The Kingdom is at Hand
“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
“go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:6-8).
Let’s begin by considering this word “REPENT” and the purpose of why Jesus uses it in the same sentence saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. In Matthew 4:17, Jesus is repeating the same words that John the Baptist spoke in Matthew 3:2. The Greek word used in both statements is Strongs’#3340 – regret accompanied by a true change of heart toward God. The regret is a change of mind from the course pursued and resulting in a wiser view of the past and future. You may be living a comfortable life, but there would be an act of repentance towards God to move from comfortable to the full potential of what you were created for. This repentance is NOT the Greek word “metameilionai” from Strong’s #3338 where repentance is about the consequence of one’s actions versus truly changing their heart toward God.
When Jesus began His ministry, He used the word “repent” in context of encouraging people to change their heart – their way of thinking – because the longing of a better way was there before them. Unfortunately, this is NOT the way the church has been encouraging people to repent but teaching repentance as a means of escaping hell and going to heaven. Even with John the Baptist usage of the word, he is not telling the people how bad they are, but the opportunity to change their way of thinking and doing life is about to change for them. “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11).
Jesus sent His disciples out before the cross to teach that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. John the Baptist released the message to the world before the ministry of Jesus that we needed to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord by being baptized in water – repentance – wash off your old way of thinking so you can clear your heart and mind for the best of what God wants to give you now.
The ministry of Jesus for the disciples to follow as His Apostles was built upon the foundation of the ROCK that Jesus Christ is Lord, and His Kingdom was NOW among humanity. The baptism that Jesus imparted to humanity was the Holy Ghost – the fire of God. It is the fire we carry within our flesh known as Christ in us – the resurrection power of God tabernacling within humanity (Revelation 21:3).
When Jesus died on the cross, He took upon Himself the sins of the world. “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrew 9:26). He released the ministry of the Holy Spirit into the world to burn off the flesh as “repentance” takes place - turning towards the Kingdom of God while in our natural body. This is the end of the world – the end of time – as man knows with the Kingdom of Heaven invading the earth.
Peter shares this happening in each of us when he wrote, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).
When Jesus died and rose again from death, hell, and the grave, He not only fulfilled the position of the Lamb slain on the cross, but also the position of the scape goat that ALL the sins of the people were placed upon Jesus Christ – our scape goat - and then sent into the wilderness and seen NO MORE (Hebrew 9:25). After Jesus rose from the grave, He met Mary Magdalen giving her the greatest message of Life for the world to receive – HE IS RISEN! Go tell My brothers that I will meet them in the Galilee (Matthew 28:10).
The Galilee is about a three days journey north of Jerusalem. Between these two regions is the wilderness mountains that Jesus spent 40 days being tempted by the enemy of God. After the disciples meet with Jesus in the Galilee, He spent 40 days with them coming through the wilderness on their return to Jerusalem as the resurrection LIFE. They are not walking and talking with Jesus as the man from Galilee before the cross, but the resurrected Christ living and moving among them while they are going through the wilderness journey of temptation.
The scene and relationship had changed from before the cross. Jesus is no longer being identified as their teacher, and they His students or disciples. He is identifying them as brothers with the same Father who is also God. He is giving them the Father’s business of reconciliation that He was given, so that when they arrived back in Jerusalem, they went to the upper room to wait on their bar mitzvah ceremony of the baptism of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of the Father saying, “This is my beloved SON in whom I am well please,” and the Holy Spirit descending on them as tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as a dove representing LOVE. We are in HIM, so we are in LOVE with the fire of God in us!
This is Truth – Jesus Christ - who sets us free. This is the mission of Jesus Christ that He imparted to His body, the church – not counting anyone’s sins against them, but telling them who they are so they too would hear their Heavenly Father’s voice. Of our own will we can do nothing, but when the Holy Spirit reveals the Truth – Christ in you - to us (Col. 1:27), and that we are IN TRUTH – Christ Jesus, we then have the joint connection of His bone and His flesh as One Body with His redeeming blood flowing through our being. We live, and move, and have our being – our life journey – IN HIM as a member – a cell – of His one body in the earth today because we are God’s offspring (Acts 17:28). We are in the only Begotten SON of God as One NEW MAN called CHRIST whom Jesus is the head (Ephesians 2:15, Col. 1:18, 2:19). This is the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
There are two kingdoms in the world today functioning through the mind and hearts of humanity – the Kingdom of darkness (humanity), and the Kingdom of Heaven – Christ Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to us now while in our natural body, but it takes an act of repentance, a change to the way we have processed life through our logic and reasoning of humanity.
The kingdom of darkness has a good side of logic and reason and an evil side, but both good and evil will end in death once time is complete for that season of logic and reason. This kingdom has a cross stuck in the ground (humanity) as it’s throne where it becomes the touchstone of good and evil. This is the cross the Jesus died on taking all judgment of good and evil upon himself and destroying the effects of the cross of death upon humanity (Hebrews 9:26).
