How to Live Deeper in the Kingdom My capacity is not your capacity. And I want to increase your capacity to receive Me. Because I want to give you so much more. And what I give you is good. It is always more than enough. And this plentitude is something you can test: you can test whether what I give you is what you need to love well today, or serve well today, or bless others today. Go ahead. Test it. Because what you’ll find is that you are never lacking in the gifts of the Kingdom. But you must desire what I offer. You must want what I give, more than the counterfeit “gifts” this world gives you . . . and that takes time to learn. The world is not your enemy. When I say “things of this world,” I do not mean you have to shut yourself away and be afraid of cities or technology or new ideas or what are considered human advancements. I have given my sons and daughters the ability to create and dream and consider how problems can be solved. But . . . it is also in this world where ideas are planted and promulgated that are not from Me. And you need to discern what is good for you—and what will lead to the death of your soul. I am always leading you deeper into the kingdom. There is so much I want to reveal to you. It is beyond what you can imagine and see right now. But with each step you take in trusting Me, I entrust more of the kingdom to you. Each time you say yes, each acceptance of my healing in you, can lead to my love breaking through in ways you need it most. For there are many broken places in your heart that I have come to mend. Any place in your heart that is broken—places where lies have come or things have been done or choices you have made that have wounded your heart—I will repair and make new, if you want Me to. If these places in your heart are not made new, you limit your ability to receive blessing from Me. For healing requires faith and obedience, and you must trust Me to heal you. You must believe that I can, indeed, do it. Do you? Do you believe I can do it? Then the emotional scars within you will be smoothed over. You will feel the scars, but my love will make you new. You will not be held back by their effects any longer. So trust in Me. Trust in Me. Do you know that I love to garden? I love to till the soil, restore the earth, bring nutrients to the soil that has been hardened and forgotten and unused. I tend to it, knowing what a plant needs to thrive there. I provide the quiet rich earth where the seed, once planted, can leave behind its outer shell and die. And then the plant can shoot forth new life from within and reach for the sun. Water and light and food grow the plant so there is nothing holding it back. And I tend to the weeds around each plant in my garden. They grow up together, the weeds and the good plants. And the plants must trust Me to get rid of the weeds that are not supposed to be there. For they stifle growth. And they prevent the plant from thriving. Do you trust Me, as the gardener, to protect you, in this world of many dangers and threats, to give you what you need to thrive? Will you work with Me so I can weed out what needs, right now, to go? All that I have is yours. I want to give you more and more of Me, give you with more good things to do and see. But you must accept that what I give you is everything you need to thrive, right here, right now. Everything you need to thrive is available to you. For I am available to you. And when you ask Me for help, when you seek more healing, more breakthrough from hardened soil, I will ask you to look at what I have given you already, and I will ask you to trust Me to do great things with the gifts you already have. Use what I have given you to seek Me, and you will find Me. And more of Me will be given to you. Remember, I increase your capacity to receive more and live even more fully in Me. Do you want to do that? Are you willing to trust and follow Me? Exercise: Our Father God gives us everything we need to live and thrive. We lack nothing—unless, of course, we reject His gifts and His provision. Now, you might respond, “I don’t reject those things! I welcome His help!” But we do reject His gifts and provision. We do it all the time. It’s our nature. It’s been our human nature since the first man and the first woman rejected Him so long ago. And this rejection becomes ingrained in our rhythms and habits and the way we view ourselves and the world—and we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Our heavenly dad holds nothing back from us. He would never withhold His love or mercy or grace. He isn’t that kind of father. He sent His only begotten son to be tortured and to die a horrific death on a cross, so that we might live—so that we might live a life of fullness and beauty and adventure, forever. That’s the kind of father He is. And He’ll never change. Because He doesn’t change, and He never will. His generosity will never wane. