The Bible is such a wonderful book. It gives us in great detail the signs and symptoms of any cause while stipulating into great detail the protocols for which anything is established. Thus, we can ascertain for sure when the Kingdom of God arrives at a vicinity because three signs of such a reign will be evident; righteousness, peace and joy. Of course, there are more signs and evidence. However, one cannot say the Kingdom of God is within a people when these signs are not evident, and these three signs cannot be at a place where the Kingdom of God has not been established.
The very first thing to note in all this is the Holy Ghost. The three signs emanate from the presence of the Holy Ghost. If you are indeed seeking the Kingdom first, these fruits will be produced by the Spirit in you. A righteous, peaceful and joyous person is one filled with the Holy Ghost. For the Kingdom of God is in the Holy Ghost and not vice versa. When we say “thy Kingdom come”, what we mean is, we want the government of God to be established so He rules and reigns in our lives and neighbourhoods like He rules and reigns in Heaven; so that there will be no difference between our lives & neighbourhoods and Heaven.
Righteousness
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne. That means God rules in righteousness. That also means what is righteous is what is pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God. Thus, righteousness is right standing with God. We cannot stand before God if we are not righteous. We cannot also represent God if we are not righteous. God alone is right, good and true. He is the only determiner, definer and demonstrator of what is right. Something is only right because God makes it so. Therefore, we cannot seek the Kingdom of God without seeking His Righteousness. His Righteousness is His Way of being and doing right. That means He determines how we become righteous and what deeds are righteous.
The sin of Adam and Eve is that they ate the tree of death after listening to the voice of the devil. Thus, they gained the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they now determined what was good and evil without God. We cannot be righteous outside of God. Ask atheists; the foundation of good and evil collapses when God is taken out of the equation. Without the presence of God, we cannot even differentiate between good and evil anymore. Nothing is inherently right without God. If God says go and you stay, you have faulted. He is the Judge of All, and He judges what is right rightly because He alone has the right to determine what is right.
The Nature of Righteousness
Righteousness is first of all a nature. You don’t do to become. You become, then you do. You can never do righteous deeds if you are not righteous. Righteousness is what is pleasing in the sight of God. That means God alone gets to determine what is good and what is evil. However, we were not able to live fully according to His Law. Therefore, we couldn’t stand before Him blameless. The Law was only to show us that we will never achieve righteousness by what we do. Jesus became our substitute in this regard. He is the Righteousness of God. Therefore, if we believe in Him and accept His Life, which is a righteous life, we gain access to the presence of God. By this same access, we are able to live the life of righteousness God has fashioned for us.
This is why Righteousness comes first in the order. Righteousness is when we accept the Lordship of God. This means we give Him the full right to rule our lives and be the one to determine how we live. You cannot claim to be in the Kingdom if you are living according to your own understanding. We ought to seek first His Kingdom and Righteousness. His government and constitution. The nature of righteousness then flows into our words, works and ways.
Words, Works & Ways
Your input determines your output, in computer language. You cannot say you are righteous when you do not bear any fruits of righteousness. Yes, righteous is who you are. Righteousness will naturally flow into what you do. What you do cannot make you righteous but you being righteous will flow into what you do. It’s that simple! Feeding your child does not make you a mother but a mother feeds her child. Being a mother is who you are and it will naturally flow into what you do. Therefore, you are making excuses when we don’t see your righteous works. The very first “output” we will see is your words. The Righteousness of God is the Word of God. If you have the Righteousness of God, you will speak the words of God.
There are works God has predestined for us to walk in. These works are righteous, for they please the LORD. This is God’s way of doing right. Because we have the Spirit of God within us, we are able to perform the Kingdom duties given unto us. Wherever the Kingdom of God is, the Righteousness of God is established there. Our ways refer to how we do things as our works refer to what we do. How we do things is as important as what we do. The Righteousness of God makes sure that we don’t try to use evil to achieve good. God has His Way of doing things, and righteousness demands that we follow that particular way. Don’t try to help God by giving birth to Ishmael.
Peace
Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit produced in the hearts and minds of His own. Peace is not the absence of war. It is the presence of God. If it were the absence of noise, that would be understandable. However, once the peace of God floods one’s heart and mind, it transcends all understanding. It is such a peace that can cause Jesus not to panic after rising from sleep in a sinking boat. The situation was affected by His peace (“Peace, be still”), not the other way round.
Peace does not originate from our minds first. Peace of mind is the overflow of the peace of heart. Again, peace is not at the end of the storm. It is present even in the midst of the storm. The storms are important as it comes to shake away the shakable, so that only the unshakable remains. If your peace is strippable, then your “peace” is conditional.
Peace of Heart
The world cannot give us the peace of heart. The only peace the world can offer is a version of peace of mind that is conditional and temporary. The ways of the world are filled with many sorrows, are insatiable and are only pleasurable at the beginning. Let us not confuse lustful pleasure with the pleasures of God. Lustful pleasure is like eating stolen bread; it tastes nice at the beginning because rebellion is filled with risk that thrives the human soul. However, the aftertaste is bitter because it’s filled with guilt, shame and the fearful expectation of being punished.
