IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD SOMETHING SHOULD INCREASE, SOMETHING SHOULD DECREASE AND SOMETHING SHOULD DISAPPEAR.

IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD SOMETHING SHOULD INCREASE, SOMETHING SHOULD DECREASE AND SOMETHING SHOULD DISAPPEAR.

PART 2

Last time I emphasized the divine principle of growth that was founded in Genesis 1. Everything that is borne by God should increase. In the Bible we read in Matthew 25 about the talents. The farmer was very disappointed with the person who had been hiding his talent in the ground. He should have managed what he had in a much better way. It should have increased.

When a congregation is diminishing, something is very wrong unless it is a sign of getting rid of the weeds. There are times when one need to cleanse the crop. The letters of Paul are full of advice for right management of a congregation. In 1. Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul describes what one should do with a brother or sister who lives in immorality. He even says that the other members shouldn’t eat together with such a person. The same goes for a covetous, a reviler, a drunkard and an extortioner. These people are like leaven of malice and wickedness and should get out of a church. I am convinced that they could come back if they had repented and confessed their sins. 1. John 1:9 says that God is faithful and just then and He will forgive us our sins and all unrighteousness. If God forgives sins, we must also be willing to forgive if they confess and repent.

John the Baptist says in John 3:29+30 that the friend of the bridegroom rejoices greatly when he hears the voice of the bridegroom. In verse 30 he says that Jesus should increase, but he should decrease. We are also saying that Jesus in us should increase and we should decrease. We mean that the flesh in us should diminish. The nature of Jesus is in our spirit and our spirit should get much more space in us. One of the reasons why I do counselling is to help people to live more from their spirit. Many Christians live in an internal war. They have a perfect nature in their spirit, but can have demonic spirits and wounds in their soul and body. The more they are healed and delivered, the easier it is to have victory over the devil and to live from their perfect nature.

We can go back to Adam and Eve. They were created in the image of God, and they lived in a garden with perfect peace and harmony. They had a constant communication with God until the devil came and tempted Eve to eat from the apple that God had forbidden them to eat from. She fell for the temptation, and she tempted her husband to do the same. Sin entered the world though their disobedience, and sin separated man from God until Jesus came to reconcile man with God.

The sin in man should decrease, but even better if it disappears.

No man is totally free of sin. Only Jesus was without sin and that was why He could become the perfect sacrificial lamb.

In 1. Peter 5:5+6 we read about humility. It says that we should humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and then He would exalt us in due time. We are supposed to be less proud. He will then exalt us. Less of me, more of Him.

In 1 Peter 2:24 we read that Jesus has taken our sin, but He has also taken our sicknesses. He has actually carried something that we do not need to carry. I do know that many of us are sick and we go to doctors and we take medicines. Thank God for doctors, but Jesus carried our sicknesses for us so that we could get rid of them. It is written that we are healed in His wounds. We can now understand that God wants both sicknesses and sins to disappear.

In James 4:7 we read that we should resist the devil and he will flee from us. Quite a few Christians have a difficult time to understand what comes from God, what comes from the flesh and what comes from the devil. The devil is called the father of lies and he is very good in making people believing his lies. If you aren’t grounded in the Word of God, it is very easy to be tricked, especially if the lies come in religious terms. Some cannot see the source of manifestations either. Some believe that everything spiritual comes from God. We really need the gift of discernment. Ask the Lord to give it to you. It would be easier to resist the devil then.

The more I have been thinking about this theme, the easier it has become to understand what should increase, what should decrease and what should disappear.

Everything that is borne of God, is meant to increase and to bear a lot of fruit. When it is borne of God, it has the possibility of growth in it. Everything borne of God is full of life.

 Everything that is borne out of the flesh, should decrease. There is a book called: Good ideas and God’s ideas. Good ideas might be borne out of your own ideas.

Everything that Jesus took care of on the Cross, He bore in order for us to get rid of it. That goes for sin and sicknesses.

Everything that comes from the devil, we should resist. In other words: It should disappear.

Mother Else