War, hunger, poverty, ignorance, ethnic cleansing, age-old hatreds
and prejudices, suicide bombings, terrorism, AIDS and other
afflictions, economic instability with wide fluctuations in the
stock market – all of these show clearly that our world is a
frightening and unreliable place. Because the kingdom of this world
is temporary and will one day pass away, it has nothing of enduring
quality in which we can trust with any confidence.
Millions die every day from disease, starvation or violence. The
stock market collapses and people who were millionaires one day are
paupers the next. Corporations downsize and thousand are suddenly
jobless. Extended joblessness creates financial distress resulting
in evictions, which increases homelessness and the welfare burden of
the state. Religious hatred between Christians, Muslims and Jews
fuels daily conflict in many parts of the world, particularly the
Middle East.
Is there any good news in the midst of all of this? Yes, indeed
there is. For those who live and walk in the Kingdom of God, every
day can be a good day, regardless of circumstances in the world. No
matter how much unrest and turmoil swirls around us in the physical
world, the Kingdom of God is stable. It cannot be moved. Unlike the
kingdom of this world, God’s Kingdom is founded on eternal
principles that will never fade or pass away.
Religion–a Human Invention: Mankind has tried in so many ways to
relieve the fear, pain, and suffering that characterize so much of
human life on earth. One way is through religion, which has not been
any more successful than anything else because it too is a product
of human invention and design. Religion is man’s attempt to discover
God and find the solution to his own problem.
This is why God did not send us a religion. Instead, He sent us His
Kingdom, eternal and unshakable. God’s Kingdom came to earth through
the person of His Son Jesus Christ, who was its herald as well as
its gateway. Christ did not come to Earth to start a religion or a
religious organization or club. Jesus preached the Kingdom, but the
Church preaches so many other things rather than the Kingdom.
Jesus’ overarching mission on earth was to reintroduce the Kingdom
of God on Earth to mankind. When we say that Jesus came to
reintroduce the Kingdom of God on Earth, this implies that at one
time it was here before. Christ did not bring a new Kingdom to
Earth, but an old, original Kingdom that had been lost. At one time,
Adam and Eve were the Kingdom of God on Earth, ruling from the
Garden of Eden. When they rebelled against God and fell into sin,
the Kingdom departed.
Living In Perfect Harmony: Here is how the Kingdom was supposed to
work. God the Father and Creator is in heaven, where He has always
been. Remember that Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven.”
Heaven is the domain of the Father, a spiritual realm that is
invisible, yet greater and more real than the visible, physical
realm that was created from it. God is the King of heaven, the Lord
of all, the Creator, and the manufacturer of all things.
Man, the creature, is on the earth. Created in God’s own image and
formed from the dust of the ground, man was placed in administrative
authority over the Earth and all its other creatures. Since God is
Spirit this means that man was created first as a spirit with the
ability to communicate with the spiritual realm.
As the breath of God was breathed into man he became a living soul,
endowed with self-awareness, personality and free will. In order to
fulfill His design and intention of ruling the Earth through a
physical representative, God then placed the spirit man He had
created into a physical shell, a body fashioned from the dust (“dark
earth” or adam) of the ground.
So here we have two realms: a spiritual realm capable of touching
the realm of God, and a physical realm able to communicate in the
earth regions. God’s purpose was for man to rule the Earth in His
name and under His authority. This meant that God’s thoughts and
desires were to be manifested in the mind of man so that God’s will
could be done on Earth. The only way that God’s will can be
accomplished on Earth is through the man He had created. There had
to be a spiritual connection linking the two realms. For this
reason, God created man with the capacity of receiving His Spirit.
When God came into the garden to fellowship with Adam, he heard the
Lord’s voice and tried to hide among the trees. God called out to
Adam, asking “Where art thou?” Adam replied, “I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself”
(Genesis 2:8-10). Of course, God knew where Adam was all along. God
is all knowing. He didn’t ask because He didn’t know. God knew where
Adam was physically but He couldn’t find Adam in His Spirit. For the
first time Adam was not connected to God through his spirit.
The Spirit of God was the vital link between man's dominion on Earth
and God's dominion in heaven. He revealed the will of God to man and
provided wisdom and guidance so that man could carry out God's will
on Earth. In this original order of things, perfect harmony existed
between God and man. There was unity between heaven and Earth.
Everything operated as it was supposed to. It did not stay that way.
