Herod's body is rotting in the grave and his spirit is in the flames of Hell. He is awaiting the Day of Judgment. His violence did not gain him any place in the Kingdom of Heaven. He did not inherit the earth.

The name of John the Baptist is one of the most famous in Christendom. His spirit is with Abraham in glory. His body is resting in its grave, awaiting the glorious hour in which he will receive his fabulous reward at the hands of a grateful God. John has inherited the earth, not by violence but by serving the Lord, even to death.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

The Kingdom of Heaven is first, righteousness; and after that, peace and joy. These three blessings come through the Holy Spirit.

One of the greatest gifts any human being can receive is a deep hunger and thirst to be pleasing to God, for that is what righteousness is—being pleasing to God.

The closer we walk to the Lord the more our sins and self-love are apparent to us and the more desirous we are to be free from them so the Lord may be totally pleased with every area of our personality.

I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. (Psalms 101:2,3)

We have said that the Kingdom of Heaven is God in Christ in the saints performing the will of God. To inherit the Kingdom is to receive the ability to "walk in our house" with a perfect heart.

When we receive our glorified body we no longer will be required to struggle against our own flesh in order to perform the will of God. In that day, even our body will be serving the Lord in righteousness and holiness. This is the answer to Paul's prayer:

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)

The Kingdom of Heaven includes the power to live righteously. God gives us the gift of hungering and thirsting after His righteousness. We cannot be righteous in our own strength. The power to live righteously comes only from Heaven.

We are not to be content in our sins and self-seeking but are to cry to the Lord until He delivers us. If we keep on seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness the promise is we will be filled with the Kingdom and righteousness. It is not that we will be touched lightly or helped along some small line but that we will be filled with the Kingdom and with righteousness.

We must never give up. We must keep on believing that God can and will fill us, as bad as we may consider ourselves to be, with Divine righteousness. He will not fill us just with imputed (ascribed) righteousness but with actual righteousness, holiness, and obedience of mind, of motive, of imagination, of speech, of action. God can and will conform us to the moral image of the Lord Jesus Christ if we will keep on praying to that end.

To be continued.