Philippians 3
We are walking in today: The Need For Citizens’ Orientation
Witness way throughout the Bible: H734 orach--way, path, road, way of living
Job 6:18 The paths H734 of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish.
The Torah testifies.....................
Gen 49:17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, H734 that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
The prophets proclaim..................
Isa 2:3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: H734 for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
The writings bear witness.............
Pro 12:28 In the way H734 of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Psa 119:128 Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right and I hate every false way. H734
Chapter 6 The Need For Citizens’ Orientation
Having just presented the idea that the Bible is the constitution of the Kingdom of The Most High, I want to quote a few statements from that constitution, for the sake of your orientation and alignment with the Kingdom way of doing things. These statements will start to move you into a thought process. The more you read the constitution of the Kingdom with a “Kingdom filter” on your mind, the more the light of understanding will dawn for you. (In the style of legal documents, I will use “sections” and “articles” in place of chapter and verse:)
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of The Most High. (Section Ephesians, subsection 2, article 19)
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Most High, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of The Most High; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. (Section Colossians, subsection one, articles 9 through 12)
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Yahushua Hamashiach… (Section Philippians, subsection 3, article 20)
These words in the constitution of the Kingdom were written to citizens of the Kingdom in the present tense. They explain some of the current and ongoing rights, privileges, and duties that come with Kingdom citizenship. These rights, privileges, and duties belong to every citizen, including you, even if you are a very new citizen. You cannot earn them or improve on them. You can, however, remain ignorant of them and ignore them. That is why it is so important to talk about the Kingdom and to keep reading its constitution in depth in order to understand it.
Many sections of the Kingdom constitution were written by a citizen named Paul. Paul spent most of his adult life preaching, teaching and writing letters to citizens of the Kingdom, helping them adjust to the Kingdom lifestyle. Sometimes he had to correct misunderstandings about theological ideas. Yet he was never inventing anything new or establishing a new gospel. He was always addressing Kingdom issues.
This is because the citizens were always having adjustment problems. They had social problems, cultural problems, relationship problems, money problems--every category of problem you can think of. Paul explained to them, “Look, to live in this Kingdom there are some things you need to do, and some other things you need to stop doing, and here they are.”
You and I have adjustment problems as well. I am glad Paul wrote as much as he did, because today we can use all the help we can get. We need to understand more about our citizenship in the Kingdom.
Mental Transformation
Most of our problems start in our heads. Therefore, we need a mental transformation if we want to become full citizens of the Kingdom. We need to figure out our misconceptions and how to get rid of them, especially those religious concepts that we have been hearing all our lives. You and I want to be citizens of the Kingdom, free from labels and assumptions. I do not want to be Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, Seventh-Day Adventist, Church of God, Assemblies of God, Charismatic, or Pentecostal anymore. I do not want to think of myself as a businessman, a pastor, an advisor, or any other kind of career person. I want misconceptions to be fully and continually cleaned out of me so I can start over. I want to start fresh as a citizen of the Kingdom of The Most High, and I want you to be able to start fresh, too, looking for the next assignment He will give you.
Turn your thoughts over to the Creator who made you. Let Him reorient your thinking. Turn over all of your possessions to Him. He is your King, and He owns it all anyway. Let Him show you how to redistribute everything you thought you owned.
Correct Concepts
Anybody who has studied communications knows what I mean when I say “noise.” A sender sends a message to an intended receiver, and noise is what happens during the transmission, in between when the message leaves the sender and gets received by the recipient. The noise can be very complicated to understand because it includes your culture, your educational level, your social upbringing, your religious history, your values, your moral status, and your present situation in life.
For something that is called “noise,” a lot of it is very hidden and silent. The most important part of the noise is what I call concepts. A concept is an idea, a thought that has been conceived as a mental picture. Thoughts are very powerful, even the ones that are never expressed in words. ( A word is an exposed thought, but most thoughts never get expressed.)
We think first, then we speak or write. We try to express our thoughts and we want others to understand them--but their own thoughts often alter their comprehension, resulting in misunderstandings or misconceptions.
Nothing is as dangerous as a misconception. Marriages can break up because of them. A husband and wife may actually love one another, but misconceptions arise and they enter into conflict. Governments and churches break up because of misconceptions, too. If you build your whole life on a certain idea and it becomes theory and then philosophy and then doctrine and then a belief system and finally a way of life and a mentality, you will not know that you have basically built your life on a lie. To you, it is not a lie; it’s the truth, and you will strongly defend even your misconception.
When it comes to truth about you and The Most High, most likely much of what you believe has been contaminated. People interpret words about The Most High through their pre-existing concepts. This includes the words in the Bible. Your seminary degree could be contaminated with ignorance of the true concepts about The Most High. You and your pastor and your church friends could all have pieces of the truth, but none of you has asked the original Sender to clear your mind of contaminated concepts so you can get the message right.
The King anticipated this problem. This is why He provided an expert Counselor for us, the Ruach Hakodesh, who can personally help you capture the correct concepts that come to you from the mind of The Most High. “He will guide you into all truth,” said Yahusha’s disciple John (John 16:13).
Correct concepts about The Most High include truth about the Kingdom of The Most High. When you rediscover the truth about your Kingdom citizenship, you rediscover something that has been lost over the years. The average person living in the Western world has no real understanding of the words that Yahusha used. So we superimpose on His words our concepts, which come from our culture and our environment. We build our lives on our own conclusions and we create a belief system called religion.
Instead of reading out of the Bible, we read into the Bible. And we miss the Kingdom because of the noise in our heads.
Humble And Teachable
Yahusha had the perfect remedy for noise. He took and put a child in front of his disciples and He said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3, NIV). Entering the Kingdom requires that you exchange your theology, your doctrine, your old religion, and your independent self-sufficiency for something new. Unless you change, you cannot enter.
Children are like blank pages. They know nothing. To become like a child means you need to stop being an adult. Adults think they know a lot. Adults need to unlearn everything and start over. Unless you change, you will never enter the Kingdom.
When a rich young man asked Yahusha how he could be sure he would go to the Kingdom of Heaven, Yahusha answered, “Obey the laws of the country of Heaven” (see Matthew 19:16-30). But the young man was rich in material possessions. He had obeyed the letter of the law, but he was not humble in his heart. So Yahusha commented, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:23, NIV). The young man was so used to making his own living that he was going to find it difficult to stop taking care of himself and let the King do it. He had been schooled in self-sufficiency, and it was tough for him to believe that The Most High could supply his needs. His good life was getting in the way of Kingdom life.
In a way, we are like that rich young ruler. Our theology and our concepts occupy our minds and hearts. We say we want to enter the Kingdom, but we procrastinate. Not only do we need to listen to Yahusha when He says we should become like children, we need to remember the first words of his public ministry, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). The kingdom has arrived. It is here already. If you do not change your thinking in time, you will miss it.
Seek The Kingdom First
If you seek the Kingdom of Heaven and its King, you will not have to worry about anything else--riches or poverty, sickness or health, life or death. In seeking the Kingdom, you are also seeking, and you will find, the pure provision of the King for every contingency of life.