The key to dominion: The key to man's being able to manifest the
Kingdom of God here on Earth is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Man
cannot know God's will except through the Holy Spirit living within
him, and the Holy Spirit can live only in a holy vessel. Not only
did Jesus come to reintroduce the Kingdom, but He came also to
restore righteousness and holiness to mankind, both of which we lost
in the Garden of Eden.
Jesus restored us to righteousness - to right standing with the
Father - through His death for our sins. He made us righteous again,
and when He did so, He also restored our holiness. To be holy means
to be pure, without spot or blemish, set apart exclusively for God.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they showed contempt for their holy state
and took that which was meant for God and used it for profane and
common purposes. That would be like taking a beautiful, solid gold
goblet and using it to hold bacon grease.
How does Jesus make us righteous and holy again? Nothing less than
the blood of Jesus was required. The Word of God says, "In fact, the
law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and
without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews
9:22). Only the blood of Jesus could cleanse our sin and remove the
shame of our actions. That is why He had to die.
Just like the old hymn declares, "What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood." Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was Spirit, with no
body or blood; Jesus, the man, had both. Jesus Christ was both 100
percent flesh-and-blood man and 100 percent divine Son of God. We
cannot separate the two; to do so would be to deny the work that He
did on the cross.
The Holy Spirit connection: We cannot worship Christ and forget
about Jesus because without Jesus we cannot have Christ. The blood
of Jesus cleansed our sin and created the basis for our forgiveness,
making it possible for Christ to restore us to righteousness and
holiness and bring us the Holy Spirit.
This is why any religion that denies Jesus has a problem. Everything
is wrapped up in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. If we do
not have Jesus, that means our sins are still with us. Without the
cleansing of our sins, we cannot become holy. Unless we become holy,
we cannot become citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Why is the Holy Spirit so important? He is the link, the spiritual
connection between us and the Kingdom of God. He is the one who
fills us with spiritual powers, guides us, leads us into the
knowledge of truth, and brings to our remembrance all the things
that Jesus taught.
Jesus promised His disciples that after He left he would send the
Holy Spirit to be with them forever. The Holy Spirit could not come
until Jesus had completed His work on the cross, risen from the
dead, and applied His blood for the cleansing of man's sin. Once we
were made cleansed and holy again, we were ready to receive the Holy
Spirit. Jesus took care of that, too, before he ascended into
heaven.
Breaking the slave mentality: As children of God, we are part of the
royal family of the Kingdom of heaven. Like any other member of
royalty, we don't just step into the role without any preparation;
we must be trained. Proper and careful training is essential for
rulers in the making.
Get books about the Kingdom
of God at TheVoiceBooks.com
|
 |
Rediscovering The
Kingdom
by Dr. Myles Munroe
Only $19.99
Hardcover |
 |
Governing Churches & Antioch Apostles
Discovering the New Apostolic Reformation
by
Jonas Clark
Reg $12.99
Save 20%
Only $10.39 |
CLICK HERE
to order and to find other
great books at
TheVoiceBooks.com.
FREE GIFT:
Subscribe to The Voice magazine today and
receive a
$5.00 Gift Coupon for
TheVoiceBooks.com.
CLICK HERE
or call
800.943.6490.
We must learn how to think and act like the royal children of the
heavenly King. We have spent so long in the condition and mentality
of slaves in the kingdom of darkness that we automatically think and
act like slaves. If we are to exercise our full status and potential
in the earthly realm as ambassadors of our Father, we must be
retrained in the behavior and mindset of the Kingdom. In this task,
the Holy Spirit is our tutor.
When we first become believers, we receive our new spiritual birth
from Jesus Christ, Who then "turns us over" in a manner of speaking,
to someone else - the Holy Spirit - for our training and up brining
as children of the King.
Our faith is based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but
since He is in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father, the
way He relates to us and we to Him is through the Holy Spirit. In
His earthly incarnation, Jesus could not be continuously and
physically present with all His followers, so He promised to send
His Spirit who would abide with us forever and teach us how to think
and act like the royalty we are:
"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor
to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth…But the Counselor, the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you
all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you"
(John 14:116-17,16).
We need a tutor like the Holy Spirit because our minds and thinking
are corrupt and it takes us a while to grasp and genuinely believe
the truth about who we are in Christ. We are royal children of the
Kingdom of God, but have spent our entire lives living in the slave
quarters. Our thoughts and behavior won't change overnight. The Holy
Spirit lives in us as a continuing abiding presence, patiently and
lovingly He is teaching us who we are and how to think, speak, and
act accordingly.
