You will find that the delights of the heart is what motivates and drives us to do what we do, say what we say and go where we go. For delight is the source of power that drives the desire, which then motivates the action or conduct. If a man delights in money, then greed is the desire which drives his actions to make a profit. If a woman delights in rare jewels, then vanity is the desire which drives her to acquire the beauty. If a man delights in a woman, then love or lust is the desire which drives him to be in her presence.
Solomon, the king who appeared to have had it all, wrote, “I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasures of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well- the delights of the heart of man.”[1]
However, the things he spoke of are merely objects of the world that are passing away- they only enhance your physical life momentarily. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.[2] They are not the type of treasures that Jesus spoke of when He said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”[3] Treasures on earth do not enrich your eternal life because they are not of the everlasting nature of God- you cannot take them away with you when you die.
But the treasures in heaven we possess beyond death and beyond this age- that is our true inheritance. Paul even calls them our rewards.[4] Eternal life is not an inheritance. It is a gift from God, made possible and available to us by the sacrifice of Jesus. It is activated by our faith in the Son of God, who was sent to take our place of punishment in the face of God’s wrath. And it is nurtured and developed by the Holy Spirit who lives in us to increase our measure of eternal life. The measure of eternal life is determined by an individual’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city.[5] Eternal life is given to us that we may actively take it up and live out our inheritance at a place where the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with us.[6] And it will happen at a time called “Now”, according to God’s word. But for the time being, our delight in our true inheritance will determine our attitude, mentality, actions, our speech and demeanour.
So what is our true inheritance in this age and in the age to come? It is what Peter describes as something that will never fade or perish or fade out- kept in heaven for us.[7] But Peter did not actually tell us what it consists of. We need to know because if we are to take delight in our true inheritance, it will be what motivates and drives us. Delight is what brings us joy and also firmly stops us from quitting in the face of opposition, persecution, famine, hardship, danger and sword. Our delight in our inheritance must be strong enough to overcome them so that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ- that we will stand firm to the end as we cross a river where the increase of wickedness may drown us and wash us away in its currents if our delight is only lukewarm.
So important is God’s delight in kindness, justice and righteousness that He is motivated to exercise them on earth.[8] So important is God’s delight in mercy that it motivated Him to work His own arm for salvation.[9] And so important is God’s delight in mankind that it motivated Him to give his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.[10] It even takes two to tango, for if a man delights himself in the Lord, and the Lord delights in His ways, then the Lord will give him the desires of his heart and make his steps firm.[11]
Take the example of Mary Magdalene, her delight in the word of God caused her to sit at His feet and listen to Jesus amidst all other distractions. Her delight in His presence caused her to hang around Golgotha long after He was dead and then around the tomb after His body was found missing. And her delight in the whole person of Jesus caused her to pour perfume on His body beforehand to prepare for His burial, despite the rebukes she received from men who were uncomfortable with the display of affection, but too comfortable in their stiff-neck religiosity to come out of the shell we know as darkness. So potent is this thing called delight that it is a power of the age to come, and forged as a weapon in this age due to its divine power to demolish strongholds.
What is held in this thing called delight and what is in its power as it unfolds? And what is the delight of a co-heir of Christ that will set him or her apart from all others? How does one delight in his inheritance? And what is our inheritance?
Under the old covenant, Israel’s inheritance was the good land that the Lord had promised Abraham and His descendants- a land flowing with milk and honey. The Israelites still needed to work at it because they had to dispossess the Canaanites who lived there. But they managed to defile the land and made God’s inheritance, meaning His beneficiaries, detestable in His sight. God said to them, “How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I thought that you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me. But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel.”[12]
Under the new covenant, Jesus serves as a mediator so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.[13] Like the inheritance of the old covenant, it did not depend on the law, but on a promise, for God in His grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.[14] But the ministry Jesus has received is superior to the old covenant and it is founded on better promises- being an eternal inheritance. It is not land that can be dispossessed or seized and the possessions on it pillaged. Our eternal inheritance is a treasure in heaven that cannot be exhausted, for the Father was pleased to give us the kingdom.[15]
But note: the people Paul spoke of in Roman 8:17 are 2 distinctively different and separate groups. He said, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”[16] Just because you are an heir of God, does not a co-heir with Christ make. But if you are a co-heir with Christ, you are naturally an heir of God. For a co-heir, or joint-heir, has equal share with Jesus as a son or daughter of God the King. It is where Discipleship, Sonship or Daughtership and Kingship have been made complete by their abiding in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit in them, to form the consolidation and elevation of Co-heirship, which is the stature and likeness of Christ in perfect precision.