Yahusha said, Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?”... For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of The Most High and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt. 6:31-33)
Another time, Yahusha made it clear that anybody who seeks for righteousness will surely find it: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). Once you find the Kingdom, you find righteousness, too. Your religious friends may not understand the change that has happened. Nevertheless, you will have found what you were looking for, and you will want to hang onto it.
In my experience, once people really know about the true Kingdom of The Most High and they see it modeled, they want to get in. Citizenship in the Kingdom is a powerful lure. Most pastors do not understand the Kingdom so they do not preach it or teach about it. Consequently, most of the people in the churches have not entered into the Kingdom, and they cannot model it. Why should it be a surprise that nobody wants to join their church? What is surprising is that anybody does!
Adamic Citizenship Restored
We know that the first kingdom in existence was the Kingdom of Heaven. There was no kingdom before that one. The very first citizen of the colony of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth was the first man, Adam. The Most High took some dirt and formed Adam’s body, and then He breathed the spirit into the body. Each one of us is like the first man Adam; we have a body that comes from the earth and a spirit that comes from the Most High.
The Most High never intended that Adam, or any of us would be considered citizens of the Earth, or even permanent residents. When I speak about Adamic citizenship, I am referring to a continuation of the original plan. What country is our citizenship in? Heaven. Do we expect to gain that citizenship status only upon arriving in Heaven after our death? Is this like retirement? Or can we experience heavenly citizenship right now? You know the answer: no matter where you go, your citizenship stays the same. You may live on Earth in a colony of the Kingdom of Heaven, but you remain a full citizen of Heaven.
But you also know what our problem is; we have become too used to the Earth that we think we are from the Earth and nowhere else. And we become a little afraid of the very thing we are supposed to rule. Yahusha was never intimidated by anything, whether it was a storm or demonic influences or a strong wind, or pestilence. He knew He was above all of that.
It would not be disrespectful to say Yahusha is like Superman. He came from another planet, so to speak and when He got here, He had super powers. As a matter of fact, the Superman story is probably the closest story to explain who you are. You, too, are from another “planet,” Heaven. When you came here, your powers kicked in because your only dominion is on Earth. When you go back to Heaven, you will not need your powers anymore. Kryptonie is sin. When you disobey the Most High’s laws you lose your powers on Earth. Obedience protects you from kryptonite. It is that simple.
Adam was the first citizen from Heaven on Earth, and he was given all the rights, privileges and authority of the heavenly kingdom, so that he could exercise dominion over the Earth. The Most High gave him authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle of the field, and the creatures that creep over the ground---over all of the earth.
We are supposed to be part of that same arrangement. We are from Heaven, and we live on the Earth, having brought all of Heaven’s authority with us. For most of us to remember that we are really citizens of Heaven takes a major reorientation. Next time you walk into a meeting, engage in some kind of negotiations, or interview for a job, fix your mind on your true citizenship. “I am not from here,” you can say to yourself. “These people are being used by my government to fix me up.” When I walk into this room, my King walks in too. Through me, He is in charge here.”
Wake Up
When you wake up to the fact that you were created to be a Kingdom citizen, lights will come on in your mind. You will leave behind the things that used to keep you stressed and discontented and you will look for opportunities to bring the Kingdom into the world around you. Paul put it this way:
Ephesians 5:11-17 King James Version (KJV)
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. 14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. 15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
We are from Heaven, and we live on the Earth, having brought all of Heaven’s authority with us. When you wake up and reorient yourself as a reborn citizen of the Kingdom of Light, the King will shine on you and His light will expose every last bit of darkness in you. He will expose your bad decisions and your irresponsible behavior. He will show you where you have been keeping bad company and how you waste money. Not only will He show you what is wrong in your life, He will show you what to do about it. He will help you gather up all the knowledge and understanding you have accumulated, and He’ll show you how to apply it.
Wisdom means applied knowledge. Knowledge and understanding by themselves are only comprehension, while wisdom is the application of that information. The kingdom is very practical. Everything you have learned up to now, the theories and principles, together with this great revelation you have gotten about the Kingdom, will apply to real-life situations. That is what Paul means above when he said, “making the most of every opportunity.” Time is limited and evil has had the upper hand for too long. By continuing to seek the Kingdom with passion, you may find that the King will redeem everything you lost through your mistakes.
You will understand more clearly what the King wants you to do. He will organize your schedule and dedicate the company you are supposed to keep. His will includes every detail of your life. The will of the Most High should show you whom to be with and whom not to be with, and when and for how long a time.
At last you will understand why certain things had to happen. The Most High will start to show you a vision for your life, your destiny in life. However, He will rarely let you see the steps of how to get there. This is because part of His plan is the process itself. He wants you to keep on exercising your citizenship privileges and to keep on trusting Him. Joseph could never have viewed all of this seemingly setbacks as steps to his destiny, but the Most High knew what He was doing when He allowed him to be thrown in a pit--a pit that happened to be located just along the route of the slave traders who would pull him out and take him to Egypt. Go to the book of Genesis chapters 37-50 to review the whole story. It is an excellent example of someone whose life belonged to the Most High.
My point is this: all you have to do is wake up and stay awake in the Kingdom. The King will take care of the details.
Managing the Planet
The will of the Most High for humankind is management all the way, just as it was originally with Adam. His will is not as many of us believe, singing and clapping hands and going to churches. It is actually management. It’s authority. It is taking responsibility for the things around us and bringing the Kingdom to bear on them.
As I have said already, every problem on the planet today is the result of mismanagement. Adam was given the original management contract for Earth and what did he do with it? He took the contract and gave it to an unemployed cherub named Lucifer, now better known as hasatan or the devil. Adam took the authority and the territory that had been given to him and gave them to someone else. Hasatan “managed” the world into darkness, because he did not have any light from Heaven. Adam had to struggle for everything and for all the rest of his life, he had one serious difficulty after another. Human beings have been following Adam’s example ever since.
When Adam mismanaged his assignment, the Most High took it away from him. The same thing happens to everyone of us. Whatever we mismanage, we lose. Whatever we manage with the Most High’s help, we improve. Managing the planet does not mean that we become super-heros or knights in shining armor who sweep away the opposition and conquer the world. Our management takes place in our own homes and neighborhoods, in our places of employment. We manage our own bodies by eating the right foods and getting enough sleep. We manage our marriages by spending time cultivating them. We manage our jobs and our salaries by getting to work on time and working diligently until quitting time. Thanks to the King’s guidance our steps take us to the right places at the right times. Once in a while, we know what it is like to be given a bigger assignment.
Adam lost the real estate he had been given to manage. We are being given a second chance. Now that Yahusha has come as the
Second Adam, our authority has been restored. The kingship of the Most High has an opportunity to prevail!
We read in the constitution of the Kingdom that the earth is the Most High’s (See Exodus 9:29 ad Psalm 24:1) The Most High never gave ownership of it to Adam, only the management of it. This was a good move, in light of what happened. The Most High was wise not to give ownership to human beings. Sure enough, when the first man messed up his management duties, the Most High could work out another plan. He hadn’t lost the planet altogether. If you manage somebody’s apartments, the landlord still owns them. If you mismanage the property, the owner will simply fire you. He retains ownership and he can give management to whomever he wants to. He will look for somebody with a good track record.
