Kingdom Of God Is Within You... But How?
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| This family crest invokes a visual representation of the invisible reality. The images and ideas are man-centered, yet they speak of things eternal and beyond physical. |
How can something unseen, immeasurable, non-material, be explained?
How has man explained and developed the idea / concept / notion of 'spirit' in the past?
Spirit exists within and beyond things material.
Since man understands himself in a material context, then it is through material terms that things invisible can only be explained.
Man's language is built upon material understandings reaching for the immaterial.
God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in Truth.
- John 4: 24
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
- 1 Timothy 1: 17
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth...
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.
- John 1: 1, 14, 18
Kingdom within is acknowledging God's Spirit being so close it is what the human being actually realizes who he 'is' (image of God, His likeness).
Acknowledging the kingdom of God is like acknowledging the 'knowing' of His reality being with and within you.
A closeness closer than anything physical can explain... bringing perception of two into one.
This reality was previously understood as being far away, like only in heaven or existing after death.
Although God's Word was revealed through the Law of Moses, some concepts were still vacant from mankind's consciousness.
Maturity.
Development.
What is proclaimed about the kingdom of God and 'where' it is?
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
- Matthew 12: 28
Whatever and however the kingdom of God 'is', it arrived in and with Messiah (God becoming flesh).
Consider how the angel explained to Mary the mother of Yeshua about the Spirit being found in human form:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a Son, and you are to call Him Yeshua. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; His kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”
- Luke 1: 26-35
God has spoken (and continues) to man according to man's understanding... according to human language.
God's messages are still spoken through human words, but the meanings are not always human in nature or intention.
Typically human words carry with them human understanding.
Notice how the Word of God speaks about things invisible by using visible human concepts.
One example is how the Church is spoken of as the body of Messiah, and as the Temple, and with these concepts the kingdom is further explained... while still being foreign and mystifying to those not hearing the Word.
To exercise the mind and expand the heart, let us explore the spiritual reality of our existence using human concepts and human observation.
When it is says 'above' or 'heaven', this speaks words aimed to reach man's understanding of time and space and place... and also to invoke concepts beyond the banal, typical, common, and worldly.
Where are such places?
A spiritual reality is being mentioned using human terms based on human experiences (above) and about a place or reality unseen or unknown by humans (heaven).
No one has ever gone into heaven except the One who came from heaven—the Son of Man.
- John 3: 13
This is how gracious and patient God is with us:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Yeshua: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
- Philippians 2: 5-8
To contemplate the universe for a moment, if we were to find ourselves floating out in space, which way would 'up' be?
Is there a north or south, east or west, when we are in outer space?
If not, how about the infinite inner space of the soul?
Man may perceive the universe to be quite vast, and may dare say it seems infinite.
Are we to perceive the inner space to be finite, or having an end, or a final point?
The inner space is being revealed to be eternal (if His Spirit is found therein), while the material spaces have their limits and eventually come to nothing (the temples made to welcome His Spirit).
How far does God's Spirit envelope, or to put it in human terms, occupy the known universe?
What of the space and places beyond the universe?
Such concepts exist in the context of life on earth, according to man's limited understanding and mans' words about his experiences and his perception of things beyond the tip of his nose.
If man has trouble fully understanding the world outside of him, how much more is the soul and the spirit influencing the soul?
God speaks to man according to man's perspective, similar to how an adult parent would speak to a child.
If God were to have spoken to man according to God's facts of reality (the invisible), I wonder how man would have understood about things invisible if such things were spoken only from God's perspective and not man's?
I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
- John 3: 12
Thus why God became a man to speak to mankind about Himself... and also about who they really are despite their humanity.
He became visible in order to somehow proclaim the invisible... even the spirit world behind the front of the material world, and His ever-present and eternal love for us, His beloved children.
The kingdom promised to the faithful is now alive and ever-present in the faithful on earth as Yeshua proclaimed in Matthew 12: 28 and echoing what Daniel mentioned:
In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.
- Daniel 2: 44-45
God poured Himself (and His kingdom) into the believers in the upper room.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them...
...Exalted to the Right Hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
- Acts 2: 1-4, 33
The veil that needs piercing is the one over the hearts of men... especially when their religion blinds them to what God has done.
This veil is recognized when one man contemplates hating another man, revealing he has yet to know God or the fact that his fellow man is also made in God's image and likeness.
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