From Seeking to Receiving the Kingdom of God

I cannot express enough how confused I was by a seeming contradiction in Scripture:

First, Jesus says:

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

Whereas another gospel recorded this wonderful news:

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

How do I seek something which God wants to give? And then came the most confusing admission from the Savior:

"Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

This confusion also appeared, to an extent, in the Old Testament:

"When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek." (Psalm 27:8)

Yet God warned Moses:

"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."
(Exodus 33:20)

Seek His face, David's heart intimates to the Beloved King, yet no one can look upon His face and live. Seek His kingdom, Jesus say, something which He wants to give us, which is also within us . . . What's going on?

First, every person who seeks to understand the mind of God must receive wisdom through the Holy Spirit:

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1 Corinthians 2: 9-10)

"For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2: 16)

How do we acquire this wisdom? Through the power of the Holy Spirit:

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"
(1 Corinthians 1:30)

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4)

"The Spirit of holiness" is the Holy Spirit, of course.

Now, the Holy Spirit is given to every believer upon receiving by grace through faith the Gospel:

"Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." (1 Corinthians 12:3)

This Holy Spirit brings with Himself the Kingdom of God (or Heaven, as accounted in the Gospel of Matthew):

"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:13)

and later in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the Evangelist writes:

"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14:17)

Yet what about the point that Jesus made in the Gospel of Luke, where He indicates that the kingdom of God is within us? Before Christ enters the heart of the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are more than miserable sinners, we are spiritually dead! Yet the Holy Spirit gives us Jesus Christ in our hearts, who is life, and that more abundantly (cf John 10:10):

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:1-2)

and to the Colossians, Paul writes:

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

"And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2: 13-15)

The Kingdom of Heaven emanates from within, by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Yet this gift, the most important one which trumps and triumphs within us in order to receive all others, was not accorded to the world until after Jesus' death and resurrection:

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

"(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" (John 7: 37-39)

This living water is the "Holy Ghost", or the Holy Spirit in modern parlance. Peter testified to the transmission of this greatest of gifts, long sought for by the prophets and saints in the Old Testament, the very presence and power of God in the lives of men:

"Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he [Jesus] hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." (Acts 2:33)

Before His death and resurrection, Jesus could only speak of the Holy Spirit, and the Kingdom of Heaven which would accompany Him, as a gift to come, something which He told every one of His listeners to desire, a gift which He desired to give to everyone of us, a gift which would be manifested in every believer following the Ascended glorification of Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father.

When we rightly divide the Word of God (cf 2 Timothy 2:15), respecting the Old Covenant under which Jesus operated and fulfilled at the Cross (Matthew 5:17), then the reader of God's Word can understand that we are not seeking what God wants to give us, but rather by faith we receive the Holy Spirit, who then pronounces and produces His rule, the Kingdom of Heaven within every believer! We are no longer seekers, but receivers and releasers of the Kingdom of Heaven!