What you don't really know, by revelation knowledge, about the kingdom of God, can hurt you!
Isaiah 5:13 and Hosea 4:6 tell us, "Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
You need to know that you know that which you need to know!
What do you know about the kingdom of God?
The written truths found in God's Word, the Holy Bible, become living truths in you when you are born again. They don't become real to you and realized by you without you permitting the Holy Spirit to reveal them to you, in spirit (by the Spirit), and in truth (revealed to you).
Whatever part of the Word of God that you reject by ignoring or not releasing your trust in is still real, still vital, but not necessarily in you. You may have believed that salvation comes in a number of ways, but the truth is found in John 3:3,7 when Jesus said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ... Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' "
So you not believing in it in days past didn't cancel it out as a truth, but kept that truth from being alive in you. But once you called upon Jesus, his truth became your truth!
You may not have believed in speaking in tongues, the divine authority of the believer, healing is a foundational aspect of salvation, or security and assurance of salvation, but they are all clearly and repeatedly taught in the Word of God, and they are true, whether you yet comprehend and grasp them, or not. The benefits of comprehending them won't change the truths, but the truths will change you, forever!
Though you're "born of incorruptible seed by the Word of God which lives and abides in you forever" (1 Peter 1:23), the benefits and realities of eternal life won't all sovereignly manifest on their own, and that's where the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes vital for you, to you, in you, and through you!
Do you know by experience, the unconditional love of the Father for you? For as he spoke about Israel, in the book of Jeremiah 31:3, "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you."
Are you convinced that the Father in Heaven totally loves you, because of who you are and in whose you have become? Romans 5:5 informs us that, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
Do you know, by revelation knowledge, the truth in the words of Jesus in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you nor forsake you"?
Do you know without question that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble?" Psalm 46:1. Do you know from personal encounters that "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life", according to Jesus in John 6:63?
How well do you have awareness of the spiritual reality, "He that began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it" as found in Philippians 1:6?
How real (revealed) to you is the divine truth concerning healing belonging to you, as told in Matthew 8:16,17? "They brought to him many who were demon-possessed. And he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 'He himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses'."
Saints of God, what you don't know about the kingdom of God and God's will for you will hinder you, by keeping divine truths hidden to your understanding, and will quench your expectations, for you don't believe for something from God that you don't know he has for you!
Jesus declared, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" in Luke 12:32.
He also stated, in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
So, in conclusion, you need to know that you know what you know! You need to know the written truths of God as living truths in your understanding!
You need to take the written word of God, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you in spirit and truth, and then pray in the Spirit (in tongues, in your prayer language, 'in the Holy Ghost,' all interchangeable terms meaning the same thing), as you meditate upon biblical truths.
The Holy Spirit is the teacher, and he wants to take that which abides in your recreated spirit and reveal it to your mental understanding, so that you can recognize, realize and utilize the kingdom of God in you, around you and through you!
He is the one that takes the foundational truths of salvation from Heaven and manifests them in the Earth. He is the one that puts the life and truth of God into you and then continually flows in revealing Heaven and eternal life to you, in you and through you!
Christopher Longgrear (D.Min., Ph.D.) of Fresh Fire Ministries International is senior pastor of Fresh Fire Church in Marietta, Parkersburg and Athens. Thoughts of Faith is a weekly column written by various ministers and lay people.
