“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Matthew 7:7
According to these precepts, what happens when believers ask of the Father as sons and daughters? We receive! What happens when sons seek things above? They find! And, what is the result of sons knocking for entrance? Why, it is opened unto them! These are exact and immutable laws of sonship. Jesus is still saying:
“Ask, and it shall be given you: for everyone that asks receives.” Luke 11:10
Now listen:
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him…” Matthew 7:11
Good things! THINGS! Those who ask God as a Father are given things. The two significant words to consider here are: ASK and THINGS. If you ask, what do you get? THINGS! What kind of things? Good things! This realm of asking for and receiving good things works in all levels of Christianity. It works well in the very first dealings of the rudiments of Christ at the Passover level of salvation, the “30 fold realm” for those beginning to know God as Father in good things.
Asking has kept the vast majority of Christians today applying the gospel of the Lord on an external, earthly minded level of getting good things that bless their earthly life. Most are well content to remain there, blessed and secure. The vast hosts of Christians today are satisfied with blessings of forgiveness and rudimentary gifts of healing where everything is received freely by grace. The elementary levels of faith are free gifts of God, ours for the asking, with no conditions, few qualifications, and at little price.
Yet there is not any great attainment of the Kingdom of God in these elementary 30 fold (Passover) realms either, for God's many children are held captive there as babes in Christ. A blessed experience indeed, but they have not yet asked for, nor sought, the fuller stature of the “60 fold”(Pentecost) or “100 fold” (Tabernacles) realms in Christ Jesus.
"And those are those being sown on ideal earth who are hearing the word, and are assenting to it, and are bearing fruit, one thirty and one sixty and one a hundred- fold." Mark 4:20
“Seek and ye shall find.” Matthew 7:7
In our Christian beginnings many of us are taught to seek the good things found in standard church membership more than seeking God's spiritual Kingdom. Now the difference for some who do grow, seeking the Kingdom, is that they are taught by the spirit of God to seek the KING AND HIS KINGDOM as the first priority in their life. They apply His precepts to their INNER life, enough to find that He has become Lord of them. Nothing else is worth seeking. Nothing else is worth finding:
“For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knows that ye need all these things. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:25-33
Seriously think of what it means to seek, understanding that an element of time is involved. You can ask in a moment, but seeking is not a single act. It is a process, a series of acts. Searching involves a process. Knowing this process is knowing and experiencing God continually, deeper, and deeper, denoted by the words, to SEEK FIRST. Thus it is with disciples who learn to apply the precepts of Jesus.
David wrote about seeking the Lord.
“This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face.” Psalms 24:6
“This is the generation" speaks of a spiritual lineage divinely planted by God, placed throughout each generation who have as a people been predestined to be seeking the Lord, a generation that He purposed. There is a people planted by God in every generation that is of His planting. In the earth today too, a marvelous people have been generated by Himself to be the “feet members of the body of Christ” walking out His will on earth.
They only find their fulfillment and destiny by seeking His face, so that is how they spend their life — seeking His face. All those He generates have prayer closets where they seek His face. As the salmon seeks out the place of its spawning, so these seek the face of their Lord.
“Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Thou turns man to destruction and says, Return, ye children of men…” Psalms 90:1-3
When our spirit is quickened by His Spirit, we recognize that God is AND He is our FATHER, the Father of our spirit. He is coming to our spirit by His spirit so we may know and experience Him in our spiritual body. David proclaims that God has been our dwelling place before the mountains were brought forth, before God ever formed the earth and the worlds in which we dwell.
Can that precept be true? Suddenly, when God reveals Himself to our spirit, we are quickened to see and understand that many deep things, such as these, are true. If we are taught by God’s spirit, He gives us eyes to see ahead of us what is coming. He quickens us to remember what was before us in God, a spiritual reality with which we all become familiar.
Disciples of Jesus Christ ask for and find good SPIRITUAL things. They seek higher callings that reveal purely spiritual matters! A host of mature ones seek to discover, then appropriate, the reality of God dwelling within their spirit, the order of being placed by Him as a son! This is beyond being a member of church. This requires a pursuit of seeking Him first through all the lack that has caused so many to stumble around in elementary heavens where they only drink the milk of His word.