I hope you realize that the Most High does not hand you gifts from His storehouse just because you call yourself a Christian or even because you are righteous. He gives you what you need for your management assignment. He will let you keep managing what He owns as long as you keep managing it well. If you handle your money and other possessions well He will give you more to manage. That is Kingdom thinking, and the more we think that way, the better off we will be.
The Kingdom Is Now
Churches are filled with people who say the Kingdom is still coming. They believe that they will be in the Kingdom--someday. They think that the people who believe in Yahusha will be full citizens after they get to Heaven, and that they must postpone their joy until then. “Thy Kingdom come,” means we should pray for it to come, but it is not here yet, they say.
They are wrong. The Kingdom has come already. The Kingdom is here, now. It is present and functional on planet Earth and once you have been born again then you have been naturalized as a Kingdom citizen. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” means that the Kingdom is alive and stirring already, and we are participants in it, bringing the Most High’s will to the Earth.
Please wake up to the fact that the Kingdom is here and you have work to do. Do not lock the door against those who want to get in by telling them that it isn’t time yet. Orient yourself to the idea of your full Kingdom citizenship. Pursue the Kingdom and its righteousness with a passion, and your life will overflow with Heaven!
Shema Selah what ways will your life according to??? Man or the King of Kings??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GblK3RBMovI
The Divine destiny connection, the chain that links us together.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Thursday, March 26, 2020
ENCORE!!!! How To Discover The Most High’s Purpose In Your Life
Happy New Year Fiveamprayer!!!! Welcome to 5780 the decade of declaration!!! This is an encore teaching that the Most High gave us as we walk into this new season with Kingdom understanding and His purpose being fulfilled!!! Hallelujah and bless His holy name!!!!!!
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
What Did Yahusha Say About Kingdom??!!!!
Matthew 16
We are walking in today: What Did Yahauha Say About Kingdom??!!!!
Witness kingdom throughout the Bible: H4467 mamlâkâh, (mam-law-kaw')-dominion, (abstractly) the estate (rule) or (concretely) the country (realm):—kingdom, king's, reign, royal
Exo 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom H4467 of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel
The Torah testifies..............
Deu 17:18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, H4467 that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
The prophets proclaim..................
1 Sa 10:18 And said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, H4467 and of them that oppressed you:
The writings bear witness...........................
1 Ki 9:5 Then I will establish the throne of the kingdom H4467 upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.
2 Ki 19:19 Now therefore, O LORD our the Most High, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms H4467 of the earth may know that thou art the LORD the Most High, even thou only.
Chapter 5 The Uniqueness Of Kingdom Citizenship
Everybody in the world knows what Yahusha did two thousand years ago, even the pagans. The atheists know what He did. The Muslims and the Hindus know, too, whether they believe it or not. When Yahusha died on that bloody crucifixion stake outside the city of Jerusalem--His death rocked the foundations of human culture so deeply that they have never stopped reverberating.
His death is so well-known because He did not stay dead for long. You cannot kill the King of Heaven, as people discovered when He rose from the dead after only three days in the grave. As a matter of fact, this King happens to be the most unique king in human history, because He is still alive, and His Kingdom is, too.
Examining The Evidence
Although everybody knows what Yahusha did, relatively few people--and this includes Christinas, the ones who talk the most about Yahusha, know what He stands for. They have not perceived the fact that when Yahusha was working and teaching in Jerusalem and in the towns, all up and down the countryside, His primary message was about the Kingdom of Heaven, which was His home country. He talked about the Kingdom all the time, using that very term.
Somebody counted how many times the word “kingdom” is mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible (the part that was written after Yahusha was born), and they found it about 162 times. Most of these times “kingdom” is referring to the Kingdom of The Most High.
The four books written by Yahushas’ disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are known as the Gospels, and they contain the firsthand accounts of the events of Yahushas’ life. The Gospel of Matthew uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” The authors of the other three Gospels prefer “Kingdom of The Most High.” The two terms mean the same thing.
So all through Yahushas’ recorded preaching, the word “kingdom” appears far more often than the other words you might expect to see, such as “eternal life,” “born again,” “forgiveness,” or “love.” Yahusha talked about the Kingdom all the time. It was His main topic, His primary reference point. In fact, you would be exactly right if you said that Yahushas’ whole purpose in coming to Earth was to reintroduce the Kingdom of Heaven to a world that had completely lost track of the truth about it!
Son Of The King, Son Of Man
You could say that Yahusha Hamashiach is the most misunderstood person on the Earth, because even His closest followers, the Christians (who carry His name), have misconducted His message. I would go so far as to call it a tragedy that we have produced a religion called Christianity. Yahusha Hamachiach did not invent such a thing. Even in the Bible stories about Him and about the undertakings of His disciples, the word “Christian” is used only twice, and one of them is derogatory.
It is time to set things straight. Yahusha did not come to set up a religion! He came to establish an outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yahusha did not exercise his right to become a teacher until he was thirty years old. Then for the next three years, He roamed the countryside as a travelling rabbi, teaching anyone who would listen, what the Kingdom was like and demonstrating its liberating power with miraculous signs.
A good part of His message was “repent”--change your thinking. Change your thinking to what? To Kingdom thinking, to a recognition of heavenly lordship. That is what He said in the first recorded words of His teaching:
From that time [immediately after His baptism and forty days in the wilderness] Yahusha began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17 KJV)
From that time on Yahusha began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matt. 4:17, NIV)
The words “at hand” and “near” mean the same thing. The Kingdom was approaching, and Yahusha was announcing its coming. As a matter of fact, He was ushering it in.
He did not give people more laws and religious rituals to learn. They had enough of those already. He wanted to tell people what to do with their lives, how to become naturalized (perhaps I should say “supernaturalized”) citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
After He spent three years teaching, preaching and demonstrating what the Kingdom was like, some people objected to His ideas so much that they plotted to have him killed. You would think that would have taken care of it. Dead men can’t preach against your cherished religion and a man in a tomb can no longer claim to be leading the way to this so-called Kingdom. His opponents especially disliked the fact that He seemed to be claiming some kind of kingship.
Yet as we know now, even His bloody crucifixion failed to defeat the Kingdom. In fact, Yahushas’ death and subsequent resurrection completed the purpose of His mission to earth-to re-establish a Kingdom outpost among the people who lived under the human jurisdictions of the world, to reclaim the territory of Earth for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Outpost Of The Kingdom Of Heaven
Originally, the Kingdom of Heaven had established an outpost in a place that people know as the Garden of Eden. Here is how the first book of the Bible describes it:
Then The Most High said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So The Most High created man in His own image; in the image of The Most High He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)
“Let them have dominion,” The Most High said. The word used in the original Hebrew is mamlakah. This word mamlakah turns out to be the same word that gets translated into English as “kingdom.” It also gets translated as “reign,” “sovereignty,” and “realm.” So dominion is the same as kingdom. You can see the “dom” syllable in both words because the words “dominion” and “kingdom” are closely related.
All of these words indicate that someone is in charge of something. Having dominion means having authority over. It means leading, managing, ruling over. According to the account in Genesis, human beings were created to manage the rest of Creation. We can see this throughout the rest of the story about the first man and woman, and on through all of human history up to the present day.
