If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple
Luke 14:26
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Heaven and Earth will pass away before any one of His words passes away. Many people would like to interpret this passage into obscurity, equating it with similar, albeit, related scriptures, such as this one.
There is only one way to walk consistently in the power of God, and that is focus. What a man beholds, he sees that thing, and it is magnified in his imagination.
If a man set gaze upon it, he can possess it, though it is costly.
Consider the following:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7
He who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought.
1 Corinthians 8:2 (paraphrase)
The most interesting thing about the gospel is that, you could have all the words right, you could say all the right things, have all the right demeanor and mannerism, you could know when to shout and how to dance, but you could be just as much of a devil as Judas was. That’s right. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
You don’t have what it takes. You never have, and you never will. If you can do it, it isn’t God, and it needs to die.
Faith is a substance. Faith is a communicable dis-ease with the status quo. Faith makes a way where there seems to be no way, and calls those things that are not as though they are. Faith looks beyond the facts, and sees God’s Truth, what He has said. Faith hopes beyond all hope, and is righteousness to God.
When one hears a Word of the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it away. This is the word of the Kingdom. This is the Word of Faith, which we speak.
1 Corinthians 13:13 says that these three remain: faith, hope, and love. Hope is what we wait with expectancy to happen. Faith is the substance of that, now. We might hope for a piece of bread to eat, but Faith is to have the substance of that, despite my natural hand still being empty.
An entire oak tree is contained well within a tight, easy to carry package. It has it’s own leathery cover, and even a handy carrying cup attached to the top. You could, in fact, carry a hundred complete oak trees just in your pants pockets alone (assuming you’ve got big pockets). The only thing you need to add, in order to convert your easy to transport oak tree into an immovable pillar is some sunshine, a plot of dirt, some water, and a hundred years or so!
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, that when planted, it is the smallest of seeds, but when it grows, it becomes the largest of all garden plants, and the birds of the air make their nest in it.
Matthew 13:31-32
If you would see the Kingdom, you must be born again. If you would enter into His life, His Word of life must come into you as a seed and begin to grow.
Everything starts small. It starts obscure. We do not despise the smallness, but we understand that everything which is planted, in its full time, grows to maturity.
From the yeast beginning with just a small bit for the entire dough, to the mustard seed which would grow, the life of the Spirit must begin very small, yet grow to its size.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the eternal reign and realm of God. It is not God, yet is inseparable from Him and His attributes. It is the perfect picture of government, as we understand such, in that it is perfectly just and righteous, perfectly merciful, humble, and powerful. Indeed all true human government derives itself from it.
We must not confuse the Kingdom with the church. The church is related to the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is related to the church, but we must not look at the outward expression of what we know as “church” and equate it with the Kingdom.
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