Matthew 6:33 King James Version (KJV) “33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Psalm 27 reminds us that we are to seek God’s face, not merely His benefits.    I stress not merely as there are many scriptures that remind us not to forget His benefits like Psalm 103, Isaiah 53, and every verse regarding the Lord’s Supper.   We are to be mindful of these as well, but foremost, our hearts must be for a relationship with our Lord and a desire for His Kingdom.

2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,  3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;  7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.  8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.  10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:  11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.”

Hebrews 6 KJV “13 For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,14 Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.  15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. 16 For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.  17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:  19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;  20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”

There is so much here.    Perhaps most of us have seen one of those circular life donuts…  the ones you see on ships or at the beach that have a lifeline attached.   When someone is in trouble The central imagery that stands out to me is the anchor for our souls.      Jesus was able to walk as He walked as He 100% without any doubt believed every promise and word of God to be true.   He simply walked as His Father told Him to walk and therefore arrived/entered the promised destination.   He certainly had to patiently, with great forbearance endure to receive the fulfillment.    This need for patient endurance repeats itself over and over again through scripture.  No one who gained the Kingdom, did so without having to endure through a testing or wilderness time that require these two things.

Here is the imagery I see in these verses and how these images paint a picture in my mind of how we go from being “adrift” to “entering into rest” and enjoying/living fully/expressing fully the Kingdom of God.

Our destination:  The Secret place, the Abiding place, the place of constant and inimate communion with our Lord:  His Rest.    First, keen awareness and constant mindfulness that our sights are set on seeking the fullness of the Kingdom and God’s righteousness.  As 2 Peter tells us these are within the veil, and that we are to follow the forerunner, our Lord Jesus Christ, and take up residence and be seated as He is seated next to the Father, in a position rest.   

 

Hebrews 4 KJV “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.  3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter   Into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.  4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.  5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.  6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:  7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.  8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.  9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.  10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.  11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”

The Steadfast Anchor:     Our faith in God’s promises is the anchor.    

The lifeline that connects us to the anchor:   The promises of God.

Aimlessly Adrift:  Our present state of being when we catch our first glimpse of the Kingdom.

Being aware of the reality of these things can change everything on our perspective and give us a tried and true path to redemption and restoration of the fullness of our lives and bodies.

The image in my own minds eye.    The Lord is really the centre of all things.  He sits on His throne, the Lord Jesus Christ by His side also on His throne….   He is surrounded by the praise of the saints and angels,  the glorious city of Zion surrounds Him, the fullness of the  Kingdom of the Son permeates every aspect and is expressed completely in every detail.  . Around all of this is a veil, completely impenetrable and impassable and imperceptible to the casual passerby.    Now even though it is in the midst of all things, is is unperceived and to the ignorant, completely undetected.    To the throne of God I can see affixed thousands of cords ( cords woven together made of unbreakable 3 unbreakable strands of God’s Word and God’s oath and the yes and amen of Christ and His blood).  Zoom out and I can see the image of a wheel… the hub is the throne of God…  these cords radiate ourwards and cross right through the veil, remember thousands of them, each one of them a precious lifeline cast into the fallen world to lead His precious ones home to the very throne room of mercy, grace and LOVE.   Each one able to pierce the darkest darkness and the most hopeless pits of despair.

When I was sick and struggling, I bumped into the one given in Proverbs 4:20-23.   Faith anchored me to that promise.   

So why the need for patient endurance?   Going back to the original image…   Picture everything within the veil as being pure/blameless/holy and 100% submitted to God’s will and purposes.    Jesus came saying repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.   It is impossible to take up residence in Zion until self-will, self-centredness, self gratification, and sin  have completely died in us and through us.     Scripture tells us that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus.  Yes, even Jesus had to deny Himself…  “Not my will but yours” in the garden before His crucifixion.   As long as we allow any of things things to cling to us, we will remain outside the Kingdom in some measure, yes, praise God rooted to the Kingdom through His Promise and His oath, but still outside of the fullness of the Kingdom.  Galatians 5:19-23 confirms this rather starkly.

