#328 Kingdom: Seeing is Receiving
It may appear that we have been around this mountain before but it seems to me that this issue is very critical at this time and needs repeated until we each receive a direct revelation from God. It has to do with the last two studies that dealt with a direct personal revelation by the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ that was given to Peter. This issue establishes the very foundation upon which the church is being built.
Mat 16:13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” [14] And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” [15] He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” [16] And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” [17] And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. [18] “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. [19] “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
(1) Jesus will build HIS church upon a direct revelation of Christ, the Son of the living God. (2) The gates of hell will be powerless against it (3) This is the basis that the Keys to the Kingdom heaven are given (4) this revelation of Christ is the authority to bind and loose on the earth. (5) this is the “ROCK” ; the personal revelation of Christ.
It is my opinion that too many are powerless and useless to the Kingdom and apathetic in the church simply because they have no revelation of Christ, the Son of the living God. The emphasis upon receiving Him as personal Savior has replaced the emphasis upon having a direct revelation from the Father of who He is.
In the great preaching revival from 1700 to 1900 sinners struggled over the magnitude of their sins for hours and hours until they broke through to forgiveness and cleansing. When they received a revelation of Jesus Christ they cried out in distress because when they “saw” Him they “saw” their sin. Many saw themselves dangling over the pit of hell with flames burning their feet.
In most cases this resulted in a life changing “salvation.” I am speculating that this “revelation”, if repeated today, would radically change what we call “the ministry.”
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, had such an experience and this revelation birthed a whole new movement. Many other “ministers” had similar experiences during that period of time.
The Real question today is NOT what is God doing OR what will God do? The real question is this; What has God already done and how can we “see” it? Today EVERYTHING hinges upon whether we “see or not.” John 3: 3] Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” However, today there are multitudes who have been “born again” that “see” very little or nothing about the Kingdom of God.
Most all of what we anticipate will happen in the future, sometime, has already happened. Most all the provision that we look forward to has already been given. The deliverance that we hope for someday, has already been provided for and available today. Some of us are still waiting for some future time when God will do great things for us. We hear dozens of prophesies revealing what God is about to do for you or give you and how God is going to make you the head and not the tail.
EPH 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
1 Cor 1:30] But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
All that God has provided for us in Christ is ALL past tense. Still, we ask Him to do something more. Our question is this; If God has given it to me, where is it? If I don’t have it, why can’t I ask for it? The answer is, because you already have it! But If I have it where is it? It is ALL in Christ! But, then, how do I get it? The eternal fact is that you already have it but you just don’t “see” it.
This IS the simple message delivered in Ephesians 1:15-23. What is required NOW is that you receive the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the full knowledge of God. We require that the “eyes of our inner man” to be enlightened so we can “see” all the things that have already been provided.. But didn’t we already get ALL that at Calvary? Yes! We received the provision for it in Christ but now the Holy Spirit has been sent to reveal all this to us. We actually have everything but we just don’t “SEE” it. We may know it doctrinally but we still have no direct revelation of having received it. The “spiritual poverty” in the church is simply a matter of NOT “SEEING” the unfathomable riches of Christ that has already been given to us in Christ.
Receiving the exceeding greatness of His Power is not a matter of waiting but a matter of “seeing.” But don’t I need more power than that? This is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the Father’s right hand. How much more power than that do we need? All this power is for those who believe! Then ALL THIS POWER should be universal in every born-again church! This IS true! The problem is we just don’t see into this realm of spiritual and eternal reality. Why? Because our spiritual eyes, in the new inner man, are not “illuminated” to see into this realm. The problem is NOT with the power but with the “seeing.”
We may conclude that our little assembly really lacks the power of God so we need to set aside a few weeks for prayer and fasting. Maybe if we humble ourselves God will give us this power. This ignorance has gripped [ held in bondage] most of us at one time or another. I can testify that prayer and fasting has never gained for me anything that God had not already provided for me in Christ. However, maybe prayer and fasting did open my eyes to see that it had already been given. Then I may have attributed the “blessing” to the prayer and fasting rather than to a blessing already given to me in Christ Jesus.
We may have received “life” when we were born again but never realized the power of the “life” we received. The Priesthood ministry is “after the power of an indestructible life.”
Heb 7: 15] And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, [16] who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.
Well, where can we find this kind of Life? This is NOT a matter of “finding” but rather a matter of “seeing” the Life [Zoe] that we have already received. The “power of the Life” that goes on forever is of a very great power. Multitudes have received this very life but are totally ignorant of the power of the Life they received. Many “Pentecostal Churches” are still seeking “The Power” and trying to get God to listen to their fervent request. We can only imagine how God views this ignorance that most of us were guilty of at one time or another. I have often wondered why there was NO anointing to pray this kind of prayer.
Well, then how long do we have to wait after we “see” until we receive the blessing? Once we “SEE” we are already standing in the blessing. If the “blessing” wasn’t there we couldn’t “SEE” it. When we see it, it is already ours. This understanding will save us a lot of time praying for those things that are already ours. Then we can start praying that God would open our spiritual eyes to “see” what has already been declared and predestined to be ours NOW.
This is NOT a matter of God’s reluctance to open the “eyes of our inner man” but a matter of all the garbage surrounding our inner man that prevents us from “seeing.” Therefore, when we start praying for our spiritual eyes to be enlightened, don’t be surprised to “see” a lot of garbage in your life that must be removed. This is GOD ANSWERING OUR PRAYER.
