There have been moments in my life when faced with great dilemmas or situations that I have received wisdom and direction through dreams. And I also have experienced rare, but incredible moments of spiritual warfare in dreams. I know this may sound strange, but there have been moments in my life that as I slept at night my spirit man was busy working in the realm of the spirit. My wife Cathy has been awakened as I rebuked the enemy, interceded for someone or was forcefully praying in the Spirit. I’m not trying to create a new doctrine, I’m just saying that is how God speaks and uses me sometimes. (That’s probably because He can get more done with my carnal nature asleep and out of the way.)

Well not long ago I had just such a dream. And in my dream I received a word of wisdom regarding the Kingdom and the power of the seed.  In my dream a Pastor friend had called and asked for my thoughts regarding the Kingdom of God and the power of the seed, specifically. The story in my dream was that he was working on an upcoming series and needed some ideas. As we began to talk I realized that I was saying things that I had never taught and had never heard anyone else teach. God was bringing revelation to me through the medium of a dream. In my dream, I spoke about the Kingdom of God in the context of the Lord’s Prayer recorded in Matthew chapter 6. Several things came to light in our conversation.

Jesus said, “Your (God’s) Kingdom come Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” In my dream I told my friend, “God wants to introduce His Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. If this were not the case, Jesus would not have told us to pray for it.” It is God’s plan. Therefore, God’s plan must become our petition. I told him that the Kingdom of Heaven is not just a place  (and I do believe in a literal Heaven and Hell for that matter), but it is a principle to be practiced. What is Heaven? Is it defined by pearly gates and golden streets ? Or is it simply stated, a place where the will of God rules without resistance?

Jesus seems to equate the coming of the Kingdom with the will of God. In my dream I told him that the Kingdom of heaven was defined by the will of God. The expression of the coming of the Kingdom is when the sons and daughters of God begin to practice heaven, or the will of God, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus said that we should make that our passion and prayer.

Jesus seemed to be almost obsessed (if I can say that about Jesus) with the will of God. He says in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” In Matthew 12:50, He says, “For whoever does the will of My Father is My brother, and sister and mother.”  In John 4:34, Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” In Hebrews 10:7 the writer speaks of Jesus and says, “Behold, I have come in the volume of a book it is written of me – To do your will, oh God.”

I stressed in my dream to my pastor friend that to Jesus the Kingdom of Heaven equated to the will of God, and that our prayer should be for that will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Two things that I learned from my dream:

  1. Heaven is more than a place, it is also a principle to be practiced. And as I am practicing the will of God, I am becoming a conduit for and ushering into the earth the Kingdom of Heaven.
  2. That the principle of heaven is the will of God. Heaven is defined by a place where God’s will rules without resistance.

Since that night, my almost constant prayer is, “Oh Lord, I have come to do your will and finish the work you sent me to do.” This is the greatest and highest purpose for man; to do His will and finish His work.

This dream has caused an adjustment in my thinking because I often, without meaning to do it, downplayed the will of God and our responsibility to seek it. “Well,” I would sometimes say,  “God will bless you in any effort if your heart is right and you desire to please Him.” And I generally believe this is true. But after my dream I found it difficult to totally contrast that position with the example of Jesus.

He made it abundantly clear that He only did what the Father instructed Him to do, would only say what the Father instructed Him to say. He himself spent great amounts of time in private seeking and personal surrender to remain in the will of God.  Case in point, in perhaps the most dramatic moment in the New Testament, during His agony in the Garden, He won the victory over the devil and hell when He said, “Not My will but Thine be done”! The will of God is not a take it or leave it kind of thing. It is the principle of heaven. When my will is in control, it produces hell on earth; when His will is, it produces Heaven on earth.

How do I find the will of God? Where is it and how do I practice it? This was a really interesting part of the dream.

Now the seed part…
The seed is the carrier of the will of God and the Vehicle of the Kingdom.