There is a group called the righteous who will be heirs of God but not co-heirs with Christ. Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take up your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the earth.”[17]
Notice the Lord said, “My Father”- not “my Father and your Father, my God and your God”. These are the heirs of God who are not accorded full sonship or daughtership for they remained as children of God. As the Lord said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”[18] God is the wonderful Father~
Now to be a co-heir with Christ is a whole different ball game. The standards set by the Father are much higher, for the trials and tribulations are steeper, the discipline stricter and the level of commitment must be perfect. Perfection is demanded of a co-heir, for perfection is the heritage of Jesus Christ in whom we are fellow heirs with. To His co-heirs, Jesus is proud to say, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father confers one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”[19] Here the kingdom of God is given to His co-heirs- presented to them as their inheritance. They also receive a position on His throne with the authority and right to judge Israel, who was the first group of people that God entered into a promise through their forefather Abraham. They are neither the sheep on the right or the goats on the left, for they will stand next to Jesus separating the goats from the sheep with Him.
Those who are worthy to receive a place on His throne are sons and daughters who belong to the family forever. This is in accordance to the law of inheritance in Ezekiel 46:16-17: "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: If the prince makes a gift from his inheritance to one of his sons, it will also belong to his descendants; it is to be their property by inheritance. If, however, he makes a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, the servant may keep it until the year of freedom; then it will revert to the prince. His inheritance belongs to his sons only; it is theirs.” Jesus is the Prince of Peace, His Father is the Everlasting Father, the Holy Spirit is the Wonderful Counsellor- and you and I are co-heir with Christ. But the servants are those who as sons and daughters, demanded from God their share of the inheritance so that they can leave the family and go their way, making himself richer but the family poorer. But we are not to be like that. Instead we are called to start powering up the delight of Co-heirship now.
Now this is the true delight of the co-heirs with Christ. Their delight is not in the praise of men or the luxury of palaces, or the power to call fire from heaven, or anything that is valued by men. No, that is not our heritage. Our Saviour did not come in fine clothes and a holier than thou attitude. He was birthed in a humble place and raised in a simple home as a carpenter’s son. When He began His ministry in public, even His own family thought He was mad. He spoke His Father’s words and so-called men of God tried to stone Him because they belonged to an opposite father. He instructed His apostles to go to Bethsaida immediately, but they set across to Capernaum at the time of their liking. He was crucified and raised back to life, yet only a few of His own had the heart and courage to believe in Him when He said that He is the resurrection and the life. His own disciples saw the resurrected Christ but did not offer to dress His wounds. He asked an apostle if he would love Him more than these but he did to rise up to the occasion. He asked His Eleven to wait for the Holy Spirit so that that the twelfth apostle may be properly appointed, but they took it upon themselves to cast the lot and added Matthias to the apostleship of Christ. Time and time again- it was disappointment, rejection, hardship, disobedience, weariness, hunger, dismissal, false accusations and persecution- all this within the family of the house of God. Although away from His own, He would say to a centurion, “I tell you the truth, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”[20]
“He grew up before God like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”[21]
We esteemed Him not until we saw His face in the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, just as Mary Magdalene did, and fell in love with His words, His demeanour, His kindness, His passion, and His incredible love for His Father - in fact, His whole person, which all the words of this age cannot describe in entirety the brilliant details of the perfection of Jesus Christ, who is the all of God. Because we have found the truth, we have found the life, and we have found the one whom our soul loves - and we are never letting Him out of our sight. For to let Him go now is to turn away after He has begun to open His heart to us, and His Spirit has just begun to speak to us from His own heart. And to do so now is to crucify the Lord the Lord and the Lord all over again not with a nail through the hands and feet, but three nails straight through their heart. To say, “No more, Lord, that is enough for me” is to reject the kingdom that He has conferred upon us through a covenant that entailed the spilling of His blood unto the ground, and emptying the sins of all mankind into His flesh, and submitting of His spirit unto death, so that when He died- we were born again because whoever lives and believes in Him will never die. Do you believe this?
Do you see where we are going? The delight of a co-heir is in the trouble and hardship and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword-[22] and the fear of the Lord.[23] These are all the things others shy away from because they do not have courage and the love of God, the understanding of the word of God, the knowledge of the person of God, and the complete infilling of the Spirit of God, as they are too busy pursuing what the pagans run to see past the hardships and what they really represent. But if you are seeking first your Father’s kingdom and His righteousness, then be prepared and brace yourself, because in this age we are brothers/sisters and companions in the suffering and the kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus.[24] In fact, suffering was the passion of the Lord.[25] And His passion was the full intensity of the river of His delights.[26] Though it is discreet like a quiet stream, for the personal things of God are never loudly advertised on billboards, it also has the powerful force of roaring waterfalls, with the undercurrent of kindness, justice and righteousness running through the length of the riverbed. For the river of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, but His river of delights flows from the heart of God. With God is the fountain of life,[27] but in God is a mountain of love- and that mountain has always been the chief mountain of the Lord’s temple and it will be raised up and established as chief above the hills in these last days.