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” That’s from James chapter 1, verse 17. Do you believe this? That God cares for you and provides for you and always will? Are you living like you believe it? Holy Spirit just told us how this works. He said: “My capacity is not your capacity. And I want to increase your capacity to receive Me. Because I want to give you so much more. And what I give you is good.” He wants to teach us to stop rejecting His gifts and His provision. He wants to guide us into lives where we trust Him and surrender into abundance. He wants to wake us to the reality that we are favored sons and daughters of a good and powerful King—and not orphans, who must provide for themselves in order to survive in this cruel, cold world. What do you think about this? Do you want it to be true? Do you want to trust Him a bit more, to open your heart a bit more, and learn to receive a lot more? Do you remember Jesus’ parable of the sower in the field? Here is how Matthew the Apostle captured what Jesus said: “Consider this: There was a farmer who went out to sow seeds. As he cast his seeds, some fell along the beaten path and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell onto gravel that had no topsoil. The seeds quickly shot up, but when the days grew hot, the sprouts were scorched and withered because they had insufficient roots. Other seeds fell among the thorns and weeds, so when the seeds sprouted, so did the weeds, crowding out the good plants. But other seeds fell on good, rich soil that kept producing a good harvest. Some yielded thirty, some sixty, and some even one hundred times as much as he planted! If you’re able to understand this, then you need to respond.” That is from Matthew chapter 13, verses 3 through 9. And then Jesus explained to his disciples what his parable meant. Here, again, is how Matthew captured it in chapter 13 : “The seed that fell on the beaten path represents the heart of the one who hears the message of the kingdom realm but doesn’t understand it. The Adversary then comes and snatches away what was sown into his heart.” That is verse 19. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever read something in Scripture or heard a sermon on a particular topic, and then just ignored or rejected what it was saying? Have you ever heard the truth, when you really didn’t want to hear it, and just let it pass you by? Think of a time when this might have happened in your life. Jesus continued explaining the parable in verses 20 and 21. He said, “The seed sown on gravel represents the person who gladly hears the kingdom message, but his experience remains shallow. Shortly after he hears it, troubles and persecutions come because of the kingdom message he received. Then he quickly falls away, for the truth didn’t sink deeply into his heart.” Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever gotten excited about the truth of Jesus—maybe at a weekend retreat or a conference or a concert—and then just had it fade away? Maybe when you got back to real life or maybe when your life got a bit harder than it had been? Jesus explained the next kind of soil in verse 22: He said, “The seed sown among weeds represents the person who receives the message, but all of life’s busy distractions, his divided heart, and his ambition for wealth result in suffocating the kingdom message and prevent him from bearing spiritual fruit.” Have you ever felt like that? I think a lot of us have. With our lives filled with so many things—work and worry, competition and striving, comforts and distractions and ways to numb ourselves—it’s no surprise that our hearts can become divided. It’s no surprise that, when we begin to choose to make some of these things priorities, they can simply crowd out the truth of Jesus and keep Him from working in our lives. And finally, Jesus explained the last kind of soil in verse 23: He said, “As for the seed that fell upon good, rich soil, it represents the hearts of people who hear and fully embrace the message of heaven’s kingdom realm. Their lives bear good fruit—some yield a harvest of thirty, sixty, even one hundred times as much as was sown.” Do you want that? I sure do. So how to do get there? Well, remember, Holy Spirit told us that He loves to garden. He loves to till the soil, restore the earth, bring nutrients—so that the soil of our hearts can become good, rich soil. And He asked us a direct question: “Do you trust Me, as the gardener, to protect you, in this world of many dangers and threats, to give you what you need to thrive? Will you work with Me so I can weed out what needs, right now, to go? So, now, friend, what do you say? Will you say yes, right now, to Jesus? Jesus, I do trust You. But help me to trust you more. Come and work in my heart. I give you permission, now, to do whatever work you want to do there—even in those deep and dark places in my heart I’d rather keep hidden. I give you access to all of it, to all of me. So, come Lord Jesus. Come and bring your love and care and goodness into my heart and into my life. In your name I pray. Amen. Experience the Rush podcast—and encounter Holy Spirit in your modern life.