“Let them have dominion.” The King was assigning dominion to the people He had created. What were the people supposed to have dominion over? Their assignment on earth was to manage the real estate He had created as an extension of His rule in Heaven. First, He created the earth and all the living things that fill it, and then the King brought Heaven to earth and set up His government, His system of management.
Management Failure
We call the first man and woman Adam and Eve. How did they do with their assignment? Not very well. Here’s their part of the story:
Then the Lord, The Most High took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord, The Most High commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:15-17)
As managers of the outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven, they had only one restriction: do not eat the fruit from that particular tree. That one rule was evidently very important to The Most High, because He told them that breaking it would mean death. But a crafty serpent came along and contradicted what The Most High had said. Adam’s wife Eve believed the serpent’s lie, and she took a bite, offering some to her husband as well. The Most High confronted them:
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it. All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you shall return.”
...Therefore the Lord The Most High sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man… (Gen. 3:17-19, 23-24)
No longer could the Kingdom of Heaven claim to have an outpost on the Earth. The Most High has created the humans with the intention of having them represent His authority on the planet He had created. He had wanted them to exercise dominion for Him. They failed. We call it the Fall. This is the declaration of independence that I described in the second chapter. The colonists had ruptured their relationship with their King, and they could not repair it. The only way the colony could be re-established would have to involve the King’s Son.
The King’s Son
The name of the King’s Son was, of course, Yahusha. He did not come to Earth for a long time. Many generations of people lived and died in the meantime. Some of them began to expect Him someday. Religious people talked about it. In the whole region not far from where the first man had failed to manage the first colony of the Kingdom. Prophets would try to describe what The Most High was going to do. Some of them got very specific:
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end…. (Isa. 9:6-7)
This child that the prophet Isaiah was talking about was coming to re-establish the government of Heaven on the Earth. He would not be coming to set up a better religion, because Adam hadn’t lost a religion; he had lost dominion.
When the Son finally did arrive, most people did not know who He was. They thought He was the firstborn son of a simple carpenter and his wife. They did not understand until later that He was the long-expected Son of The Most High, the “Second Adam,” whose life, death, and resurrection would undo the judgement that had been rendered upon Adam so long before. Even to this day, in spite of centuries of the religion called Christianity, most people do not understand that Yahusha makes it possible for them to re-engage with The Most High’s original plan. They know next to nothing about becoming citizens of the Kingdom Yahusha talked so much about, and very little about resuming their role as The Most High’s representatives in the territory called Earth.
How Yahusha Talked About The Kingdom
The New Testament documents Yahushas’ message about this most unique Kingdom. Here are just some of the very many times He talked about the Kingdom. Many of these passages may be familiar to you.
“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of The Most High is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it.” (Luke 16:16, NIV)
Yahusha said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, NIV)
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on… Seek first the kingdom of The Most High and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:25,33)
And Yahusha went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. (Matt. 4:23)
At daybreak, Yahusha went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of The Most High to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:42-43, NIV)
These twelve Yahusha sent out and commanded them… “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”’ (Matt. 10:5,7)
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19, NIV)
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matt. 16:28, NIV)
“In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and
The power and the glory forever.
Amen.” (Matt. 6:9-13)
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14, NIV)
“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart.” (Matt. 13:19, NIV)
Another parable He put forth to them saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” (Matt. 13:31-32)
Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” (Matt. 13:33)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matt. 13:44)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt. 13:45-46)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.” (Matt. 13:47-48)
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:1-3,10)
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of The Most High would come, Yahusha replied, “The coming of the kingdom of The Most High is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of The Most High is in your midst.” (Luke 17:20-21, NIV)
Yahusha even kept talking the Kingdom after He rose from the grave:
After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of The Most High. (Acts 1:3, NIV)
Yahusha never stopped talking about the Kingdom. He was careful about referring to Himself as the King, and yet His disciples could tell that He was the one that all of the prophets from Joshua to Malachi had been talking about when they announced the coming of a future Messiah. Some of the books in the Old Testament had given details about his lineage (such as the book of Ruth, for example). Others proclaimed the future coming of an unnamed, magnificent king who would take care of all the injustices that plagued the nation of Israel. Psalmists such as King David provided tantalizing details (see Psalms 22 and 45). The prophet Micah included the name of the village in which Yahushas’ mother Mary would give birth to Him:
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me. The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting. (Mic. 5:2)
In the very beginning, the Father had said, “Let us make man in our image and let them have dominion over the earth,” and He never changed His mind. The Most High fitted you as a human being to have dominion over the earth, to steward its resources, to allow yourself to be directed by His will. Everyone of us fell away, however, because Adam and Eve did, and we needed to be restored to our intended position of rulership and dominion in the context of a heavenly Kingdom. We could never restore ourselves to Kingdom citizenship again on our own, because the situation is beyond our capabilities. So the Father sent His Son, Yahusha to restore Heaven’s government and to repair what Adam had destroyed. As that first man had lost the heavenly assignment for the whole race, the “Second Adam,” Yahusha, restored it. Now all we have to do is to recognize what He has done and get on board.
How Others Talked About Yahushas’ Coming Kingdom
Not only did Yahusha talk unceasingly about the Kingdom, His disciples and others did as well. John (the one we call John the Baptist because he baptized a lot of people, including Yahusha) was Yahusha’s cousin. He started talking about the Kingdom before Yahusha became known to the public. He was a prophetic voice and he is considered a “forerunner” of Yahusha:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’ (Matt. 3:1-3, NIV)
Yahusha sent out his first twelve disciples to talk about what it means to be citizens in His Kingdom, and they in turn commissioned all of His other followers to do the same, wherever their paths took them. We do not have a written record of what most of them said, but here is a few examples:
But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of the Most High and the name of Yahusha HaMashiach, both men and women were baptised. Acts 8:12
And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconicum, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, “we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of the Most High.” So when they had appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Most High in whom they had believed. Acts 14:21-23
Listen, my beloved brethren: Has the Most High not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? James 2:5
Therefore, my brothers and sisters make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of the Most High and Savior Yahusha HaMashiach. 2 Peter 1:10-12
Paul was so determined to talk about the Kingdom that he once suspended his travels for more than two years in order to talk about it.
Paul travelled more than all of them, and he talked about the Kingdom when he wrote letters to the believers all across the Mediterrean world:
Romans 14:17 (KJV) For the kingdom of the Most High is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Ruach HaKodesh.
1 Corinthians 4:18-20 King James Version (KJV) 18 Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Most High will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of the Most High is not in word, but in power.
Philippians 3:20 New International Version (NIV) But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord, Yahusha HaMashiach.
When he was in Ephesus at the time:
Acts 19:8-10 New International Version (NIV) 8 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of Most High. 9 But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.
Before this, Paul has always moved on to a new city. He actually stopped travelling for two years in order to stay in the same city and get the Kingdom into the hearts of the people. Remember the Kingdom is a country.
You can’t explain everything about it in thirty minutes! You can’t explain everything about the country where you live in that length of time either. Paul could not teach enough about the Kingdom in one sitting. He talked about it for several hours every single day for two years! He was describing the country of Heaven and how it affects the people on Earth. He talked about colonizing the known world, and about importing the Kingdom constitution and all of its laws, along with complexities of social relations and cultural expressions.
