Paradise is a garden of delight. The Kingdom of God is the rule of God, the doing of God's will in the earth. The Gospel of Christ has to do with the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

Any person who receives Christ and abides in Him is assured of entering Paradise when he or she dies. But this is not the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God can be entered only by personal transformation.

Notice this fact in the following passage:

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

It is not that those who do such things shall not enter Paradise but those who do such thing shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

The thief on the cross was admitted to Paradise because of his confession of the kingship of Christ. But the Kingdom of God can be inherited only as we become free from the works of the flesh.

The Lord Jesus did not come preaching Paradise but the Kingdom of God. No parable of the Lord had to do with entering Paradise, only with the Kingdom of Heaven, of God.

The reason we must be born again of Christ is so we may enter the Kingdom, not Paradise!

Now, let us see what the last three of the seven feasts of the Lord have to say concerning our inheriting the Kingdom of God, which is the same as saying the transformation of our personality—for that is what the Kingdom is.

The Blowing of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:24) speaks of the Lord of Hosts going to war against the sin in His Church, and then against the sin throughout His entire creation.

The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27) portrays the forgiveness of our sin, and then, by means of the scapegoat, the removal of our sin.

The feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:34) reveals God's ultimate intention, which is that Christ (and God in Christ) may become the Center and Circumference of the whole creation of God, beginning with the victorious saints.

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: (Ephesians 1:10)

Assuming you have received the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, this is how your personal transformation (which is the new covenant) will occur. This is how you will enter the Kingdom of God.

The Lord Jesus will declare war against His enemies in your personality.

The Lord Jesus, having forgiven your sins through the atonement made by the shedding of His blood on the cross of Calvary, will guide you until every one of His enemies in you have been put beneath His feet.

The Lord Jesus will nourish your personality with His own body and blood until all that was born of Adam has been crucified and all that is of God has been created in you.

The Lord Jesus and the Father will come to you and make Their eternal abode in your personality.

To be continued.