Habakkuk 1:13 King James Version (KJV) “13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?”

Faith empowers me to grab hold of the promise and start following the Cord  (I picture hand over hand pulling) towards the hubs.   Keep in mind that every promise ends in the exact same place and every bit of energy and time I invest in following that promise draws me closer to the Promiser.     As I am faithful with the one promise, I am drawn in towards the hub of that wheel.   the tighter in I get the more promises I can grasp…  Anyone seated on the throne has access to the fulfillment of all of the promises.

Ephesians 2 Berean Study Bible “…5made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.…”

The obstacles in my path:

1. As long as I am not 100% subject to God, I will be in some measure subject to the beggarly elements of this world, the elements of self, sickness, death, sin, and every other things that thrives in the absence of total submission to God.  The lusts of the flesh and the deceitfulness of sin make all of these things seem appealing.    The moment I grasp hold of that promise, the enemy ramps up his attempts to get me to let go (see the post on exposing the deceiver)  This means it is absolutely in everyone’s interest for us to get through the veil as early as we can in our walk.

2. Doubt and unbelief.   These perpetually cause me to question both the promise and the promiser.   If I doubt either one of these, it severs compromises my anchor (faith) and often causes me to let go of God’s promise and instead grasp at the seemingly easier and more sure to my senses of human effort and human solutions.  This is why it is so hard to grasp the promise of God in one hand and the promises and methods of man in the other.    This brings us to the place of being double minded.   It may be possible, I know for me I tend to get sucked into man’s solutions very quickly and find myself having let go of God’s promises in some measure when I focus on what I can do in the natural or with human help for any length of time.   It takes two hands (hand over hand), singularity of mind, to make progress along the lifeline to happen in some cases.   There are certainly exceptions.    We have these retractable cords on certain appliances at home.  If you pull on them the right way, they go wizing back into their casing.    It is marvelous when this happens with a promise of God.   We grasp it and find ourselves sucked right into the full promise almost instantly.    Absolutely we want this every time but this would nullify the Word which says that to obtain all the promises we required of absolute necessity patience and endurance.

3.Fear.  Yes, fear will attack the character and nature of God and try to cause us to panic and start grasping vainly in the air for anything that promises us any sense of security or control.   It will have us beating at the air, spinning our wheels and in torment.   Faith is systematic, faith is fully assure, faith is pinpoint in its precision, faith is enduring, faith demands the fulfillment, faith cannot waver, faith is patient and enduring and can handle the turbulence knowing that the life line is proven and sure and cannot be broken and that the one holding the other end is 100% faithful and good.

As we get a hold of this big picture, of the thief who wants us to let go so that we are permanently trapped in his domain, and under his influence.   All the elements we have been talking about start to come into clearer focus.      These precious promises and life lines are all around us if we have the ability to perceive them and the understanding to know their fundamental value and worth.   Find your promise… find your life line and then follow it through the veil of holiness and blamelessness into the fullness of the Kingdom and of abiding in the presence of God.

Now keep in mind, that God in His infinite wisdom appointed elders (spiritually mature ones) to cover, to oversee, to minister to, to raise up, to equip etc the flock.   Healing of the sick falls into this category.  God’s best is for the elders (as biblically definined) minister healing to the sick.   Absolutely we can obtain healing through the promises…

If you haven’t yet, please read the post on why so few are healed.  This post is not intended to put any pressure on the sick.  I believe firmly that the biblical model is for the sick to be ministered to.  To put this additional burden on the sick is a crushing burden.   Ideally, the sick are ministered to and healed via those with gifts and maturity and once well are then trained and equipped for the work of the ministry so in time they too can minister to the sick with annointing and power.

https://healinganddiscipleship.com/2019/04/23/why-are-so-few-healed-today/