from God, from His Son Jesus who has made us the Righteousness of God and has given us His Righteousness. Righteousness means to be worthy of the Inheritance and we are now worthy of God's Inheritance and it is completely given to us without respect to what we have done or deserve, it is given freely (all we have to do is receive it, by faith, etc).
This is a huge precept of the Kingdom - the self-sufficient find it is so difficult to yield to the Kingdom of Heaven. If you want to understand the ways of God's Kingdom but have an overarching theme of self-sufficiency in your life, a sort of attitude that pushes God totally out of your picture, you are self-sufficient. And while this applies to everything from recognizing His goodness to you in the areas of relationships, health, finances, etc the first of the firsts is to see that as a human without God you will never be able to experience being Righteous (the Pharisees for example wanted to be Righteous by the standards of God's Law and didn't want God to have anything to do with it! This way of thinking is very much alive today, sadly, even in the church).
But you can decide to let go of your self-sufficiency: defined as a way of thinking and living as if you can be satisfied and fulfilled in anything without God - the other name for this is simply sin! So when you decide to receive the forgiveness of sins through what Jesus did for you on the Cross, you let go of your self-sufficiency. This is how the Kingdom becomes open to you.
The Saint may have initially done this at one point, but I have found that ridding our lives of self-sufficiency is a prime directive for every son and daughter of the Most High. Jesus said we had to do this everyday (Luke 9:23). I'm not saying we as born again saints of God have to now confess our sins to be forgiven or else our righteousness will leave us, etc. I'm saying that as we walk with God He will show us how to let go from trusting ourselves and teach us to rely on Him more.
This is how you begin to experience the Reign of Heaven.
Here's to living a Life where we discover what this truly means. Stay tuned for more... #Kingdom101
Like this post? Don't miss out by subscribing!
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