We must learn about the Kingdom and we must become citizens as soon as we can! At the end of his life, Paul restated the fact that he, like Yahusha had preached about one topic the Kingdom of the Most High:
Acts 20:25 (NIV) “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
Paul was taken to Rome as a prisoner. A long time passes before he went to trial. What did he do with his time? He taught about the Kingdom of course:
Acts 28:23 (NIV) They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying.
He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of the Most High, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Yahusha.
Acts 28:30-31 (NIV) 30 For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. 31 He proclaimed the kingdom of the Most High and taught about the Lord Yahushua HaMaschiach—with all boldness and without hindrance!
Any subject that so dominated the preaching and teaching in the Bible must be worth our entire attention! We must learn about the Kingdom and we must become citizens as soon as we can.
The Importance of Becoming a Kingdom Citizen
I will put it to you, the Kingdom is the secret to life. The secret to a full and fulfilled life is the discovery, understanding and application of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. You have to learn how the Kingdom works , how to apply what you have learned every day. Religion will make you keep postponing the Kingdom until the future, by and by when you die. It is time to start living in the Kingdom here and now, we will discuss this later in this series on how to become a citizen of this kingdom (or how to know if you are already one).
The Kingdom of the Most High is now. You must enter into citizenship while you are still on earth. You cannot appropriate what you keep postponing. You can never experience what you keep putting off. You will never be able to enjoy what you believe is not here yet. Living in the Kingdom is a daily activity, now. Today I am a citizen and I experience the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
The Kingdom of the Most High is now. You must enter into citizenship while you are still on earth. No religion or ritual can substitute for the Kingdom. The Kingdom is what you are looking for. Your religion isn’t enough. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that “pearl of great price” or the treasure hidden in the field that Yahusha talked about--something so precious that the one who finds it rushes out to sell everything he owns in order to buy it.
The man who found the treasure and the man who found the pearl--sold everything. In the same way, we need to sell everything in order to be “sold out” for the Kingdom. We need to sell all of our old belief systems and previous opinions. Some of us need to sell our theological degrees for the Kingdom. Others need to sell their grandmothers’s denomination into which they were born. Some need to sell their loyalty to the pastor they love so much, but who is not teaching on the Kingdom! Everything you have valued needs to go because all of it pales in comparison to the treasured pearl of the Kingdom!
If you are a Christian, you may think you have already got the pearl until you find the real thing. Humans are collecting all kinds of pearls, searching for the best one. Some choose Islam that is a pearl. Some choose Buddhism, that is a pearl. Some choose Mormonism. Some choose yoga, Some choose atheism. All of those are pearls. And the minute a person discovers the Kingdom which is not a religion, they know they have found all that they ever wanted. They can give up all of the other pearls.
As a believer and student of Yahusha, you may still worry about tomorrow and fret about the present. As a Kingdom citizen, you can truly count on the limitless resources of your heavenly Father as never before. You may need to learn some things about being a Kingdom citizen before you can enjoy those resources, but they will be yours for the asking:
Luke 12:32 (NIV) “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
The Bible As The Constitution of the Kingdom
A king’s will, purpose, and intent are expressed in the form of laws. Any country has laws, and the Kingdom of Heaven is no exception. The Bible is filled with the laws of the Most High and that means we can call it the constitution of the Kingdom of the Most High.
When you read the Bible, you come away with a strong impression of “Thy will be done.” We call the older part of the Bible the “Old Testament” and the newer part the “New Testament” A testament is simply a document, the will--of the Most High’s in this case. (Your “last will and testament” is your documented statement about how you wish to distribute your possessions upon death.) The collection of books we call the Bible is filled with the King’s ideas and promises about His own country and what He wants for His own citizens. It is the Most High’s testament.
The Bible is filled with the Most High’s thoughts about the constitution of the Kingdom. It is not subject to change. In a democracy, a constitution comes from the people. In fact, in the United States of America, the first words of the constitution are “We the people….” The constitution of the Bahamas begins in a similar way. But when a constitution comes from “we the people,” can be changed by the people.
In a kingdom, the constitution comes straight from the head of the King. His thoughts become the constitution. The Bible, filled with the Most High’s thoughts, becomes the constitution. The Bible, filled with the Most High’s thoughts, IS the constitution of the Kingdom. It is not subject to change!
The Bible is not only the constitution of the Kingdom, it is The Most High’s will--it shows us what our inheritance consists of. One of the most unique things about the Kingdom of Heaven is the citizens of the Kingdom inherit everything in it. That is not the case with other countries. As an American, I do not own the land in the country and I do not possess all the money in the treasury. But in this Kingdom, the commonwealth, it is different. The wealth is truly held in common. Citizens of the Kingdom of the Most High have inherited it and it belongs to them. Each and every one can lay hold of whatever they need, whenever they need it. The treasury keys are already in their hands.
The Kingdom of the Most High is not a religion, but an authority structure. It is a country with a government, and we live in an outpost of it, it is a colony. I’m from the Kingdom country! To repeat, the Kingdom of the Most High is not a religion, but an authority structure. It is a country, a country with a government. It may be invisible to our human eyes, but it is a country just the same, and we live in an outpost of it, a colony. When people ask you “What country are you from?” Then you can answer “I am from the Kingdom country.” You may claim dual citizenship as we discussed in a previous teaching. But you will want to give the Kingdom country priority over every other country where you have citizenship!
The Kingdom of the Most High--is the most unique Kingdom of all. Like Paul and the others whose words are recorded in the Bible, it is all I want to talk about. Let’s go on further in this series to explore the Kingdom of the Most High!
We are walking in today: What Did Yahauha Say About Kingdom??!!!!
Witness kingdom throughout the Bible: H4467 mamlâkâh, (mam-law-kaw')-dominion, (abstractly) the estate (rule) or (concretely) the country (realm):—kingdom, king's, reign, royal
Exo 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom H4467 of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel
The Torah testifies..............
Deu 17:18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, H4467 that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
The prophets proclaim..................
1 Sa 10:18 And said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, H4467 and of them that oppressed you:
The writings bear witness...........................
1 Ki 9:5 Then I will establish the throne of the kingdom H4467 upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.
2 Ki 19:19 Now therefore, O LORD our the Most High, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms H4467 of the earth may know that thou art the LORD the Most High, even thou only.
Chapter 5 The Uniqueness Of Kingdom Citizenship
Everybody in the world knows what Yahusha did two thousand years ago, even the pagans. The atheists know what He did. The Muslims and the Hindus know, too, whether they believe it or not. When Yahusha died on that bloody crucifixion stake outside the city of Jerusalem--His death rocked the foundations of human culture so deeply that they have never stopped reverberating.
His death is so well-known because He did not stay dead for long. You cannot kill the King of Heaven, as people discovered when He rose from the dead after only three days in the grave. As a matter of fact, this King happens to be the most unique king in human history, because He is still alive, and His Kingdom is, too.
Examining The Evidence
Although everybody knows what Yahusha did, relatively few people--and this includes Christinas, the ones who talk the most about Yahusha, know what He stands for. They have not perceived the fact that when Yahusha was working and teaching in Jerusalem and in the towns, all up and down the countryside, His primary message was about the Kingdom of Heaven, which was His home country. He talked about the Kingdom all the time, using that very term.
