If you can see the progression here, it is that the Father has taken us from the Levitical law, to the law of Jesus, which is His words, and then to the words of the Holy Spirit. It is His desired way of continually growing us, maturing and developing our mind, heart, and spirit, toughening us in flesh and strength, extending and expanding our understanding and knowledge of Him through a cascade of countless revelations. He directs us on the ordained narrow path which leads to life, the path that is destined to meet Him and to be with Him. Only through the Way, Jesus, do we arrive at the destination of God, for God. For first we knew Him as our Creator, Master and God, then as teacher, counsellor, saviour and Lord- and now He is unveiling to us Himself as our Father, the great and almighty eternal King of glory. Our Father is revealing Himself to us and preparing us, as surely as a student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. And so a king is not above the King of kings, but everyone who is fully trained will be like the King.
Can you see that the first foundation laid by God was based in the Levitical law? The Levitical law is purposed for worship, and is the initial process sanctification through our obedience and faithfulness of His regulations and commandments. It was our introduction to God’s justice and righteousness, His love of it, and to His person. The Father gave us commands which made atonement for us and made us ceremonially clean so that we may be fit to receive Jesus when He comes in the flesh, believe in Him and accept His words and put them into practice. That is why the Father said to us- Listen to Jesus. When He said that, He was essentially kicking it up another notch- opening the door to the next stage of His agenda and laying another foundation on the one that was already built. That is why the Lord said “drink my blood and eat my flesh”- He was really urging us to step forward into the next stage of God because the Father and His opera and His justice never end. Even if it means being physically cut off from the Levitical law- but in truth, we are still spiritually intact by a spirit of love of justice, righteousness and kindness which we uphold. It is not that we are cut off from the law, but another foundation God has laid since Jesus did come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets. It is an additional foundation He laid on earth through us so that we are another hallway closer to the heavens because He is ready for it and has desired it so.
For the words of Jesus- all of which came from the Father, is purposed for sonship. Through His Son whom He loves, chosen and is well pleased with, God is showing us the secrets of the kingdom of heaven and He was opening up to us the treasures of sonship and how to attain it by listening to Jesus, living His words and loving His ways. The process itself is a treasure because we learn so much and we grow closer to Him from the practice, the failures, the success and each and every emotion and experience the Lord is taking us through with Him. It’s called a relationship.
Is there any other from whom we can learn to be a son or daughter except through Jesus Christ? I know not one. For we were given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved- and we were given no other man on earth and in heaven by which we learn sonship and daughtership. In truth, without the Lord, we are at best either of these 2 sons: the son who asked his father for his share of the inheritance so that he can selfishly squander what belongs to his father in wild living, or the son who stays behind to jealously guard the father’s property because he sees it as his own. Both sons break the father’s heart- both do not care about the father’s needs - and both sons lacked the zeal to protect the father and his property for him- they do not understand that pleasing the father takes a certain degree of sacrifice and much perseverance.
And so Jesus came- the eternal King of all that ever was, is and is to come. He was born into the sinfulness of flesh and mortality, and in His mightiness to save, He restored and resurrected all that is within Father’s kingdom for His Father. Praise be to God that death has no hold over Him, nor did He let His Holy one see decay, but He suffered the death of a man condemned and abandoned by His own people, only to be raised in the power of resurrection- for He is the Living One, and He is alive forever and forever. He was condemned because He opened His mouth to teach us Sonship by displaying who He is- He was crucified because He called Himself the Son of God and He called God His Father- He was put to death for telling the truth. But death has no hold over Truth, for darkness has no power over light- because the Father had said, “Let there be light”, not “Let there be darkness”. He saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. And so darkness will always be subject to light.