Jesus also used constant metaphors of the seed as it related to the Kingdom of God and Heaven. But why the seed? The concept of the seed is a Biblical picture of the coming of the Kingdom. In my dream I explained that the will of God was downloaded into the seed and then must be sown in the earth. And this was the God chosen method through which to introduce His Kingdom on earth. Everything that God wants to do on earth He puts in a seed, fills it with His will (the Principle of Heaven), and then places it in the hand of a man or woman to be planted, in the time and location where He wants it to grow. Man’s role is to be a steward of God’s will in the form of a seed. From our finance to our family and ministry objectives, they are all seeds filled with God’s will. We don’t own the seeds, we only steward them. It’s not our will that fills them and makes them grow. It is God’s. God is the owner and giver, and as such He alone has rights to their purpose. We as stewards have only responsibilities.

Jesus is a great example of this. Jesus was the seed carrier of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Paul calls Jesus the “seed to whom the promise was made” (Gal 3:16). Jesus was filled with the will of God, and He even called Himself a seed. In John 12:24 He says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit,” speaking of Himself and His death on the cross.

God embeds His Kingdom will in a seed but it must be sown, practiced. When it is sown in faith it will produce a multiplied harvest in time. But the seed must die. Why? Because it is the corruptible container of the incorruptible. When it dies it releases the incorruptible will of God inside. What kills the seed? It dies as it is sown. The sowing of the seed produces the death of the seed and allows the outer shell to be broken. And how do we sow the seed? Faith. In the Scripture the Bible talks about the process of sowing the seed in three phases. It speaks of (1) seed, (2)time and then (3)harvest.

The seed phase is where the seed is sown. It is the act of obedience when I take what God has given me and as a responsible steward I sow it in the field that God has assigned me to. It is writing the check, making the call, making the decision. The emphasis here is not just on doing something, but doing the right thing, the thing for which you are called. The key word is Obedience!

The time part is where the seed dies. It is in this phase the corruptible part of the seed surrenders to the will of God (the incorruptible part) that is inside. The Apostle Paul teaches this principle in 1st Corinthians chapter 15. In context He is speaking of the human body and what it will be like in the resurrection, but we see the sowing and reaping principle explained as well. He says in verse 36, “…what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.” In Verses 42-44 he goes on to say, “…the body is sown in corruption but raised in incorruption”, v43 “it is sown in dishonor but raised in glory. It is sown in weakness but it is raised in power.” In verse 44 he tells us that it is sown in one form, but raised in another:  the first, natural; the second, spiritual.

The time part is where faith takes over and begins to work on the seed. In my dream I called it the “death of faith”. I explained, “Faith feels like death to the flesh. I have never done anything by faith that felt good to my flesh!” “Faith kills the corruptible part of the seed so that the incorruptible part can be released.  Sowing the seed as an act of obedience, but in the time phase faith is in control. Faith breaks down the hardness of the outer shell, neutralizes the corruptible nature with its strong controlling desires, and allows water (The Holy Spirit) to get to the inner incorruptible will of God to bring life to it and release it to grow. This was so encouraging to me. Even in the context of giving and tithing. When you tithe, even though you know it’s right and proper, yet the feeling of loss that you have when you write the check tells you that it is working. Faith is doing what it is designed to do; breaking the outer shell of your me-o-centric carnal nature that wants to be in control, and is killing your flesh so that the will of God can come into your finances!

And then the Harvest… In the seed is the principle of Heaven, the will of God. When it is sown and it endures the “death of faith”, the corruptible part of the seed, the outer shell, is broken and discarded so that the incorruptible part, the will of God that is in the seed, can germinate. With the limitations of the flesh out of the way, now the spiritual side of the equation kicks in and the life in the seed begins to grow. But with one exception, now instead of being one unit solely existent in the form of the flesh, it is transformed into a multiplying, fruit-producing engine of the Spirit. Natural limitations are lifted, and exponential potential is released. Formerly impossible situations become not only possible, but expected. God’s will is now being released into the life of the situation, Heaven is coming to earth. Jesus‘ prayer and ours is now coming to pass. God’s will is being done on earth as it is in Heaven. With the flesh dealt with, God’s will is released without resistance and a Kingdom Harvest begins to multiply more and more, moving through the process of production into a state called fruitfulness by God. And it looks something like this: first, simple reproduction, then multiplication, and then abundance. God’s will is expressed in an abundance of that which pleases Him. In fruitfulness, potential is maximized and experienced. Jesus said in John chapter 15 that “in this is the Father glorified, that you bear much fruit.”