The Kingdom

“Seek ye first” (in order and in priority) “the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” — Matthew 6:33

Many of us have known this verse for years and associate it with getting our needs met—as long as we seek Him. This supply is certainly included in the provision of the Kingdom but we focus on that so much that we easily miss the much deeper truth: within this Kingdom lies the power to change the world.

Simply put, the Kingdom of God is the King’s domain—the realm of His rule. It is the supernatural, invisible government of heaven that contains within itself the absolute power and the authority to overturn and reverse the curse that entered the earth through Adam.

Jesus emphasized the importance of the Kingdom because it was the main theme that He preached and taught (see Matthew 4:23; Mark 1:15). He knew that in order for anyone to actually believe and exercise faith in the power of the Kingdom, they must be taught. Most of His parables were illustrations of how the Kingdom operates.

In Acts 1:3, the Bible tells us that Jesus showed Himself alive for forty days and spoke to them of things concerning the Kingdom of God. His earthly ministry both began and ended teaching the same thing. He always taught His disciples to tell the people, “The Kingdom of God is here,” because whenever the Kingdom of heaven shows up, the rule of darkness is doomed!

It is this very Kingdom that Scripture speaks of in Colossians 1:13: When we are born again, we are delivered from one kingdom (of darkness) and translated into another Kingdom (of God).

It is this Kingdom that Jesus reminded them to seek first, and then told them the Father delights in giving them this Kingdom (Luke 12:31-32).

In Luke 17:21, Jesus said this Kingdom cannot be perceived by the five senses, for this supernatural Kingdom is within you.

And finally, Psalm 103:19 reminds us that God prepared His throne in the heavens, and His Kingdom rules over all.

The 4th Dimension

In John 18:36, Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king who had come to take over. Jesus responded, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” In other words, the Kingdom is out of this world—it is other worldly.

Paul tells us that he visited Paradise in the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2-3. We know that our atmosphere is in the first heaven, and the stars and planets are in the second heaven. But no matter how deep we travel into outer space—even to the edge of the expanding universe—we won’t find the third heaven. It is not found in the three-dimensional (3D) realm of time, space and matter as perceived by the five senses. It is in another whole dimension.

Therefore, this 4th dimension (4D) would be the supernatural realm of the spirit where the supernatural government of heaven resides. It carries supernatural power and authority to overturn and reverse physical facts and superimpose its reality upon the three-dimensional world as called for by faith.

Not of This World

In John 8:23, Jesus said to those in the temple where He was teaching: “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”

In His prayer for us in John 17:14, He told His Father, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

Jesus is not of the world, He is from above. We are not of the world, we are born from above, born of God (John 3:3, John 1:12-13). We are born of the Spirit (John 3:6).

Perception

Ephesians 5:27 says God will present to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle. We’ll never accomplish this in the flesh. This is how we are made in our spirits, for it is in our spirits that He has forever perfected those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:14).

Second Corinthians 5:16 tells us to no longer regard one another according to the flesh. We must look at each other (and yes, especially ourselves) according to the spirit. This is how our Father regards us. When He sees the church, He sees a body completely outfitted and clothed with power to perform signs, wonders, and miracles in our generation—just as the Galilean fishermen did in their generation. He verbalized this in John 14:12: “He that believeth, the works I do he shall do also...”

This is how Jesus did it, this is how He trained His disciples to do it, and this is how He sees us doing it.

This is all good news and it is truth. However, as Hebrews 4:2 tells us, the gospel was preached unto us as well as unto them; but it profited them nothing, not being mixed with faith.

The Truth itself without the catalyst of faith does nothing. It is not simply the Truth as presented to you that accomplishes it, but your perception of that Truth. You must see yourself as He sees you!

Second Corinthians 3:18 says, we all (when the Holy Spirit takes the veil off our eyes) behold (in the Word) as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into that same image from glory to glory.

James 1:23 tells us if we do not do that Word or continue in it, it’s like seeing our image (glory) in a mirror (the Word) but then just going away and forgetting the image the Spirit just presented to us.

So, the Word instructs us to open the Bible and look into an unseen realm and see this invisible glory that He is changing us to.

Meditate and Imaginate

This is why God tells us over and over to continually meditate on His Word (see Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2).

In the King James version, the word translated “meditate” (Psalm 1:2) is the same exact word translated “imagine” in Psalm 2:1. This is because it takes both meditation and your God-given imagination to birth hope in your heart. Without imagination, you wouldn’t remember where you parked your car. Your imagination paints a picture of where you were.

Genesis 6:5 says “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil…” The word “imagination” here means “form” or figuratively “conception.” That means this evil was being conceived in their hearts. This was bad use of the imagination which is what the carnal flesh tends to do.

It takes a thousand words to begin to paint a picture in your imagination. Continual meditation on God’s Word accomplishes this.

First Peter 1:23 says we are born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word. The Greek word for “seed” is spora—which is where we get spores. Galatians 3:29 calls us the seed of Abraham. A related word here is sperma (from which we get sperm). It is seed that conceives an image in the imagination to bring fruit in the heart. Mark 4:14 says, “The sower soweth the Word.”

Second Corinthians 4:18 says we do not look at the things that are seen but we look at things that are unseen. How do you look at things not seen?

“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” — Romans 8:24-25

Hope comes through the proper use of the imagination. This is how we see the unseen, through filling our heart with meditation of His Word.

This is the God-designed plan to get the 4D image of the Kingdom of God conceived in your imagination and heart. When you become pregnant with this image, you are said to be “expecting.” This is the Bible definition of hope: to be confidently expecting with anticipation!

Remember Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…” Without hope, faith has nothing to bring to substance.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” — Romans 15:13