Now, the Lord is illuminating His word for us to usher us into the imminent next stage- His word is indeed a light unto our feet. It is another foundation of the kingdom of God- of Himself- of His sovereignty- of His regal justice and royal majesty- of His Kingship. For even New Jerusalem has 12 foundations decorated with every kind of precious stones- so how many foundations does Jesus our God have within Himself? Did He not tell us to dig deep and lay the foundation of the rock? He is the foundation and He is the rock- the first and the last- so how many layers of foundation do we have to keep digging into, only taking a break briefly to catch our breath and absorb to the beauty and splendour of the precious gems that are in each foundation of Him? It means that we must never stop seeking and knocking and asking until the Lord Himself says to us, “stop”. Never stop our quest of listening, reading, testifying, speaking, inquiring, being in the Spirit, loving and honouring - because He is paving our way into the courage, strength, focus, faithful perseverance, patient endurance, unswerving loyalty and more, which is needed for us to display our ordained kingship in Him and for Him. To bring to reality the pleasure and pride of a King who sees His firstborn son and rightful heir to His throne raising up sons and daughters for Him, whose steadfast manner and mindset are the same and one with the only Son who ever overcame in triumphant glory- male and female kings who are deemed worthy to inherit a seat on His throne of a kingdom which is not of this world.
But there will be ones who will again mock and disregard Him and the news of His Kingship as He once again unveils the more of Him and our purpose in Him. They will do that because they rejected God’s purpose for themselves. They refuse to repent and accept the truth because their deeds are evil and they entertain evil thoughts in their hearts. Just like the Pharisees and the experts of the law rejected God’s purpose for them, because they had not been baptised by John- there will be those who will reject or snub God’s kingship for them either through ignorance or wilful disobedience, or worse, embrace it to scheme and usurp God’s throne, because they have not listened to Jesus who taught us the true treasures of Sonship from God’s perspective and with God’s understanding. Sonship is the facet that prepares the way for kingship and makes straight the paths for its manifestation. And it is no mystery that kingship should follow sonship- for how can one legally sit on a throne if the blood of the lineage of the “I AM” does not run through your veins? You have to be a son or daughter to become a king.
But there are those in the house of God who have set themselves as a higher judge than God about what is good for them in God’s Name, because they have not known the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit- because it would be inconvenient and overly-sacrificial to follow God’s ways, as God’s ways do not fulfil their plans. They already feel satisfied and self-sufficient in a little bit or worship, and little bit sonship, so kingship seems like a load of hard work. Their short-sightedness comes from their ignorance and disobedience of the command to “Listen to Jesus”- because consuming passion and zeal for the house of God begins and ends in the Word of God for He is the Beginning and the End.
And so they will miss out. But the ones who have been listening closely to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, clinging on to their every word- who desperately and urgently do so because their lives depend on it- their next breath depends on it- ones who are distressed about the state of a church that is more like the world than the world itself, and who are discontent about their state of powerlessness- ones who want to help because they are not seeking glory for themselves: They will come to learn and understand and practise the laws of kingship. For thieves have no rightful sitting on the throne. If we are seeking glory for ourselves and if we take away from the one who seeks it, we are robbing from God, because glory and all its fruits belong to God alone, and to whom He is pleased to give it to.
For the Lord did come, and He gave us the glory, and brought us the statute of Sonship- the decrees, commands, laws and steps on how to be a son or daughter of God, together with the punishment and rewards. Nowhere else in time and place did God reveal His Fathership to us, because He had to do so by first showing us Jesus, for Jesus is His beloved firstborn Son.
As the Father taught us through Jesus, “Be perfect as your Father is perfect”- “Be merciful as your Father is merciful”- “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them”- “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom”- “Do not call anyone on earth ‘Father’ for you have one Father and He is in heaven”- “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and “mother”- “My mother and brothers are those who put God’s word into practice”- “And when you stand praying, if you should hold anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins”- “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you”- “Come follow me”, and so on.
Come and follow Jesus we must because we have to follow Him- the Son of God and the Son of Man- and His words to be a son or daughter. And as a seal to our sonship and daughtership, we have received the Spirit of Truth which goes out from the Father, who lives with us and is in us. If you do not follow the Son and His words and His Holy Spirit, then I do not know what you will be become. Certainly not the son or daughter of the standard and pedigree the Father is seeking. The merchant is searching for fine pearls- pearls of purity and quality that is worth Him letting go of everything He has to make that one perfect pearl His. The mediocre “this will do” variety does not inspire such drastically romantic behaviour.