Somebody counted how many times the word “kingdom” is mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible (the part that was written after Yahusha was born), and they found it about 162 times. Most of these times “kingdom” is referring to the Kingdom of The Most High.
The four books written by Yahushas’ disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are known as the Gospels, and they contain the firsthand accounts of the events of Yahushas’ life. The Gospel of Matthew uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” The authors of the other three Gospels prefer “Kingdom of The Most High.” The two terms mean the same thing.
So all through Yahushas’ recorded preaching, the word “kingdom” appears far more often than the other words you might expect to see, such as “eternal life,” “born again,” “forgiveness,” or “love.” Yahusha talked about the Kingdom all the time. It was His main topic, His primary reference point. In fact, you would be exactly right if you said that Yahushas’ whole purpose in coming to Earth was to reintroduce the Kingdom of Heaven to a world that had completely lost track of the truth about it!
Son Of The King, Son Of Man
You could say that Yahusha Hamashiach is the most misunderstood person on the Earth, because even His closest followers, the Christians (who carry His name), have misconducted His message. I would go so far as to call it a tragedy that we have produced a religion called Christianity. Yahusha Hamachiach did not invent such a thing. Even in the Bible stories about Him and about the undertakings of His disciples, the word “Christian” is used only twice, and one of them is derogatory.
It is time to set things straight. Yahusha did not come to set up a religion! He came to establish an outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yahusha did not exercise his right to become a teacher until he was thirty years old. Then for the next three years, He roamed the countryside as a travelling rabbi, teaching anyone who would listen, what the Kingdom was like and demonstrating its liberating power with miraculous signs.
A good part of His message was “repent”--change your thinking. Change your thinking to what? To Kingdom thinking, to a recognition of heavenly lordship. That is what He said in the first recorded words of His teaching:
From that time [immediately after His baptism and forty days in the wilderness] Yahusha began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17 KJV)
From that time on Yahusha began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matt. 4:17, NIV)
The words “at hand” and “near” mean the same thing. The Kingdom was approaching, and Yahusha was announcing its coming. As a matter of fact, He was ushering it in.
He did not give people more laws and religious rituals to learn. They had enough of those already. He wanted to tell people what to do with their lives, how to become naturalized (perhaps I should say “supernaturalized”) citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
After He spent three years teaching, preaching and demonstrating what the Kingdom was like, some people objected to His ideas so much that they plotted to have him killed. You would think that would have taken care of it. Dead men can’t preach against your cherished religion and a man in a tomb can no longer claim to be leading the way to this so-called Kingdom. His opponents especially disliked the fact that He seemed to be claiming some kind of kingship.
Yet as we know now, even His bloody crucifixion failed to defeat the Kingdom. In fact, Yahushas’ death and subsequent resurrection completed the purpose of His mission to earth-to re-establish a Kingdom outpost among the people who lived under the human jurisdictions of the world, to reclaim the territory of Earth for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Outpost Of The Kingdom Of Heaven
Originally, the Kingdom of Heaven had established an outpost in a place that people know as the Garden of Eden. Here is how the first book of the Bible describes it:
Then The Most High said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So The Most High created man in His own image; in the image of The Most High He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)
“Let them have dominion,” The Most High said. The word used in the original Hebrew is mamlakah. This word mamlakah turns out to be the same word that gets translated into English as “kingdom.” It also gets translated as “reign,” “sovereignty,” and “realm.” So dominion is the same as kingdom. You can see the “dom” syllable in both words because the words “dominion” and “kingdom” are closely related.
All of these words indicate that someone is in charge of something. Having dominion means having authority over. It means leading, managing, ruling over. According to the account in Genesis, human beings were created to manage the rest of Creation. We can see this throughout the rest of the story about the first man and woman, and on through all of human history up to the present day.
“Let them have dominion.” The King was assigning dominion to the people He had created. What were the people supposed to have dominion over? Their assignment on earth was to manage the real estate He had created as an extension of His rule in Heaven. First, He created the earth and all the living things that fill it, and then the King brought Heaven to earth and set up His government, His system of management.
Management Failure
We call the first man and woman Adam and Eve. How did they do with their assignment? Not very well. Here’s their part of the story:
Then the Lord, The Most High took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord, The Most High commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:15-17)
As managers of the outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven, they had only one restriction: do not eat the fruit from that particular tree. That one rule was evidently very important to The Most High, because He told them that breaking it would mean death. But a crafty serpent came along and contradicted what The Most High had said. Adam’s wife Eve believed the serpent’s lie, and she took a bite, offering some to her husband as well. The Most High confronted them:
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it. All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you shall return.”
...Therefore the Lord The Most High sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man… (Gen. 3:17-19, 23-24)
No longer could the Kingdom of Heaven claim to have an outpost on the Earth. The Most High has created the humans with the intention of having them represent His authority on the planet He had created. He had wanted them to exercise dominion for Him. They failed. We call it the Fall. This is the declaration of independence that I described in the second chapter. The colonists had ruptured their relationship with their King, and they could not repair it. The only way the colony could be re-established would have to involve the King’s Son.
The King’s Son
The name of the King’s Son was, of course, Yahusha. He did not come to Earth for a long time. Many generations of people lived and died in the meantime. Some of them began to expect Him someday. Religious people talked about it. In the whole region not far from where the first man had failed to manage the first colony of the Kingdom. Prophets would try to describe what The Most High was going to do. Some of them got very specific:
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end…. (Isa. 9:6-7)
This child that the prophet Isaiah was talking about was coming to re-establish the government of Heaven on the Earth. He would not be coming to set up a better religion, because Adam hadn’t lost a religion; he had lost dominion.
When the Son finally did arrive, most people did not know who He was. They thought He was the firstborn son of a simple carpenter and his wife. They did not understand until later that He was the long-expected Son of The Most High, the “Second Adam,” whose life, death, and resurrection would undo the judgement that had been rendered upon Adam so long before. Even to this day, in spite of centuries of the religion called Christianity, most people do not understand that Yahusha makes it possible for them to re-engage with The Most High’s original plan. They know next to nothing about becoming citizens of the Kingdom Yahusha talked so much about, and very little about resuming their role as The Most High’s representatives in the territory called Earth.
How Yahusha Talked About The Kingdom
The New Testament documents Yahushas’ message about this most unique Kingdom. Here are just some of the very many times He talked about the Kingdom. Many of these passages may be familiar to you.
“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of The Most High is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it.” (Luke 16:16, NIV)
Yahusha said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, NIV)
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on… Seek first the kingdom of The Most High and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:25,33)
And Yahusha went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. (Matt. 4:23)
At daybreak, Yahusha went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of The Most High to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:42-43, NIV)
These twelve Yahusha sent out and commanded them… “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”’ (Matt. 10:5,7)
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19, NIV)
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matt. 16:28, NIV)
“In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and
The power and the glory forever.