God generates His people to be raised and drawn to go on to maturity, where the paps of the milk of the word are covered and the meat of the word comes in spiritual instruction. Mature insight is given about our union in Him as he feeds us hidden manna, a spiritual supper of rich things well refined. He feeds spiritual principles of a third heaven, the Feast of Tabernacles. There He is establishing us on a higher level, the “100 fold realm” of solid meat and drink from the Kingdom.
Most Christians need spiritual growth to attain this. No one just slides sloppily or cheats their way into the fullness of God. God is not mocked. Christians have to apply the law of life in Christ Jesus to gain immortality within their spirit. The Lord governs our ascent to a divinely pre-ordained path of progression that He prescribes for entering into the Kingdom of God.
“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4
David said, “I desire to dwell in the House of the Lord.” We are assured to find His path to glory by seeking a spiritual quickening in our own inner spiritual chambers, where we know He is. He is come deep enough to develop the form of Christ’s mind at the center of our being. Our inner spiritual man should be the rightful seat of His throne. His gracious love is waiting to apply a fuller redemption to all His people until our Christian experience has saved us to the uttermost — the whole man. He causes us to arise by seeking Him, to fill our minds with our best prayers, seeking to experience His true sayings:
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit!" Philippians 4:23 concordant
Seeking Him has a humbling effect that breaks our soulish pride, making us contrite enough to become a believing spirit. Going onward to perfection is a process that leads us outside every camp controlled by man’s mind. As we seek long enough, sooner or later we too find HIM. David spent the night watches and the dawning of the day seeking His face.
Beloved brethren, what are we living for? What is entertainment and pleasure in our daily life yielding us of spiritual substance? If we are not finding God presently ruling over our own thinking, what serious mistakes we are making, what magnificent reward we are missing! When all is said and done, it is not to be wondered that so few really do seek to find what God is Fathering. The path does get narrow, it does involve a cost as it exposes all of our carnal comprehensions and vain imaginations, requiring us to forsake the passing orders that comfort men.
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
Mature Christians ask for, seek to find, and accomplish something more constructive and profitable than trying to find blessings for our earthly life and escaping hell by working to get to heaven. Sons of God are not always asking for a bigger paycheck, for a way to get a new car, or a way to pay bills by tithing, nor for getting healing in the body, or blessings for the family. Much time and effort in church fellowship are spent centered on these earthly matters and yes, they are all good things.
Yet Jesus still says if we seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness FIRST we will find HE ADDS TO US ALL THE THINGS WE NEED. THEY ARE ADDED UNTO US BY GOD in the faith of sonship. Sonship faith causes us to live and move in an attitude focused on things above, on spiritual matters, seeking inner enthronement (rulership) by God.
If we seek first for the essentials of God's King, our incidentals are added automatically. Our daily priorities should be to seek first our daily bread from heaven that will keep us spiritually fed, clothing us with robes of righteousness promised to true believers. As Paul states:
“…for in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28 NIV
Mature Christians are weaned from seeking earthly blessings in our business, our personal projects, our church programs, and our work for Him. Instead, sons appreciate the tremendous value of finding heavenly attributes active within their spirit. They love even to be disciplined in order to be in spiritual union and growth into full sonship stature. It takes a maturity like Job's in the inner man to CIRCUMCISE our heart from our own interests, to be crucified in the flesh.
When we are brought to a place where God withdraws the abundance of earthly blessings, He strengthens the inner spiritual man. Like Job, we then possess a deep union that trusts in His unshakeable love, gaining access to divine wisdom and contentment WITHIN. The marked mind of Job cried out:
“Though God slay me, yet will I trust Him!” Job 13:15
God moves overcoming Christians from seeking earthly things to seeking the spiritual reality of His precepts. Their goal in fellowship is not to make a name for themselves, make more money, or accumulate the prestige of men. He sets our priorities straight when He reveals the Kingdom of God within the inner dimension of our spirit.