The Kingdom of Heaven is Eternal Life that is available now, not just when we leave our natural body. It functions with supernatural power and authority from the unseen realm to the visible released by the Holy Spirit in humanity as: Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. There is no law of doing something to receive good or not do something because of the consequence of evil. This kingdom is symbolic with the banner of LOVE (Song of Solomon 2:4).
When these two kingdoms are confronted between our ears as a battle of Armageddon – it is not a battle of flesh and blood, but powers and principalities in the spirit realm (Rev. 16:16, Ephesians 6:12). Our thoughts will be tossed back and forth until we follow the Holy Spirit with the banner of LOVE in the middle of the circumstance, instead of following the familiar spirits (ego, demonic) that seek justice with the cross.
Jesus said, “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Humanity’s form came from the ground. When we judge others with our thoughts and words, we must first pick that judgment up (the cross of death) and carry that judgment for ourselves, our family, and our friends. We often have opinions of right or wrong, good or bad towards other people, but don’t stop to consider if that opinion would still stand if it was your child, spouse, parent, etc.
Jesus didn’t take away good or bad from the Tree of Knowledge, but the effect of death it had when the Holy Spirit is in authority unveiling the Kingdom of God’s presence as the banner of LOVE takes over.
Paul shares a very important message to the Colossians when he says:
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant” (Colossians 1:15-23).
Receiving Eternal Life is more than just a place to go after we leave our natural body where there is peace, love, and perfection. Eternal Life IS KNOWING God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent (John 17:3). Jesus is not praying to God for us to receive intellectual understanding and calling it eternal life, but an actual experience of intimacy that only LOVE can impregnate into the intellect and bring transformation to the whole mind, heart, spirit, soul, and body.
Notice that Paul wrote that Jesus reconciled to himself ALL THINGS on earth or in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Everyone was once alienated from God in our mind, but NOW everyone has been reconciled back to God by Christ’s physical body that already went through death, and now has been presented to God as holy without blemish and free from ALL accusations.
When we make accusations against another, we subconsciously are saying that the cross didn’t finish the job of judgment, death, hell, and the grave.
When we carry the cross, the judgment we perceive upon others, we can release God’s love to them instead of death. The power of death and life begins in our thoughts and then spoken into the air as they were circumcised by t blood of Christ in our heart (Proverbs 18:21).
REPENT – change your way of thinking, for the Kingdom of God is Here!
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).
“We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
When we truly know Jesus Christ, not only as our Savior, redeemer, healer, provider, etc., but in the knowing of intimacy as husband, the lover of our soul, we then shall behold the cross of our cross, and the resurrection of Christ as our resurrection today while in our natural body (2 Timothy 2:11).
We must stop being impressed by the devil – the kingdom of darkness – but enter the gates of that kingdom with joy and thanksgiving in our hearts. What we perceive with our natural senses of separation, division, partial truth, negativity, condemnation are all functions of the kingdom of darkness, but greater is HE that is IN YOU – where is Christ Jesus? IN YOU! Where is the King of kings and Lord of lord? In His Kingdom in you! “Christ in you is the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). The body of Christ – the church – IS where Jesus Christ functions in His Kingdom in the natural realm. When we know we are Christians but try to tell the KING of GLORY how to run His Kingdom, instead of being the submissive bride of Christ, we created divisions in the Kingdom of Heaven that darkness has no rights except what we give it through our own thoughts or creation from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil instead of the Tree of Life.
The power of LIGHT, LIFE, and LOVE flows in us because we are IN Christ Jesus now, not a relationship with Jesus that is off somewhere in an unseen realm or planet.
John writes a very powerful message in his letter in 1 John:
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 John 4:11-21).
If we claim to love God, yet judge others, we are a liar. We can call our selves a Christian by our choice of saying a sinner’s prayer and claiming Jesus as our personal Savior, but God is saying the truth of the matter is that you are a Christ one by MY choice. God chose YOU in the beginning, and He placed His DNA within you for His Spirit to love the world as He does will be evident to the kingdom of darkness that you are in CHRIST (John 15:16, 19).
When you think you’re in the middle of a hellish – dark place in the world – rather than complain, look up to find the open window of Heaven within and release the joy of the Lord as your strength so that the banner of love will come against the day of judgment casting out fear.
Ask Father God what He is doing for what you think about is what you empower. Let your mind – your thoughts – become the canvas God paints on. Don’t feed your thoughts on what you don’t see in the natural, but by faith what has already been finished in the Kingdom of Heaven upon you turning the grounds of hell and torment into Being the LIGHT of the world your in. “As He is, so are you in this world today” (1 John 4:17).
Christian accountability is not about keeping us from sin and self-promotion, but taking us into our destiny, gifted, and calling to be a reformer unveiling the Kingdom of Heaven NOW.
Telling people about Jesus without also telling them about the Kingdom of God is at hand is a partial theology. Jesus never meant repentance to be about how bad we are, but to turn around to see the TRUTH that will see you free from the imprisonment life you’ve been living, instead of the Truth that “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (2 Peter 2:9).