Advancing Kingdom Culture and Influencing Your World

Salvation is more than a personal relationship with Jesus. God has an expectation of you. He wants you to use His authority to make a difference with your life and make this world a better place. He wants you to be salt and light in a decadent society desperate for moral leadership (Matthew 5:13-16). He wants you to be a faithful servant actively advancing the Kingdom of God and “occupying until He comes” (Matthew 24:45-46). That’s what the new apostolic reformation is helping people to do. All five ascension gifts – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers – are working together to equip you, the born-again believer, to rule. Our Lord is building a governing Church occupied by a ruling people prepared to battle anti-Christ opposing forces.

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DEALING WITH GOD-HATERS
The God-haters continue to spread their religion. It’s a gospel that preaches a secular society rife with humanistic worldviews. When Christians present Kingdom viewpoints and ideals in the competitive marketplace they are labeled intolerant, irrelevant and judgmental. The nightly news is filled with a hodgepodge of worldviews (all except Christian ones, that is) for the audience’s lifestyle consideration. The obvious hypocrisy against Christianity is not new. It is a continuing effort to silence humanism’s staunchest rival: God’s people of promise. Truth is under attack like never before, our biblical truth, not their secular humanistic truth. Yet, we take courage knowing that “greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world.”

“So why the conflict?” you ask. Because God’s Word is full of moral absolutes. These absolutes challenge the “if it feels good do it” crowd. Right and wrong and black and white have their roots in God’s moral absolutes. When violated, there are outcomes. Scripture declares, for example, that you “reap what you sow.” Moral absolutes are found in the Bible and not within the shifting opinions of self-centered human beings who change their values based on current circumstance, greed, or temporary public opinions.

TWO GREAT COMMISSIONS
As Christians we must take a stand for righteousness and be ready to share our faith “in season and out of season.” We must never forget the warfare for godly virtues takes place on battlefields outside the local church. Fighting the good fight of faith requires an understanding of purpose. Our purpose is found in what I like to call the two Great Commissions. The first commission comes from Genesis 1:28. “And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion.” Dominion was the first assignment God gave humanity. Dominion in this verse is the Hebrew word rada translated “rule” 13 times in the Old Testament. This is also the first covenant of promise to God’s representatives Adam and Eve. They were not only gardeners but rulers of a kingdom. The kingdom’s jurisdiction was earth, their place of delegated authority.

ADVANCED RULERSHIP TRAINING
How many times have you heard that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords? The word Lord in that Scripture comes from the Greek word kurios, meaning “supreme ruler.” Jesus is the Ruler of rulers. We, the born-again believers, are the rulers and the citizens of His Kingdom. As He called Adam and Eve to rule, so He has called you to rule. The moment you were born again you qualified to enter His advanced rulership training course. The Apostle Peter called the participants of the training the “royal priesthood” of believers. They were the priests, kings and rulers (1 Peter 2:9).

The second commission lending purpose to the born-again believer is found in Matthew 28:10: “Go ye into all the world and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” This verse isn’t about making you a Sunday morning pulpit preacher on the “Gospel TV Network.” No, this Scripture focuses your life’s journey on advancing the purpose of Christ throughout the earth. This validates your call to minister in the public arena.

MORE THAN A PRIVATE RELATIONSHIP
Notice that neither of these two Great Commissions limited people to a private relationship with Jesus. What gospel is it that produces converts that boast a personal relationship with Jesus yet dismiss any involvement in affecting society around them? Christian author A. W. Tozer wrote about this: “Everything is made to center upon the initial act of ‘accepting’ Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected after that to crave any further revelation of God to our souls.”

Tozer was on to something. Some have heralded a gospel focusing the Body of Christ on an internal-only relationship with Jesus while denying the two Great Commissions of dominion and worldwide discipleship. Yes, an intimate relationship with our Savior is chief. To ignore our mandate to be salt and light to the world, however, dishonors God, violates Scripture and is a tragic mistake that leaves the next generation to suffer the ravages of unbridled demonic principalities and powers. I say it’s time for the Body of Christ to wake up from its self-centered slumber and engage society again with the Gospel of the Kingdom. It’s time for another Great Awakening.

IMPACTING OUR WORLD
Jesus’ words were specific about our efficacious purpose on this earth. Right before His arrest in the garden of Gethsemane He communed with the Father about His disciples. “I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (John 17:14-18).

As born-again believers we should take our new birth experience into the entire world and help others by discipling them in God’s Word. Salvation encompasses far more than a personal relationship with Jesus. In fact, salvation has “fruits of repentance” and is visible through our obedience to the Word of God, good works and our love for one another (Matthew 5:16). God’s mandate to us is to do something with our personal relationship with Jesus by influencing the culture around us.

These two commissions are as valid today as they ever were in history. Both deal with making the world a better place by establishing the Kingdom of God in ones’ delegated place of authority.

AUTHORITY TO INFLUENCE
The Lord has given you both spiritual and natural authority to influence and take dominion. In the New Testament the Apostle Paul speaks of the ability to rule in one’s jurisdiction (2 Corinthians 10:13). He uses the Greek word metron to define places of jurisdiction, authority and influence. A metron is one’s place of kingship or rulership. It’s your place to influence for Christ. Every follower of Christ has an assigned place of influence. This is the place where you fulfill the first Great Commission of dominion and the second Great Commission of discipling others. That place is where you live, work and play.

KINGDOM JURISDICTION
The word jurisdiction comes from two Latin root words, juris (law) and diction-em (sayings). A jurisdiction therefore is governed by law-sayings. These two words shed some valuable light on our authority as Christians to influence society.

When you were born-again, for example, you left the jurisdiction (law-sayings) of the kingdom of darkness and entered the jurisdiction (law-sayings) of the Kingdom of Christ. Through the born-again experience you are no longer a slave to the beliefs of rulers and propagators of anti-Christ kingdoms such as humanist principles, Eastern religious philosophies or socialist theologies.

PUTTING THE KINGDOM FIRST
Scripture says Christians should “seek first (put first) the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). This Scripture is not referring to one’s salvation alone. The Kingdom of God, including its citizens, is governed by the Word of God, His law-sayings. As believers continue to put first the Kingdom of God it will result in a visible expansion of influence, prosperity and, eventually, establishing the Gospel of Christ throughout the world.

Obeying the Word of God transcends having a private relationship with Jesus but equips you to take the Kingdom of God, Christ’ governmental rule and law-sayings into all the kingdoms of this world. The result will be “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).

FAITHFUL SERVANTS OCCUPY
So what does all this mean to you? It means that God expects you to make a difference with your life by applying His Word to your life first, then introducing His Word to all the kingdoms of this world that you touch. Use your kingly authority to take dominion and disciple others. Anti-Christ rebels will never overrun the world thanks to believers like you. Scripture declares, “Submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee.” The world is desperately waiting your arrival. Christ expects you to be a faithful servant who victoriously occupies until He returns. You are a ruler under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of God. You can make a difference with your life. Join the royal priesthood and change the world around you.