There are three dimensions of “you:” your body, your soul, and your spirit. The body can be controlled by the soul or the spirit — the "soulish" outer you or the inner "spiritual" you. Paul refers to these as the “outward man” and the “inward man:”
“Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” II Corinthians 4:16
The outward man is the visible, tangible characteristics of the natural minded soul — the mind, will and emotions of human life. The inward man is the invisible part of man’s characteristics that is his spirit. The outer man is of the earth, “earthly” and for Christians, the inward man is of heaven. The former is what the first Adam fell into, the latter is the quickened spirit awakened to God, no longer dominated by the soulish outer man.
Jesus taught us not to seek for the temporal things of the world, whether it be a job, money, marriage relationships, lands, or possessions. The divine purposes of the Father are expressed to us by His Spirit quickening our inner spirit. This accomplishes the finding of spiritual purposes that have lasting value, purposes of far more value than performing a show done before an audience on Sunday morning.
The physical world is temporary for us all and is passing away. The real inner one lasts. It is spiritual because God is spirit. We have opportunity in this life to develop lasting inner characteristics of love, joy, peace, graceful righteousness — timeless qualities of which Jesus is Lord. Therefore our inner man delights in finding the will of God being done in us. Our outer man is no longer controlling us with fear of loss, lying for advantage, selfishness, pride, avarice, greed, stinginess and meanness. We refuse to cheat other people we are supposed to serve!
Even great Christian fellowships are in it for what they can get out of it. They too lie in misrepresenting the Lord’s word for their gain, cheating to steal from believers by making merchandise of the Lord’s people. The mature Christian must go on, beyond all deceptive selfish darkness found in man's mind, beyond the systematic deceptions to see and follow the Lord in our inner man, no matter the cost.
Our inner man must be built on the firm foundation of the teachings of Jesus, like Peter proclaimed:
"…you, also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, most acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." I Peter 2:5 concordant
We seek to find spiritual treasures through patient knocking, that the treasures of the Kingdom be opened now in our inner spiritual man:
“…a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses…” Luke 12:15
God values the quality of our inward connection to truth. He births us into Him, circumcises our heart, raises us to understand what spiritual sacrifices are needed to find our inward spiritual man REIGNING with His life through our outer soulish being. It matters not what our occupation is outwardly, where we live, what our responsibilities are. When we find our spirit is one Spirit with the Lord, we are constantly being transformed and swallowed up of His Life.
God’s mature sons and daughters are not victims of death. Nothing is able to take away their peace. Nothing is able to separate or rob a son of the love of God. Nothing can disturb our peace, shake our stability, rob us of the spiritual inheritance we seek. There is much yet to be sought in seeking THE LORD.
God's sons are on the move, climbing the steep and winding path that leads from the valley of the shadow of death to the age-lasting heights of spiritual Mt. Zion. Sons scale the towering heights of mount Zion because their Father has written His name upon their "forehead," their thinking. Sons are controlled by the mind of Christ, not by carnal thinking. Sons trust the revelation given them.
When sons are raised to stand upon the Kingdom’s fiery glassy sea, there is no lack of knowing the things in God's mind. Sons come off victorious in the conflict with the “beastly” thinking in the outer man's carnal mind. Sons wage warfare with the foul and degrading desire for preeminence among God’s people, the deceptive illusions of grandeur that specializes in good religious works seen by others.