Amen.” (Matt. 6:9-13)
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14, NIV)
“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart.” (Matt. 13:19, NIV)
Another parable He put forth to them saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” (Matt. 13:31-32)
Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” (Matt. 13:33)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matt. 13:44)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt. 13:45-46)
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.” (Matt. 13:47-48)
And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:1-3,10)
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of The Most High would come, Yahusha replied, “The coming of the kingdom of The Most High is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of The Most High is in your midst.” (Luke 17:20-21, NIV)
Yahusha even kept talking the Kingdom after He rose from the grave:
After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of The Most High. (Acts 1:3, NIV)
Yahusha never stopped talking about the Kingdom. He was careful about referring to Himself as the King, and yet His disciples could tell that He was the one that all of the prophets from Joshua to Malachi had been talking about when they announced the coming of a future Messiah. Some of the books in the Old Testament had given details about his lineage (such as the book of Ruth, for example). Others proclaimed the future coming of an unnamed, magnificent king who would take care of all the injustices that plagued the nation of Israel. Psalmists such as King David provided tantalizing details (see Psalms 22 and 45). The prophet Micah included the name of the village in which Yahushas’ mother Mary would give birth to Him:
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me. The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting. (Mic. 5:2)
In the very beginning, the Father had said, “Let us make man in our image and let them have dominion over the earth,” and He never changed His mind. The Most High fitted you as a human being to have dominion over the earth, to steward its resources, to allow yourself to be directed by His will. Everyone of us fell away, however, because Adam and Eve did, and we needed to be restored to our intended position of rulership and dominion in the context of a heavenly Kingdom. We could never restore ourselves to Kingdom citizenship again on our own, because the situation is beyond our capabilities. So the Father sent His Son, Yahusha to restore Heaven’s government and to repair what Adam had destroyed. As that first man had lost the heavenly assignment for the whole race, the “Second Adam,” Yahusha, restored it. Now all we have to do is to recognize what He has done and get on board.
How Others Talked About Yahushas’ Coming Kingdom
Not only did Yahusha talk unceasingly about the Kingdom, His disciples and others did as well. John (the one we call John the Baptist because he baptized a lot of people, including Yahusha) was Yahusha’s cousin. He started talking about the Kingdom before Yahusha became known to the public. He was a prophetic voice and he is considered a “forerunner” of Yahusha:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’ (Matt. 3:1-3, NIV)
Yahusha sent out his first twelve disciples to talk about what it means to be citizens in His Kingdom, and they in turn commissioned all of His other followers to do the same, wherever their paths took them. We do not have a written record of what most of them said, but here is a few examples:
But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of the Most High and the name of Yahusha HaMashiach, both men and women were baptised. Acts 8:12
And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconicum, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, “we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of the Most High.” So when they had appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Most High in whom they had believed. Acts 14:21-23
Listen, my beloved brethren: Has the Most High not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? James 2:5
Therefore, my brothers and sisters make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of the Most High and Savior Yahusha HaMashiach. 2 Peter 1:10-12
Paul was so determined to talk about the Kingdom that he once suspended his travels for more than two years in order to talk about it.
Paul travelled more than all of them, and he talked about the Kingdom when he wrote letters to the believers all across the Mediterrean world:
Romans 14:17 (KJV) For the kingdom of the Most High is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Ruach HaKodesh.
1 Corinthians 4:18-20 King James Version (KJV) 18 Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Most High will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of the Most High is not in word, but in power.
Philippians 3:20 New International Version (NIV) But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord, Yahusha HaMashiach.
When he was in Ephesus at the time:
Acts 19:8-10 New International Version (NIV) 8 Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of Most High. 9 But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.
Before this, Paul has always moved on to a new city. He actually stopped travelling for two years in order to stay in the same city and get the Kingdom into the hearts of the people. Remember the Kingdom is a country.
You can’t explain everything about it in thirty minutes! You can’t explain everything about the country where you live in that length of time either. Paul could not teach enough about the Kingdom in one sitting. He talked about it for several hours every single day for two years! He was describing the country of Heaven and how it affects the people on Earth. He talked about colonizing the known world, and about importing the Kingdom constitution and all of its laws, along with complexities of social relations and cultural expressions.
We must learn about the Kingdom and we must become citizens as soon as we can! At the end of his life, Paul restated the fact that he, like Yahusha had preached about one topic the Kingdom of the Most High:
Acts 20:25 (NIV) “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
Paul was taken to Rome as a prisoner. A long time passes before he went to trial. What did he do with his time? He taught about the Kingdom of course:
Acts 28:23 (NIV) They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying.
He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of the Most High, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Yahusha.
Acts 28:30-31 (NIV) 30 For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. 31 He proclaimed the kingdom of the Most High and taught about the Lord Yahushua HaMaschiach—with all boldness and without hindrance!
Any subject that so dominated the preaching and teaching in the Bible must be worth our entire attention! We must learn about the Kingdom and we must become citizens as soon as we can.
The Importance of Becoming a Kingdom Citizen
I will put it to you, the Kingdom is the secret to life. The secret to a full and fulfilled life is the discovery, understanding and application of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. You have to learn how the Kingdom works , how to apply what you have learned every day. Religion will make you keep postponing the Kingdom until the future, by and by when you die. It is time to start living in the Kingdom here and now, we will discuss this later in this series on how to become a citizen of this kingdom (or how to know if you are already one).
The Kingdom of the Most High is now. You must enter into citizenship while you are still on earth. You cannot appropriate what you keep postponing. You can never experience what you keep putting off. You will never be able to enjoy what you believe is not here yet. Living in the Kingdom is a daily activity, now. Today I am a citizen and I experience the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
The Kingdom of the Most High is now. You must enter into citizenship while you are still on earth. No religion or ritual can substitute for the Kingdom. The Kingdom is what you are looking for. Your religion isn’t enough. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that “pearl of great price” or the treasure hidden in the field that Yahusha talked about--something so precious that the one who finds it rushes out to sell everything he owns in order to buy it.
The man who found the treasure and the man who found the pearl--sold everything. In the same way, we need to sell everything in order to be “sold out” for the Kingdom. We need to sell all of our old belief systems and previous opinions. Some of us need to sell our theological degrees for the Kingdom. Others need to sell their grandmothers’s denomination into which they were born. Some need to sell their loyalty to the pastor they love so much, but who is not teaching on the Kingdom! Everything you have valued needs to go because all of it pales in comparison to the treasured pearl of the Kingdom!
If you are a Christian, you may think you have already got the pearl until you find the real thing. Humans are collecting all kinds of pearls, searching for the best one. Some choose Islam that is a pearl. Some choose Buddhism, that is a pearl. Some choose Mormonism. Some choose yoga, Some choose atheism. All of those are pearls. And the minute a person discovers the Kingdom which is not a religion, they know they have found all that they ever wanted. They can give up all of the other pearls.
As a believer and student of Yahusha, you may still worry about tomorrow and fret about the present. As a Kingdom citizen, you can truly count on the limitless resources of your heavenly Father as never before. You may need to learn some things about being a Kingdom citizen before you can enjoy those resources, but they will be yours for the asking:
Luke 12:32 (NIV) “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
The Bible As The Constitution of the Kingdom
A king’s will, purpose, and intent are expressed in the form of laws. Any country has laws, and the Kingdom of Heaven is no exception. The Bible is filled with the laws of the Most High and that means we can call it the constitution of the Kingdom of the Most High.
