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Major Kingdom/Apostolic Articles
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2006 A Year of The At Hand Kingdom - Ron McGatlin
The kingdom of God is being revealed. The reality of the issues of the kingdom of God are becoming more apparent to many more pure hearted sons of God.
From the valley of decision the mountain peak looms ahead beyond the foothills that are immediately before us. The easier path of less resistance would be to continue in the valley of non-decision. But even that is a decision to not make the decision to ascend the hill of the Lord. The hill of the Lord is an upward walk of increased resistance but one that promises the great reward of the New Jerusalem kingdom of God lifestyle.
Heb 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,
The glorious mountain of the kingdom of God is within sight. It is at hand and may be approached by those who will turn and change their direction upward toward it. A generation that has continued the downward slide of previous generations into the corruption of prideful self life and man focused religion now has the opportunity to stop, turn, look upward and see the glorious light of the kingdom of God coming into view through the thinning clouds of deception.
A new holy and humble generation is coming forth.
A people made holy by the indwelling Christ in the Holy Spirit. A people reborn, in whom all things are fresh and new. A people with pure hearts in whom there is no guile. These are the people who can see the kingdom of God in view and at hand. These are the people who will ascend from their past lives of religion and self worship to press upward into the righteousness of God.
Psa 24:3-4: Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart,...
Religion has made a mockery of being "born again". Those who are truly spiritually born again have a totally new and different life. Natural birth was from the corruptible seed of the first Adam. Spiritual birth is from the incorruptible seed of Christ through the living Word of God. A mature spiritually born again soul is purified by the Spirit of Christ into pure love.
Only those who are really born again can even see the kingdom of God. And only those who see the kingdom of God will turn from their path of pleasure seeking self life and man focused religion to move toward the glorious light of the New Jerusalem lifestyle in the kingdom of God.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
1 Pet 1:22-23: Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
Many people who believed they were "born again" when they joined a church or prayed a prayer or completed some other religious form but have continued living a self focused life are seeing their need for more. Some are now being truly born again into a life of spiritual intimate oneness with God in the Holy Spirit. These are the ones who can see the New Jerusalem kingdom of God potential and are moving toward it with strength and abandonment of all else.
Seeing the "at hand" kingdom motivates people toward real repentance. Real repentance is a total death to all that is not of God and a true new birth (resurrection) experience into the pure and holy life of Christ in the Holy Spirit. Repentance is a life of leaving the past and pressing on toward the goal of the high calling to become one with God. And to intimately know Him and be intimately known of Him - to be really born into the God family as mature sons of God - to be in the world as Christ is in the world.
Enough is enough.
God and His new generation of pure hearted people have tolerated the weak idolatrous religion and the resulting immoral pleasure seeking corruption spawned by it long enough. In the past there seemed to be hope and a continuing space for repentance for the perverted systems built by the self focus of misguided spiritual adulterers. But now that the kingdom of God is in view there is no more room for tolerance of evil ways and passivity toward the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Human compassion for the dead must become spiritual passion for the living. Let the dead bury the dead. The kingdom is in view and it is not our part to bury the dead systems that fathered us into spiritual adultery. Our part is seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We must follow Jesus into the New Jerusalem kingdom of God life.
Mat 8:22 But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
Luke 9:60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."
The love of Christ compels us to follow Him and take up our cross of repentance from dead works including dead religion. Christ died for all and rose again, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but instead the resurrected Christ should live within them.
2 Cor 5:14-15 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The love of Christ flows through the lives of the "Christ in you" people.
God's love is the foundational and most powerful force of the kingdom. It is the only force that will destroy the darkness of evil and fill the earth with the glorious light of righteousness. To combat hate with hate and evil with evil only produces more hatred and more evil.
God is love and in Him there is no darkness at all. There is NO evil in Christ. There is no death in Christ. There can be no sin and no sickness in the resurrected Christ. Christ Jesus is life. He suffered death at the cross but in the resurrected Christ there is no death. It is not the Christ on the cross that indwells sons of God, It is the resurrected Christ that abides in true sons and it is the resurrected Christ in whom they abide.
Phil 1:19-21: For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
In the truly born again son, the new life is Christ. Therefore there is NO evil in the new life. There is NO sin in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Christ is the new life of the born again son of God. Those who say they are born again and love God but continue in internal sin are deceived and liars. Those who yet carry hatred for a brother or the inner attitudes of self, pride, and arrogance, which spawned the hatred, do not have the Spirit of Christ and are not fully born again.
Repentance is a process of death to self and life to Christ.
Repentance and death to self-will and self desires is a process. Being born again is a process of repentance or death that leads to life. We daily meet the cross of death (repentance) and daily participate in the resurrection life of Christ. In this process sin is fully dealt with and has no reign over us and no part in our inner lives. Lust and pride are destroyed in the continuing process of repentance (death) and the continuing experience of new birth (resurrection).
The inner evidence of the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The outworking evidence of the kingdom of God is the rule and reign of righteousness, peace and joy of God manifested into the earth through the fully born again sons of God in the Holy Spirit. Christ living by the HOLY Spirit in mature sons governing the earth with the love and wisdom of God.
The gospel (good news) of the kingdom is in the Christmas message. The same message the angels announced at the birth of Christ Jesus,
Luke 2:10-14: Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord ..... And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"
Pursue Love, It Never Fails,
Ron McGatlin
ronmcgatlin@earthlink.net
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