Something had to be done. God had given Adam dominion over the earth and Adam, by disobedience, had made himself subject to and less powerful than God’s enemy, Satan. It would take time for God to provide the way back for man to come into union and agreement with Him again. But He would do it!

Even in the Garden of Eden, God knew what price He must pay, but He was willing to pay it to get His family back. He said to Satan: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to bring man back into fellowship with Himself: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Adam met disaster because of disobedience. He was separated from the life of God and exiled from the perfect environment God had created for him.

And to Adam, God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to, I have placed a curse upon the soil. All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you shall eat its grasses. All your life you will sweat to master it, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from the ground, and to the ground you will return.” …Then the Lord said, “Now that the man has become as we are, knowing good from bad, what if he eats the fruit of the Tree of Life and lives forever?” So the Lord God banished him forever from the Garden of Eden, and sent him out to farm the ground from which he had been taken. Thus God expelled him, and placed mighty angels at the east of the Garden of Eden, with a flaming sword to guard the entrance to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:17-19, 22-24, The Living Bible).

Moreover, because of Adam’s disobedience, sin and death passed to all of Adam’s offspring, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:19).

What a price Adam and his family paid because of disobedience!

Gloria Copeland

Of course, if you want to sow into the
kingdom of God you must first be born again.
You do that simply by making Jesus the Lord
of your life.

You can read the Bible all day, and it won’t
make sense to you if you haven’t taken that
first step. The great kingdom truths it contains
will be hidden from you. Why? Because, as
Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

A person who hasn’t been born again
simply cannot understand the way God
thinks. The ways of His kingdom are beyond
his grasp because he is in darkness.

A person who has been born again,
however, is translated into God’s kingdom.
He immediately has the ability to know and
walk in God’s ways. How much he does from
then on is up to him. The more he seeks after
God and His way of doing and being right,
the more of His power and dominion he’ll
enjoy. The more he renews his mind to God’s
Word—which is His way of thinking—and
changes his life in obedience to that Word,
the more he’ll see the kingdom of heaven
manifest in his life and the lives of those
around him.

The wonderful thing about the kingdom of
God is that you don’t have to be rich or smart
or talented to walk in it. Anyone can do it. All
you have to do is find out what God says and
act on it. When you do, blessings—heavenly
breakthroughs—will begin to happen.

So I want to encourage you to start
today investing more of yourself—your
time, thought and energy—into seeking the
kingdom of God. Determine in your heart to
change some areas in your life. Dig into the
Word more deeply and find out what God
says about those areas. Then start acting like
He does instead of like the world.

Heighten your awareness of the kingdom
of God. Become more and more kingdom-of-
God minded. Then get ready for the blessings
of heaven—the lavish, liberal-to-excess,
extravagant and over-abounding favors of the
kingdom of God—to break through on you!

Gloria Copeland

Of course, Jesus is the One who made
that possible for us. He opened the way. He
established God’s kingdom among us and
showed us how to bring it into manifestation
in this natural world.

“But Gloria,” you may say, “I thought Jesus
said His kingdom wasn’t of this world.”

He did, but that doesn’t mean His kingdom
didn’t operate in this world. What it means
is that its power didn’t originate here. The
Amplified Bible says it this way, “My kingdom
is not from here (this world); [it has no such
origin or source]” (John 18:36).

Jesus’ whole ministry was one of preaching
and demonstrating the kingdom of God. As
Mark 1:14-15 says, His ministry began when
He “came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of
the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand:
repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

Jesus was saying, “You don’t have to wait
anymore. The dominion of God, His kingdom,
is here right now! You can come in. God’s power
is here to break into this natural world to heal,
deliver and set you free! So change your mind.
Quit thinking like you used to think. Believe
this good news!”

Luke 4 spells that message out even more
clearly. It tells how Jesus stood in the synagogue
and preached from Isaiah 61, saying:

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me,
because He has anointed Me…to
preach the good news (the Gospel)
to the poor; He has sent Me to
announce release to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind, to
send forth as delivered those who are
oppressed [who are downtrodden,
bruised, crushed, and broken down
by calamity], to proclaim the accepted
and acceptable year of the Lord [the
day when salvation and the free favors
of God profusely abound]…. Today
this Scripture has been fulfilled while
you are present and hearing (Luke
4:18-19, 21, The Amplified Bible).

Jesus said, “I am anointed.” What is the
anointing? It’s the manifestation of God’s
presence that brings deliverance. The anointing
is the kingdom of God bursting in upon this
natural realm and bringing God’s free favors
profusely. Profusely means lavishly, liberally,
extravagantly, over and abounding. Hallelujah!

Jesus didn’t just preach about this divine
kingdom. He demonstrated it. He operated
in the dominion of God by taking authority
over the evil spirits that had people bound,
by laying hands on the sick and driving the
sickness out of their bodies.

Read through the Gospels and see for
yourself. Time after time, Jesus exercised the
dominion of the kingdom of God. He came
to Peter’s house, found Peter’s mother-in-law
sick, laid His hands on her and healed her.

The leper came to Him for healing and
Jesus said, “Be thou clean,” and immediately
the leprosy was cleansed. Jairus’ daughter
died, and Jesus raised her from the dead.
He cast the demons out of the madman of
Gadara. When there wasn’t enough food to
feed the thousands who were listening to
Him preach in a remote place, He multiplied
a few loaves and fishes into more than
enough food to feed the whole crowd!

Do you know what those instances were?
They were times when the kingdom of God
broke through into this natural realm by
the anointing that was on Jesus. They were
heavenly breakthroughs!

Gloria Copeland

The first important truth the Word reveals
about the kingdom of God is that it is
sovereign, or superior, to all other kingdoms.
It is chief, the greatest, the most supreme in
power, rank and authority.

Actually, the very word kingdom comes
from the joining of two other words: king and
dominion. A kingdom is the place where the
king has dominion. Therefore, the kingdom
of God is where God has dominion.

Since God owns everything in heaven and
in earth, He could take dominion everywhere.
But He has chosen to exercise that dominion
through man. He gave Adam authority over
the earth in the Garden of Eden. That’s why
Jesus had to come into the earth and become
flesh. To exercise God’s dominion over Satan
in the earth, He had to do it as a man.

The second important truth the Word
reveals about the kingdom of God is the one
we’ve already mentioned. The kingdom of
God is present here and now. It occupies the
same space this natural world occupies. You
may not be able to see it, but it is here and
very real, nevertheless.

I think one of the best illustrations of that
fact is found in 2 Kings 6, where the prophet
Elisha and his servant were surrounded by a
great army sent to take them captive:

Elisha’s servant said to him, Alas, my
master! What shall we do? [Elisha]
answered, Fear not; for those with us
are more than those with them. Then
Elisha prayed, Lord, I pray You, open
his eyes that he may see. And the
Lord opened the young man’s eyes,
and he saw, and behold, the mountain
was full of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha (verses 15-17,
The Amplified Bible).

Those angelic horses and chariots were
there to protect Elisha and his servant the
whole time—even though most of that time
they were not visible to the natural eye. The
angels occupied the same space the enemy
army occupied. Since the angels were from
a superior kingdom, Elisha wasn’t afraid. He
knew God’s kingdom would prevail.

If you’ll just grasp that one fact, it will
enable you to walk in great joy and peace in
the midst of this messed-up world. If you’ll
just realize the kingdom of God has dominion
and control over the natural realm, then you
won’t be afraid. You can rejoice knowing that
because you belong to God’s kingdom, you can
take dominion over every natural circumstance
the devil tries to use against you.

Glory to God! Isn’t that thrilling?

Gloria Copeland