The Kingdom Age is Upon Us

If you have followed me in recent months, you will have undoubtedly heard me say or read that that we are in a massive transition between the close of the Church Age and the opening of the Kingdom Age. More factually, the Kingdom Age has actually been upon us for a while, the Lord has simply chosen to begin acting upon us to see it and cause us to make sufficient internal changes that will disconnect us from the understandings, teachings, paradigms, principles beliefs and engrained habits we’ve acquired during the Church Age that are currently limiting our ability to live, move and have our being that cause us to act out of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, the Kingdom Age is upon us, but our souls are stuck in the transition, half mired in all the stuff of the past Age and is struggling to come to terms with it.

The idea we’ve been taught by those whose spiritual sight was limited by the Church Age is that we must come to some level of maturity in order to enter the Kingdom of God, like a club we are now qualified to join, or somehow the Kingdom will from an external source and envelope us because we allowed it or even asked for it. The proof of it will be that our spiritual gifts will work in power all the time, we will continually be able to receive revelation from the Word, we will clearly hear the voice of the Lord all the time and be instantly obedient, in other words, something we’ll either grow into, or will be bestowed upon us. There is very little, if any truth in that belief system because this is a belief founded in performance, the standard of the world.

Some of that belief system has been justified by the following verse wherein Jesus told us in Matthew 18:3, “Unless you turn and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” “Unless you turn,” essentially meaning if you do not repent and transform, change, etc. or resume your previous estate, reinstituting the motivations, character and essence of that of a little child, you will not be able to embrace and experience everything the Kingdom of Heaven has to offer you. We’ve been taught that the implication of ‘turn’ is solely up to us, performance if you will. Further, the use of the word “become” intimates that there’s a lot of work we have to do, which is not consistent with either Philippians 1:6 or Hebrews 13:21 or even Mark 10:27.

However, If you look at the word in that verse that is translated “little children” the primary definition of it is actually “infant,” one who is totally dependent upon God as your complete caretaker, totally devoid of self-protection, provision and promotion, freely able to live without fear and judgment, able to forgive, fully express creativity and see as our creator made you, totally free of individual performance.

“Unless you turn,” also means that it is possible, giving God permission to simply help us pick up that which we left behind in exchange for what we’ve bought into. It is still available to each of us simply by abandoning all that we’ve picked up along the way that works at cross purposes to the Kingdom, which essentially is pretty much everything that the system of the world has taught us and we have unfortunately embraced intellectually because it “made sense” from our performance oriented perspective.

God’s promise and ever extended free offer is this ….  “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) declaring that it is not external to you. For good measure He declares, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32) Then we are given some further information of its earthly impact with the following, “And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)

The Kingdom is within you, in other words the kingdom of heaven is not an external thing. It is not going to come upon you or walk up and present itself to you. You already have it, but it has been locked up by the training the world has saturated you in. In order to free His people, God has given you the keys to unlocking the fullness of that kingdom that already resides within you. The Kingdom of Heaven is in you and the keys to unlock it are already in you right now as well. If I may, let me delineate for you the primary keys he’s given you.

The number one key to unlocking the kingdom within you is God’s written Word (logos). His word is “the way, the truth and the life” and is in written form provided for us to measure what we’ve picked up from the world we live in to be reflected against the Word’s absolute truth. If you choose to embrace what it says to you and actualize it every day by being obedient to it, then you will find that the second half of Matthew 16:19 will become an actual reality in your life, because you must first bind that within you (the key) which has heretofore prevented you from walking in the dictates of the Kingdom that are already attempting to direct you.

The second key to unlocking the Kingdom within you is hearing and obeying God’s voice (Rhema) as he directs your human spirit by His own spirit to begin to focus you on functioning in last phrase of Matthew 16:19, which will become a moment-by-moment reality in your life such that “whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In other words, you will begin to see that which is life in heaven can be brought to earth to solve people’s personal problems, as well as your own, simply by listening and walking in his step-by-step direction I love the way it is expressed Isaiah 30:18-21, “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” (ESV)

Then you will begin to operate as Jesus did, able to say, “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you” (Luke 10:9) because you are carrying a valid expression of it.

There are obviously a number of keys given to us that would be worthy of discussion here, but from what I noticed lately in the lives of many that I minister to is that are struggling with the enemy simply because they’ve never appropriately battled him. James 4:7 give us the key, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” This is actually a two-fold exhortation. When you are struggling with the temptation to resort to old habits, etc., regardless of what it is, you must resist the devil. Just say No. But then, do the first part of this verse, submit yourself to God who will provide you with the strength to continue standing in your ability to resist.

Now, I am not saying living Kingdom life is easy, dying to our natural selves is never going to be painless, but it is not nearly as impossible as many have come to consider it to be. A fourth key could simply be connect yourself with folks who have been walking this path for some time. They’ve learned some things that will help you … and everyone needs someone to lean on now and again.