The pleasures of God are at His right hand and are forevermore. It includes a river of peace that flows from His Throne into our hearts, saturating our soul and filling the words of our mouth until it flows out of our belly. People will see you and hear your story, and although they haven’t been through half of what you have been through, they are encouraged by the fact you are still standing. It surpasses all understanding, riding us of fear. Although we may be in trouble, our hearts are not troubled. A testament that you carry the Kingdom is that you have the peace of Christ.
Peace of Mind
Until our hearts and minds are changed into that of Christ, we cannot experience that type of peace. God only runs this new update on the upgraded software. A new creature in Christ is a new prototype, never before created. Such a person has received a new heart and undergoes training to renew the mind. Once the mind has been renewed, the person is able to think the higher thoughts of God and access the mind of Christ. God has peace of mind. If you have this peace of mind, giving people a piece of your mind will not be insulting them. Rather, it will be communicating the very thoughts of God to them.
The quality of a man’s life is the condition of his heart and mind. Out of the abundance of one’s heart the mouth speaks, for out of one’s heart flows the issues of life. Anyone with a changed heart and renewed mind will live the God life and exhibit the Kingdom life. His ways will please the LORD because His nature pleases Him. Indeed, there is a dimension where peace in our hearts and minds flows to become the peace in the land. As Hebrew 12:14 instructs, this is the kind of peace we ought to work at. It should not end with us. People should see the peace we make with our presence and be able to easily identify us as children of God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God”.
Joy
Peace and joy are siblings. Once you have peace, joy is inevitable. Joy is very proactive. Joy is not being positive-minded. This goes beyond psychology. Any kind of joy that does not have its root in the spirit will run out. This is a joy unspeakable. It bubbles in our spirit until you cannot contain it anymore. The third sign that the Kingdom is within a man is that He carries joy. When the disciples were lashed for preaching the Gospel in Acts 5:40, they left rejoicing because God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. The truth of the matter is, we received a crown and many rewards for suffering for Christ. Jesus Himself made that promise in Matthews 19:29 and Revelations 2:10.
These rewards are eternal rewards; rewards that will last forever, unlike any other thing in this world. Joy is based on this understanding. If we are being persecuted because we have Christ (not because of our own foolish mistakes by the way), then it is God who has given us an opportunity to receive these kinds of eternal rewards. Therefore, the more trials we face, the more joy we have. Now that you see it in this light, stop complaining about all you are going through. In fact, rejoice because of what you are going through. Laugh with the one who sits in Heaven because you are seated with Him. This changes everything!
Joy ✓ Happiness ×
There is a big difference between joy and happiness. The Christian life is not a life of happiness, actually. God never promised you happiness. That might sound harsh to you because we are in a culture of happiness. Everybody is wishing for a soft life and all. Christianity is not a soft life. If you are not being persecuted, you are becoming too comfortable. Happiness is based on happenings. The circumstances and situations ought to be favourable so as to sustain happiness in the air. When things get tough, happiness fades away. However, that is when joy begins to overflow the more.
Our strengths are not in our abilities. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall utterly fall. However, there is a breed that can wear spirits out. They can “weary” the devil until he rather gives up. Because the more we are put in prisons, the more praises we lift up in the prison cells. We are immovable, unshakable. We have joy in chaos, and peace in the middle of the storm. What can really stop us? We are more than conquerors! We are not babes tossed to and fro by any wind. We are the Kingdom of priests, for the Kingdom is within us.
Rejoice
In actual fact, we are in a long line of people who stood for God regardless of their situation. Jesus Himself told us that we will be persecuted because a servant is not greater than his master. If the Master was persecuted, then I’m not expecting a soft life. I’m expecting a joyous life. Let them speak evil against you. Stop threatening God because He is doing nothing about it. Have you not read? Great is your reward in Heaven. We are not after the riches of this world which is temporary. We are after the eternal riches of Christ, which cannot be eaten by moths and rats. I can never be poor, because my home is full of great riches. Everything I pass through, I will overcome, thereby increasing my exceedingly great reward in Heaven. Rejoice!
So you see, the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Thank God for soft life. Thank God for money. However, we live for something greater and eternal. The proof that we carry the Kingdom is that these 3 are evident in our lives. We have an eternal perspective, and our desperate cries pull the eternal into the temporary. That is another mystery for another season. Proof that the Kingdom of God is here is not more money, the freedom to do whatever you want and the number of possessions one can amount for themselves. It is Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
Jesus was born in a manger with fecal matter all around and animal stench all over the place. People who look at physical things will not see any majesty in this; just a poor family who couldn’t even afford a good place to give birth to their child. However, the Righteousness of God was born, there was peace and goodwill towards men, and the angels were rejoicing.
