Glory to God! I trust you’re well and enjoying your Inheritance in Christ Jesus.
We’re still in our Unleavened Bread Season which is part of the Passover Celebration.
Yesterday we discussed the two-phase nature our Inheritance of the Kingdom of God. We touched on our Spiritual Bodies which we’ll receive at the Coming Resurrection when the Lord Jesus Christ returns.
Today I want to discuss how we should live between now and then. We’ve been raised up together with Christ now, which is the Resurrection of our Spirit. But there’s yet another Resurrection to come, the Resurrection of our Bodies.
Today we’ll discuss how to live between the two Resurrections as we await the Return of the Lord.
Romans 1:17b says, ‘As it is written, the just shall live by faith.’ God expects us to live by Faith.’ To understand what I mean by that I want you consider the life of Abraham, the Father of Faith.
Hebrews 11:9 says, ‘By faith he (Abraham) sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.’
Firstly, God had promised Abraham the Land of Canaan, and God delivered on His Promise. In other words, Abraham lived in the Promised Land, as did Isaac and Jacob.
But when they got to the Promised Land, they didn’t build houses, rather they lived in tabernacles or tents. In other words, they didn’t get to the Promised Land and believed they had arrived. This is so important to understand.
They sojourned in the Promised Land. To sojourn is to stay in a place temporarily. It’s to stay in a place knowing that you’ll one day move on. But why did Abraham and his Seed live that way? The next verse explains why.
Hebrews 11:10 say, ‘For he (Abraham) looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ Abraham knew that there will one Day be a New Heaven and a New Earth. He also knew that in that New Reality, there will be a New Jerusalem, the City we read about in the Book of Revelation. Abraham was looking forward to that City.
Abraham knew about that? Yes, he did. So did all his Seed. Abraham lived in tents, which have no foundations because tents are temporary structures. He did so because he was looking forward to the New Jerusalem, a City with Foundations and built by God Himself.
Abraham therefore lived by Faith between two Realities, Time and Eternity, with the full understanding that Time is temporal but Eternity is eternal.
Even though God promised Abraham certain things in this life, God also promised Abraham things in the Life to come. Abraham therefore had to live by Faith and believe God for both.
Abraham didn’t just believe God for the birth of Isaac but he also believed God for the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ. But He knew that the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ was greater than the birth of Isaac. This is how the Old Testament Saints lived.
Hebrews 11:13b-14,16 says, ‘…and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country…But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared a city for them.’
Like them, God has prepared a Country for us. He has prepared a City for us, and we should be looking forward to that City which is to come. We should live like aliens and strangers in this World. We should live in Time like those who’re passing through it because we know we don’t belong here but in Eternity.
Like Abraham, it’s important to believe God for our own Promised Land in this life, but we should also believe Him for the Country to come, the City to come. We should however also understand that the material things we believe Him for in this life are not eternal like the New Jerusalem, they’re only temporal.
We should most certainly believe Him for our Inheritance which is the Kingdom, in this life. We should believe Him for Prosperity, Healing, Deliverance, Peace, Joy and everything to do with our Inheritance in this life. However, we should do so with the full Knowledge that something greater is coming.
But we should also believe Him for the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ when He will establish His Kingdom on the earth when He returns. This is greater than believing Him for temporal things.
Having said that, believing one without the other will cause us to be out of balance. We shouldn’t just believe God for Healing, Deliverance, Prosperity, Peace, etc., otherwise we won’t have a proper relationship with Him, we’ll only have dealings with Him when we need a Miracle, and when we get it, we’ll go back to the World and lose what God has for us in Eternity.
But we shouldn’t also just focus on Eternity, otherwise we’ll accept sickness, disease, demonisation, and many other things that God has already delivered us from in this life. The danger with that is, we may become so frustrated that we’ll go back to the World because our lives are so miserable.
Either way, we need to be balanced Believers who live by Faith for both today and tomorrow. We should not only believe God for the birth of Isaac, but we should also believe Him for the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ with the full Knowledge that Eternity is greater than Time.
We should understand that the cars, the houses, the clothes and the jobs we must believe Him for in this life are temporary but the New Jerusalem, the Mansions, the Robes of Righteousness and the Crowns of Glory are Eternal. We should live in Time as aliens and strangers in this World because we know we’re Citizens of the Eternal Kingdom of God.
Glory to God.