{"id":671,"date":"2011-11-13T05:53:01","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T05:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.churchofthebeyond.com\/?p=671"},"modified":"2012-01-11T14:05:51","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T19:05:51","slug":"you-will-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/13\/you-will-find\/","title":{"rendered":"You Will Find"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.<\/p>\n

Matthew 7:7<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is part of the good news Jesus came to bring. \u00a0If we ask for it, He will bring it. \u00a0If we look for it, we will find it. \u00a0If we keep knocking at the door, eventually, it will open for us. \u00a0This is Kingdom 101 quite often, and, whether it is accepted as such or dismissed from there, it can often get little investigation later. \u00a0However, as with many of Jesus’ sayings, they apply to multiple levels.<\/p>\n

For instance, take the phrase “Seek and you will find.” \u00a0This, of course, applies to the Kingdom of Heaven, to God the Father, and to Jesus. \u00a0This of course applies to answers and\u00a0deliverances\u00a0and other such burdens we offer towards heaven. \u00a0But, let’s look at this another way for a moment.<\/p>\n

Jesus ministered on the Earth in the power of the Spirit. \u00a0The gifts were evident yet not on display. \u00a0The Spirit was present, and the gifts were promised, but the primary focus of the teaching was directed towards the Father’s will.<\/p>\n

Not everyone who says to Me, \u2018Lord, Lord,\u2019 will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven\u00a0will enter.<\/em>\u00a0Many will say to Me on that day, \u2018Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?\u2019 \u00a0And then I will declare to them, \u2018I never knew you;\u00a0DEPART FROM<\/span>\u00a0ME<\/span>,\u00a0YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS<\/span>.\u2019<\/p>\n

Matthew 7:21-23<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesus said that the gate was small AND that the way was narrow that led to life (Matthew 7:14).<\/p>\n

One thing that becomes apparent as one walks down the way of the prophetic gifting, the path of yoked service to the Lord. \u00a0What you seek, you will find. \u00a0This is, in fact, exactly what Jesus said. \u00a0However, what exactly you are seeking becomes vitally important in light of the ending of the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n

Suppose you are still seeking self-promotion and recognition. \u00a0You will find it. \u00a0Suppose you are seeking soulish comfort to fill a void and a need. \u00a0It becomes often quite difficult to discern what you are hearing when it comes to you own deep-seated pains and insecurities. \u00a0If you are seeking anything, eventually, what you are looking for will come out.<\/p>\n

And, if it isn’t His Kingdom and His righteousness, it will come \u00a0out exactly as it is described in the previous two and and half chapters. \u00a0You wont be living the “Happy all the time” lifestyle of the Beatitudes, the life of faith. \u00a0You will begin to manifest anger, or other symptoms, sometimes almost out of no where. \u00a0You will begin to contend with every other wicked force in the universe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.<\/p>\n

James 3:16<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

James puts it well. \u00a0When we do not do things God’s way, it may begin to seem like we are battling every devilish device ever known to man. \u00a0This is exactly what James wrote, “every evil thing”.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, this is a simple little rule. \u00a0Jesus said, Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all the others will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). \u00a0He said that if we sought the honor that comes only from above, we would receive that, and that then He would reward us openly.<\/p>\n

You see, you get what you set out to find. \u00a0Yet, it is not those who do the miracles, deliverances, and the signs and the wonders that are honorable in the Kingdom. \u00a0It is ONLY<\/strong>\u00a0those who do the will of the Father.<\/p>\n

Now, it is God’s will to deliver His people. \u00a0It is His will to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead, and cast out demons. \u00a0But He has a way, a plan, a purpose, and timing. \u00a0He wants all the glory.<\/p>\n

Paul writes plainly that we are to earnestly desire the greater gifts,\u00a0especially\u00a0that we might prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1). \u00a0The point is not so much to be afraid to exercise our gifts, but to remember what aim we are fighting for. \u00a0The Ephesian church in the book of Revelations had lost their first love (Revelation 2:4). \u00a0Though they increased in every good work, they lost their primary focus, their purity of devotion to Christ.<\/p>\n

If we ever lose that, we stand in danger of losing our entire work. \u00a0The very next verse, Revelation 2:5, Jesus Himself says He is coming to remove their lampstand, their charter as His church, if they do not get back to the One Thing that matters.<\/p>\n

If we are truly seeking His heart, we do not need to fear; we will be okay. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because we are seeking Him, and we will find Him. \u00a0Any gift exercised in that heart is excusable when we step out of line and need to be corrected or disciplined by His Spirit, for our own good. \u00a0But, the purpose of the outward is to lead to the inward. \u00a0As touch is the invitation to intimacy, so is the miraculous the invitation into the Beyond, the realm of God. \u00a0It points to the hidden dimension, the realm of the Spirit, and ultimately, to the domain of the King, the Kingdom of God. \u00a0By encountering the outward works of God, we are invited into the inner workings of the tabernacle, as we could put it. \u00a0What touched us the first time in our emotions is to draw us into a deeper, more complete relationship with the one that we love, the one we truly seek, the Son of Man, the perfect one, Jesus Christ, and the fullness of His heart.<\/p>\n

If our work remains only on the outside, how superficial, how selfish, and how ungodly we have become. \u00a0But, if it leads past the physical, past the miracle, into the realm of the one who made the miracle, through repentance unto faith, through the finished work and shed blood of His cross, we have accomplished what it the sign was wrought for.<\/p>\n

Truly, anyone who comes any other way is a thief and a robber. \u00a0To look to the miraculous signs as anything other than an invitation to relationship is such a carnal, materialistic notion, that it is not surprising at all that elsewhere Jesus said that it was an adulterous generation that asked for a sign (Matthew 16:4). \u00a0Anyone who uses the powers of faith, the anointing and power of God, for anything other than Kingdom business, and through the heart and character and nature of God, as displayed through the Sermon on the Mount, they are, by Jesus’ definition, an thief and a robber (John 10:1). \u00a0And, anyone who uses it for primarily self-promotion will get demoted in the age to come.<\/p>\n

He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). \u00a0He is the Way (John 14:6), and all His commands lead to life (John 12:50).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 This is part of the good news Jesus came to bring. \u00a0If we ask for it, He will bring it. \u00a0If we look for it, we will find it. \u00a0If we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[16,422,420,11,414,311,14,1301,312,112,64,421,81,423,7,126,51],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kingdom","category-teaching","tag-beyond","tag-envy","tag-find","tag-happy","tag-intimacy","tag-jealosy","tag-jesus","tag-kingdom","tag-lawlessness","tag-life","tag-one-thing","tag-realm","tag-seek","tag-selfish-ambition","tag-sermon-on-the-mount","tag-the-way","tag-truth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2MdeJ-aP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/emerald.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ChurchOfTheBeyond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}