Brethren seeking to attain sonship fullness are led beyond church membership. His seven-fold Spirit comes to them with the mind of Christ to make them clearly understand, to KNOW AS THEY ARE KNOWN. Our Father is fully revealing the extent of our inheritance to us. We do hunger and thirst after His righteousness. It is the generation He planted who are now coming to be on Mount Zion, joined with “the spirits of just men being perfected:”
“But you have come to mount Zion, and the city of the living God, celestial Jerusalem, and to ten thousand messengers, to a universal convocation, and to the ecclesia of the firstborn, ‘registered’ in the heavens, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just 'perfected", and to Jesus, the Mediator of a fresh covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling which is speaking better than Abel.” Hebrews 12:22-24 Concordant
Yet all creation is unknowingly waiting and longing in travail to behold a full manifestation of GOD that can deliver from the bondage of death. Mature sons are empowered to deliver others into this wonderful place of liberty, free from the bondages of death and yokes of corruption. The power of God’s Word and Spirit is making much more of us than any earthly minded candlestick church can:
"For I am reckoning that the sufferings of the current era do not deserve the glory about to be revealed for us. For the premonition of the creation is awaiting the unveiling of the sons of God. For to vanity was the creation subjected, not voluntarily, but because of Him Who subjects it, in expectation that the creation itself, also, shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we are aware that the entire creation is groaning and travailing together until now". Romans 8:18-22
The heavenly places created for two thousand years by Christian churches have been blessed with beautiful men and women who have walked in high places with God. Many godly saints throughout this dispensation have flowed in God’s love, grace, mercy, and power in their lives.
But none of them have delivered the Lord's people from division, strife, jealousy, and carnal thinking, which are the bondages of death. Those bondages have yet to be broken off the masses of His believing people. Churches are in need of but lack the ability to produce the glorious liberty of sonship to God. God has yet a greater plan than these dear folk are capable of grasping.
Jesus personifies the Kingdom of God. Until we really SEE JESUS, we can understand little about what the Kingdom of God intends to do for creation. In Him we see what God’s power has done, so we are able see what God shall do for ALL men everywhere. Jesus is the first example of God making a DWELLING PLACE WITHIN, a tabernacle of God's domain.
Christian overcomers are called to become as Jesus, the tabernacle of His domain. We are to become a firstfruits of His inworked virtue, seeking first the REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST as it is coming in the feet members of His body.
"Behold he comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all kindred of the earth shall wail because of him." Revelation 1:7
The power of God was manifest in Jesus’ virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His revealing the nature and purpose of the Father on earth, in the power of His words, in the signs, wonders, and miracles He wrought, in the transformation of men’s lives He affected, in His transfiguration on the mount, and in His resurrection from the dead to possession of the keys of death and the unseen.
The glory that is manifest in His wonderful life is now being in-worked by a spiritual operation in our inner spiritual being, making a union of oneness, a spiritual connection with God as our Father that provides a power sufficient for oneness with Him. As He reveals the scintillating brilliance of His glory radiating within our spirit to shine through our outer man’s darkness, it FREES us even now.
The Amplified Bible states that Jesus “became resplendent with divine brightness.” It is this same divine brightness that blinded Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and totally transformed and revolutionized his life instantaneously. He was like “one born out of due season.” I do not hesitate to plainly state this same divine brightness shines within our spirit now, just as it did with Jesus, Paul, the saints of the church age, and the eagle saints who are living creatures among the great clouds of witnesses in the kingdom of God.
These were all asking for, seeking, and spent their time on earth knocking to enter the things above. They ask, seek, and knock by hearing His voice in their inner being until they too see Jesus. They want to understand what HE thinks, to possess similar divine characteristics in their tabernacle, to be placed in and about the throne. Seeking those inner qualities of perfection to be balanced within us makes one rich in redemption, alive in the eyes of God.
In Kingdom salvation, God does provide a knowing by spirit of things ahead, a knowing by spirit of things of history behind us. God does give us eyes that are replete to see, to understand everything working within the soul of our outer man. His Spirit teaches us to ask, seek, and knock until the doors He can open are opened and working in us. Sons and daughters of God can gain qualities to become like eagle’s wings, granted to soar above every problem or obstacle of life, boldness to face every challenge with the fearless face of a lion.
Such qualities allow us to be of greatest service to the Lord, like a bull producing cattle in a man’s pasture. We become a man having intelligence of the divine mind. If any Christian thinks asking for or seeking these things is a waste of time, they certainly have found only an in-part measure of salvation in church. The Lord will yet appear to them in a fuller measure, as He promises.