My theory is that if we have asked, God has already opened our spiritual eyes but trying to “see” through all the garbage has made us blind to spiritual things. Therefore, rather than getting the garbage out we just rely upon our natural eyes to try to observe spiritual things. Many of the carnal messages and fleshly prophesies are the result of trying to “see” spiritual things with the natural eyes.
In 1 Corinthians 2:6-15 Paul makes it very clear that the Christian life is not lived by what the natural eye has seen or the natural ear has heard or the intellect has understood. The spiritual life is only illuminated by revelation of the Holy Spirit. That which is known of eternal things can only be revealed by the Spirit. There is no limit to what the Holy Spirit can reveal because He knows the deepest thoughts of God. Paul says “this IS the Spirit we have received.” The problem is that ALL these spiritual and eternal things are lost to the natural man because he has no faculty to understand spiritual things. That doesn’t hinder him from faking spiritual understanding.
This is exactly the reason for all the 7 Outer Court experiences. These are foundational for understanding spiritual things by transforming the natural man into a new spiritual man. To define the difference between the natural man and the new spiritual man we could say that the new spiritual man IS the natural man that has had the garbage removed. It is not that we don’t have Christ OR the Holy Spirit but that we have too much stuff that is NOT Christ or the Holy Spirit. IF we are being delayed in our spiritual life, it is NOT because we lack something in Christ but simply because we haven’t been zealous in getting rid of the garbage. Today, we may have even more knowledge than we do garbage but these things don’t balance our spiritual life.
The difficulty is that we may read the letter to the Ephesians many times and can quote a lot of it. And we may have heard many sermons preached from these verses. Still, we remain blind to all that God has accomplished through Christ and provided for us in Christ. We may recognize the Tree of the Knowledge of Good And Evil but be totally unaware that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, IS the Tree of Life.
We may soon realize that this next restoration is NOT about more preaching and teaching but is about receiving direct revelation from God, the Father. More preaching will never compensate for blind spiritual eyes. [regardless of why they don’t see]. At the Second Veil we understand that “reality” [experiential Truth] comes from “SEEING” and not from men teaching. Here we recognize we must be taught by the anointing that abides within us and is true and is not a lie. However, the anointing teaches us all things by causing us to “see.” This “inner anointing” involves ALL the revelations assigned to the Seven manifestations of the Spirit of God.
He knows all the deep things of God because He knows the very thoughts of God. We surely don’t need more provision or revelation than that. The fact is that we probably are using only 2 % of what has already been provided for us in Christ. Is that because we are stupid? Not at all! It is simply because we don’t “see.”
If we are “seeing” today just what we saw 10 years ago we really have not advanced very much in spiritual development. Our spiritual life is measured by how much we see and not if the gifts are functioning or not. While the gifts are important in the Outer Court dimension and they should always function there, the accuracy and reliability of the gifts will depend upon what we “see.” Therefore, it is reasonable to expect the gifts to increase in value for the perfecting of the saints when the ministries BEGIN in the Holy Place rather than in the Outer Court.
Many Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have lost interest in the gifts because of the shallowness of how they are used in the Outer Court dimension. The personal “prophetic words” that have been given appeared to be so generic and routine they have lost credibility. The problem is not the gift but the lack of “seeing” in the one who ministers the gift. The solution is NOT to abandon the gifts but to ask for the ability to “see” so the gifts are valuable for the edification of the church once again.
We have heard so much about the “power gifts” in the past and all the hype connected to the “power explosion conferences” that we have been disappointed by the lack of any manifestation of power. The hype has distorted our own viewpoint of what the real power is about. The same “power that raised Jesus from the dead” is the standard set in Ephesians 1:19-20. This “power” is too abstract for public meetings because we have to have the eyes of our spiritual man open and enlightened to “see” that power. However, once these spiritual eyes are illuminated, we realize that too much of the “power message” is just more hype.
The power to live the overcoming life came upon us when we were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, many, many Pentecostal and Charismatic people never experience that power. We were “promised power” but we wonder where it is. The Baptists rightly declare that they have as much power as the Pentecostals so the “power” must have passed away. No! The Power is inherent in the Holy Spirit and IF we are filled with the Holy Spirit we are filled with power. However, the reality only comes by properly defining what this power is scripturally. Once we can “see” we will experience the real power. Still, this is NOT the power to knock people down. Faith to move mountains has been called “the power of God.” Power has been described as “you can have whatever you say.” Name it and claim it is called “power.”
AFTER we actually “see” we will be able to accurately define the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. Before that we are all guessing and interpreting scripture by logic. When the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Him comes and the eyes of our inner man are enlightened we will “see as He sees” and not be limited by logic. The Spirit of Wisdom will permit us to understand and the Spirit of Revelation will permit us to “see.” It is this “seeing” and “understanding” that is the key to the next restoration. This “seeing and understanding” is not the same as hearing a message and understanding its content.
The confusion today in the church is because these things are not clear to us and we have no idea how these things can become a reality in our experience. The Spirit of Revelation will make it clear and the Spirit of Wisdom will make it real. Sincerely asking is the beginning.
The casual believer will NOT receive anything because he won’t ask or believe. Everything has already been provided for us in Christ. What we need is the Holy Spirit to permit us to “SEE.”