How to handle freedom: One of the things the Holy Spirit teaches us
is how to stand in authority as true sons and daughters of God no
matter what troubles or difficulties come onto our circumstances,
rather than being a slave to them. We can live in power and victory,
rather than in weakness and defeat. All it takes is training, and
the Holy Spirit is our Teacher.
In the kingdom of darkness we have been under Satan's sway. Kicked
out of heaven for rebelling against God, Satan fell to Earth as a
nobody, then pretended to be a somebody by tricking Adam and Eve and
usurping their earthly authority. Ever since then he has taught
mankind to think of themselves as nobodies, just as he is.
After a lifetime of feeding on negativity and impossibility
thinking, most of us have a certain amount of mental damage that the
Holy Spirit must heal. We have been slaves for so long that we don't
know how to handle freedom. We apologize for getting ahead. We don't
believe we deserve or are entitled to the best.
That may have been true while we were sinners lost and separated
from God. As believers, however, we have been restored to our place
as God's children and are entitled to all the blessing and benefits
of that station. The retraining of our mind is part of what it means
to give ourselves as living sacrifices to God. We cannot live
effectively for the Lord until we learn to think like Him. That is
what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote to the Roman Believers:
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is
your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -
His good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:1-2).
Paul is saying that we should not allow ourselves any longer to be
molded by the world we have lived in all our lives but to be
transformed by renewing our minds to think and conform to the mind
of Christ. Renewing our minds means returning to the original mind
that we had before the fall, a mind that loves and honors God and
that understands its rightful place as a voice - regent of the
earthly domain under God's sovereign Kingdom rule.
Demonstrating Kingdom rule: Whenever Jesus healed the sick, raised
the dead, walked on water, calmed a storm with a word, or fed a
multitude with a handful of fish and bread, He demonstrated the
truth that God's Kingdom had come to earth.
Whenever He preached the Good News of the Kingdom, or taught His
followers about life in that Kingdom, and whenever people responded
to Him in faith, He demonstrated the power of the Kingdom to impact
human life and the environment.
Despite Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden, God's desire
never changed. He still wanted to rule the Earth by manifesting His
Kingdom through the Holy Spirit in the lives of people who were
committed to Him and sold out to His lordship.
For 2,000 years, ever since the day of Jesus, He has been doing this
in increasing degree as men, women and children in every generation
have given their lives to Christ and allowed the Holy Spirit to work
in and through them.
Each of us who turn to Christ becomes a "stone" in the magnificent
spiritual "palace" of the Kingdom on Earth, called and equipped as
kings and priests to represent that Kingdom before the rest of the
world. The Apostle Peter stated it this way:
"As you come to Him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen
by God and precious to Him - you also, like living stones, are being
built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in
Scripture it says: 'See, I lay a stone in Zion, a choice and
precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be
out to shame.'…But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful
light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of
God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received
mercy" (1 Peter 2:4-6; 9-10).
Restoring our kingship: Throughout human history, the religious
society has generally separated priest and king into separate
offices and functions, but God did not design them that way in the
beginning. When God created us, He intended for us to be His
repetitive rulers - His ambassadors over the rest of the created
order. We were to be priests and kings in the Earth: as priests,
representing God's nature and character, and as kings, His Kingdom
government.
Through Christ we are a "holy priesthood," a "chosen people," a
"royal priesthood," and a "holy nation." As such, we have been
restored to our priestly function of representing and reflecting
God's nature and character before the world. We are also the "people
of God," not a nation of subjects, but of sons and daughters. If God
is a King, then we, His people, are also of the royal line.
Therefore, we have also been restored to our kingly function of
representing the government of God on the Earth.
God is not interested in having subjects in His Kingdom. He wants
only children, royal heirs to the treasure of His domain.
Our mission as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God is to bring those
who are enslaved in the kingdom of darkness to Christ, The Door, so
that He can set them free to enter into their full citizenship in
God's Kingdom of light.
Dr. Myles Munroe is an international acclaimed speaker,
best-selling author, educator, government consultant and
businessman. He is the founder and president of Bahamas Faith
Ministries International. He is also the CEO of International Third
World Leaders Association's (ITWLA), the ITWLA Media Third World
Leadership Training Institute, Leading Edge Leadership, and Diplomat
Press Publishing Company. His church and ministry can be reached
online at www.bfmmm.com
Hungry for more?
Get The Voice magazine.
Click here to subscribe or call 954 456-6032.
Read more articles from our online collections by selecting from the
categories in the left column.
Our
culture is disintegrating all around us. People are living
in despair. All we have to do is read a newspaper or listen
to a news broadcast any day of the week to realize that
daily life in the world we live in is full of uncertainty
and instability.