Having followed Jesus and His words to the delicious exclusiveness of all else, and in the company of the Holy Spirit who you have not only grown to respect but adore, then the Lord will examine you under His inspection radar to pass you for the next level- which is kingship. And what a level it is. The Lord wasn’t joking when He said it will be beyond wildest dreams. As if being a son and daughter is not humbling and overwhelming and touching enough, and the hugest thing ever- He now wants us taken into the fullness of kingship. Just to be standing at that door and touching the heat of the door knob, knowing that the room behind is made of pure light and golden fire, flow a plethora of emotions and thoughts that are beyond the words of this age. And at the increased pace He is working at? There is no moment to slow down, for the force of the waterfall is surging and rushing by us in the momentum of the time which is being shortened. And if you falter and doubt and grow lazy, you will miss the boat. And this time the Lord will not casually walk by the boat, waiting for you to call out to Him and to get into a boat that is heading nowhere. This time, we have to be heading in the right direction, by His timing, and learn to not only walk on water, but how to run on top of the waves of a foaming waterfall without sinking.
So now, we need to know the basics of the laws of Kingship to qualify and succeed. Where is it written? Where is it hidden? What is justice behind the statute of Kingship? I tell you the truth, it is written in the 7 letters to the 7 churches in Revelation Ch 2-3. Concealed in the 7 reports cards are the 12 commands, 2 decrees together with 5 steps of faith and 5 punishments, 12 rewards and 1 instruction of the Statute of Kingship, and the 12 defining hallmarks of an overcomer making him or her eligible for kingship.
Firstly, the 12 commands are as follows:
1. Do not forsake your first love. (Rev 2:4)
2. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. (Rev 2:10)
3. Do not renounce your faith in Jesus- remain true to His Name. (Rev 2:13)
4. Do more now that you did at first. (Rev 2:19)
5. Do not fall asleep. (Rev 3:2)
6. Do not deny His Name, and keep His word. (Rev 3:8)
7. Do not be lukewarm. (Rev 3:5)
8. Endure patiently (Rev 3:10)- Persevere and endure hardships for His Name and do not grow weary (Rev 2:3)
9. Do not hold on to the teachings and practices of the Nicolatians. (Rev 2:15 and 2:6)
10. Do not hold on to the teachings of Balaam. (Rev 2:14)
11. Do not hold on to the teachings of that woman Jezebel. (Rev 2:20)
12. Do not learn Satan so-called deep secrets. (Rev 2:24)
The 2 decrees are as follows:
1. Be faithful even to the point of death. (Rev 2:10)
The 5 steps of faith and knowledge that follow the first decree:
(i) Know that Jesus is the one who searches heart and minds, and He will repay each of us according to our deeds. (Rev 2:23)
(ii) Remember what we have received and heard, obey it and repent. (Rev 3:3)- Hold on to what we have until He comes. (Rev 2:24, 3:11)
(iii) Hear His voice and open the door as He stands and knocks, so that He may come in and eat with us, and us with Him. (Rev 3:20)
(iv) Accept His counsel to buy from Him gold refined in the fire and white clothes to wear, and salve to put on our eyes so that we can see (Rev 3:18)
(v) Test those who claim to be apostles (Rev 2:2)
2. Be earnest and repent. (Rev 3:19 + Rev 2:4, 2:16, 2:22; 3:3)
As to the 5 punishments for disobeying the Lord’s decree to repent:
(i) If the people of the church do not repent, the Lord will come to them and remove its lampstand from its place. (Rev 2:5)
(ii) If the people of the church do not repent of their immorality and continue to hold on to the teachings of the Nicolaitans , He will soon come to them and will fight against them with the sword in His mouth. (Rev 2:16)
(iii) Unless the people of the church repent of the adultery they commit with that woman Jezebel who calls her a prophetess, He will make them suffer intensely. He will strike her children dead. (Rev 2:22)
(iv) If the people of the church do not wake up, He will come like a thief, and they will not know at what time He will come to them. (Rev 2:3)
(v) If the people of the church are neither hot nor cold, the Lord will spit them out of His mouth. (Rev 3:16)
The 12 hallmarks of an overcomer are as follows:
1. They have not forsaken their first love. (Rev 2:4)
2. They work hard and persevere (Rev 2:2-3) - by demonstrating love, faith and service (Rev 2:19)- and their deeds are complete in the sight of God. (Rev 3:2)
3. They keep the Lord’s command to endure patiently. (Rev 2:10)
4. They keep His word and do not deny His Name. (Rev 3:8)
5. They hate the practices of the Nicolaitans which Jesus also hates. (Rev 2:6)
- Which means that they are fiercely loyal and faithful to the Lord’s words, His practices and teachings, His Spirit, and the office that they hold in the name of Jesus.