This is the first hallmark of a co-heir: he/she delights in suffering in the Name of Jesus so much that it produces perseverance, and a noble and faithful character refined by denying himself and taking up his daily cross to follow Jesus, who is the overcomer.[28] This is the hallmark which will earn us the 12 rewards from the Statute of Kingship if we follow through in perfection and due diligence:
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)
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)
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)
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)
Now to say that we are co-heirs with Christ of the kingdom of God is still a generalisation because if the kingdom is the suitcase, then within the suitcase are the goodies. Jesus said, “All that belongs to the Father is mine”. And all that belongs to Jesus are the goodies in a kingdom which He confers upon us, if only we stand by Him in his trials.[29] His trials are everything that needs be done for Him, in Him, by Him, alongside Him and through Him. The kingdom we inherit with Jesus is not New Jerusalem for that is His bride and our family home.
No, the kingdom of God in which we are co-heirs is the power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise, [30] and salvation.[31] This is our true inheritance- as revealed to us at this time- for our Father who is unseen has a kingdom made up of the unseen, and we are given eternal life to take up our inheritance and expand the kingdom and enrich it and extend its boundaries as we are not only heirs of God, but we are creative producers and acquirers of wealth in glorification of the Lord the Lord and the Lord.
But you ask- God is life eternal, and He will never die, so how do we attain our inheritance?
This is the second hallmark of a co-heir of Christ- their delight lays not in a transfer of ownership of the kingdom of God to their names, but their delight is firmly founded on the day when Jesus has put all His enemies under His feet and put everything under Him, and then He will put Himself subject to God so that the Father may be all in all. We are co-heirs with Christ but there will not be a transferral of ownership from God to Jesus to us. That is not the attitude of what the dreams of God are made of. But it is more like the son who lives in the house of his father, but never ask or contemplate that the house should one day be in his name. Rather, co-heirs with Christ are like the Levites of the old covenant who were set apart from the nations, for they do not have inheritance in the land, or any shares among them.[32] In truth, God is our share and our inheritance. And that is the sweetest thing because we do not need anything else because our Father is over all and through all and in all, and He is our all.[33]
And finally, this is the third hallmark of the co-heirs of Christ- their delight is in the voice of the Holy Spirit. They have ears to hear what the Holy Spirit is speaking from His heart for this limited period of time. And their delight will motivate them to sit at His feet, stay awake and focus on listening and retaining all His words amidst the distractions and upcoming chaos. So delightful is the love song between a co-heir and the Holy Spirit that heaven holds its breath in silence to watch and observe what it is that the Holy Spirit has been doing with Himself for the last two thousand years, patiently living in the heirs of God’s salvation as their Counsellor. And not one beat will be missing, not one key out of tune and not a single emotion overlooked because the Maestro of all maestros, the Mastermind of masterminds, has finally stepped onto the stage of God’s opera to unveil the delight of His heart: His masterpiece in us.
Amen Holy Spirit- let our love song begin and never end!
[1] Ecclesiastes 2:8
[2] Proverbs
[3] Matthew 6:19
[4] Colossians 3:24
[5] Revelation 22:19
[6] Revelation 21:3
[7] 1 Peter 1:4
[8] Jeremiah 9:24
[9] Isaiah 63:5 and Micah 7:18
[10] John 3:16 and Proverbs 8:31
[11] Psalm 37:4 and Psalm 37:23
[12] Jeremiah 3:19-20
[13] Hebrews 9:15
[14] Galatians 3:18
[15] Luke 12:32
[16] Romans 8:17
[17] Matthew 25:31-34
[18] Matthew 19:14
[19] Luke 22:28-30
[20] Matthew 8:10
[21] Isaiah 53:1-3
[22] Romans 8:35
[23] Isaiah 11:3
[24] Revelation 9:1
[25] Acts 1:3 OKJ, AMP and NIV
[26] Psalm 36:8
[27] Psalm 36:9
[28] Luke 9:23
[29] John 16:15
[30] Revelation 5:12
[31] Revelation 19:1
[32] Numbers 18:20
[33] Ephesians 4:6