6. They have not soiled their clothes. (Rev 3:4)
7. They remain awake (Rev 3:2) and do not grow weary when they endure hardships for His Name (Rev 2:3).
8. They are earnest to repent because they know that the Lord rebukes and disciplines the ones He loves. (Rev 3:19)
9. They do not hold on to the teachings and practices of the Nicolatians. (Rev 2:15 and 2:6)
10. They do not hold on to the teachings of Balaam. (Rev 2:14)
11. They do not hold on to the teachings of that woman Jezebel. (Rev 2:20)
12. They do not learn Satan so-called deep secrets. (Rev 2:24)
The 12 rewards of an overcomer, rewards that the Lord will personally present to you when He comes, are as follows:
1. To him who overcomes, the Lord will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Rev 2:7)
2. To him who is faithful to the point of death, the Lord will give him the crown of life. (Rev 2:10)
3. To him who overcomes, the Lord will not let him be hurt by the second death. (Rev 2:11)
4. To him who overcomes, the Lord will give Him some of the hidden manna. (Rev 2:17)
-This is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die- he who feeds on Jesus, the bread of life, will live forever.
5. To him who overcomes, the Lord will give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. (Rev 2:17)
-They will be like Jesus, the rider called Faithful and True, who has a name written on Him that no one knows but Himself. The white stones will be used for an altar of stones for God, not defiled by tools but inscribed by the finger of God. Just like the 2 stone tablets with the Ten Commandments, only at that time, the laws are put in our minds and written in our hearts, and not on stone.
6. To him who overcomes and does His will to the end, the Lord will give authority over all nations to rule them with an iron sceptre and dash them to pieces like pottery. (Rev 2:26)
7. They will also shine like Jesus because He will also give him the morning star. (Rev 2:28) Jesus is the bright Morning Star.
8. He who overcomes will be dressed in white and walk with Jesus. (Rev 3:5)
9. The Lord will never blot His name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before the Father and his angels. (Rev 3:5)
10. Him who overcomes Jesus will make a pillar in the temple of His God. Never again will he leave it.
11. He will write on him the name of His God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming out of heaven from His God; and He will also write on him His new name. (Rev 3:12)
12. To him who overcomes, He will give the right to sit with Him on His throne, just as He overcame and sat down with His Father on his throne. (Rev 3:21)
Do you see now? Do you see that the 12 rewards have everything to do with kingship after all of the features of overcomers in their sonship and daughtership are fulfilled? The Lord will give us a new name, which follows a change of title when one has been crowned as a king, and we will have written on us the secret name of the King of kings. Remember the Lord said- do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. We will have new white regal robes to wear- for did not the Lord tell us not to worry about our body and what we will wear? We will sit with Him and walk with Him, and He will give us eternal life. We will to partake in the first resurrection alongside Him and the second death has no hold over us. We will sit on His throne with Him, and reign with authority and rule with power, shining brightly in the majestic glory of God’s justice and righteousness everlasting. We never have to leave the temple of God. Even at a time and place where there is no temple in the city of God because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, which means never again will we leave our Father and Jesus.
This is the basics of the foundation of the Law of Kingship- the written code of the law. So, now, how much more important and a matter of life and death is it to follow the Lord’s single instruction repeated 7 times: “He who has an ear, let Him listen to what the Spirit says to the 7 churches”?
This we should all know, and have been practising, and loving the practice of because the Spirit of holiness is the Spirit of Sonship and He is the Spirit of Kingship. And the Spirit of Kingship does guide us into ALL truth and teaches us ALL things and tells us what is to come. The Holy Spirit and the bride are the ones who says to us, “COME!” (Rev 22:17)
AMEN HOLY SPIRIT- Be blessed you forever!
LONG LIVES THE KING!