When you read the Bible, you come away with a strong impression of “Thy will be done.” We call the older part of the Bible the “Old Testament” and the newer part the “New Testament” A testament is simply a document, the will--of the Most High’s in this case. (Your “last will and testament” is your documented statement about how you wish to distribute your possessions upon death.) The collection of books we call the Bible is filled with the King’s ideas and promises about His own country and what He wants for His own citizens. It is the Most High’s testament.
The Bible is filled with the Most High’s thoughts about the constitution of the Kingdom. It is not subject to change. In a democracy, a constitution comes from the people. In fact, in the United States of America, the first words of the constitution are “We the people….” The constitution of the Bahamas begins in a similar way. But when a constitution comes from “we the people,” can be changed by the people.
In a kingdom, the constitution comes straight from the head of the King. His thoughts become the constitution. The Bible, filled with the Most High’s thoughts, becomes the constitution. The Bible, filled with the Most High’s thoughts, IS the constitution of the Kingdom. It is not subject to change!
The Bible is not only the constitution of the Kingdom, it is The Most High’s will--it shows us what our inheritance consists of. One of the most unique things about the Kingdom of Heaven is the citizens of the Kingdom inherit everything in it. That is not the case with other countries. As an American, I do not own the land in the country and I do not possess all the money in the treasury. But in this Kingdom, the commonwealth, it is different. The wealth is truly held in common. Citizens of the Kingdom of the Most High have inherited it and it belongs to them. Each and every one can lay hold of whatever they need, whenever they need it. The treasury keys are already in their hands.
The Kingdom of the Most High is not a religion, but an authority structure. It is a country with a government, and we live in an outpost of it, it is a colony. I’m from the Kingdom country! To repeat, the Kingdom of the Most High is not a religion, but an authority structure. It is a country, a country with a government. It may be invisible to our human eyes, but it is a country just the same, and we live in an outpost of it, a colony. When people ask you “What country are you from?” Then you can answer “I am from the Kingdom country.” You may claim dual citizenship as we discussed in a previous teaching. But you will want to give the Kingdom country priority over every other country where you have citizenship!
The Kingdom of the Most High--is the most unique Kingdom of all. Like Paul and the others whose words are recorded in the Bible, it is all I want to talk about. Let’s go on further in this series to explore the Kingdom of the Most High!
Shema Selah Fiveamprayer only the perfect timing of the Most High returns us to His Kingdom come and His will being done in this time and season!!! https://youtu.be/IFBwwx3oWPY
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Luke 17
We are walking in today: The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Witness double throughout the Bible: H4932 mishneh--double, copy, second, repetition
Gen 43:12
And take double H4932 money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight:
The Torah Testifies.............................
Deu 15:18
It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double H4932 hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.
The prophets proclaim...............
Jer 16:18
And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; H4932 because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.
The writings bear witness.............
********
Isa 61:7 For your shame ye shall have double; H4932 and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: H4932 everlasting joy shall be unto them.
Chapter 4 The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Dr. Munroe has said, “there are over forty nations represented in my church in Nassau. It is a very international place. When we assemble for service, you can look around the big room and point out many of them. There is one family from the Philippines, another from Haiti, several people from Jamaica, a good number from various states in the United States, and some who have come to visit or live here that are from African countries. Each of these citizens of another government arrived in the Bahamas as a guest. Some of them intend to stay and seek Bahamian citizenship, exchanging it for the citizenship they started out with, while others will retain their original citizenship even as they adopt a new one. They will hold dual citizenship.
One of their members works in Florida, which isn’t very far away from the Bahamas. He told them, not long ago, “I just got my American citizenship.” When asked, if he was going to give up his Bahamian citizenship. “No!” he said. “I want the benefits of both countries. The Bahamas is not a poor country. If anything happens to my job in the States, I will come back.”
Another young man who visited that congregation is originally from Haiti and he got United States citizenship too. When asked if he kept his Haitian citizenship. “ Nope,” he smiled, “I’m an American now.” He saw no need to explain why he did not want to keep both citizenships.
In both cases, these men were following the promise of a better life. They moved to a country where the economy was stronger and opportunities for advancement were more numerous. In the new country, they had access to better healthcare and education for their children, and they even liked the climate. One man had left a fairly promising situation for an even more promising one, and the other man decided that his former situation did not have any promise at all. In fact, he no longer cared to be identified with his former country, so he stopped using his Haitian passport. He was not tempted to go back.
One of the pastors on staff was born in the United States. His mother is American and his father is Bahamian. So he was born into his American citizenship, but when he grew up he decided to also acquire Bahamian citizenship because of his father, and he moved to live there. He chose to carry dual citizenship because of his father. Now he has one leg in each country, and if something bad happens in one country, he can turn to the other one.
Throwing Down Your Anchor
Our citizenship should be a source of security, and we all need to be anchored somewhere. If you have no anchor, you drift wherever the current goes and you never achieve very much.
Remember: citizenship is not just a piece of paper. Your citizenship represents the entire country. After all, what do you call yourself as a citizen? You call yourself after the country, don’t you? I am a citizen of the United States, so I am a American. A citizen of the Bahamas is a Bahamian. A citizen of Nigeria is a Nigerian. Somebody from Bulgaria is a Bulgarian. In a way, you are not just a person anymore-you are a country!
This means that, as I mentioned in chapter 2, a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven could be called a “heavenling” or a “heavenian”, although we do not have a word for it. Two thousand years ago, when people asked Yahashua, “Where are you from?” His answer was that He came from Heaven. His point was that he was not from the Earth, but his citizenship was in another country, Heaven.
As He explained what He was talking about, people began to understand that He was inviting them to claim heavenly citizenship too. In fact, if they agreed to become “colonists,” as I described, they would obtain that heavenly citizenship automatically. At the same time, the only practical thing to do would be to retain their citizenship within a country or kingdom on Earth, because that is where they lived and worked and bore their children. So they would need to carry dual citizenship for the rest of their earthly lives.
That invitation still holds. You and I may be very clear in our minds about what country we belong to. But as we learn about the heavenly kingdom (and how it comes with our heavenly sonship, which we will learn more about later in this series), we too will carry dual citizenship- if not triple citizenship as in the case of my friends who already have two earthly citizenships to their name. You will adapt to overlapping cultures, but you will throw down your anchor in the place where you see the most promise.
Stop Making The Earth Your First Reference
A man named Paul was one of the most vocal expositors of the promises of the Kingdom of The Most High. In the years after the crucifixion of Yahusha, he explained the Kingdom of The Most High from one side of the Mediterranean Sea to the other. He wrote a letter to a group of believers in a region that is part of northern Greece today. He was trying to help them deal with persecution from their Roman rulers. The most helpful thing he could tell them was to remind them that they did not need to cope with the persecution by using the same reference points (in other words, conflicts between earthly citizenship rights), because in fact “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).
Just like any earthly citizenship, heavenly citizenship is safeguarded. Even if your fellow citizens do not like you, they cannot strip it from you. Under the covering of your heavenly citizenship, you can avoid the contentiousness that comes from the Kingdom of darkness and you can steer clear of the bad advice that leads to dead-end solutions. When you learn to make a priority of your Kingdom citizenship, you find yourself in a win-win situation every time.
Dual citizenship is particularly powerful when it is both earthly and divine at the same time. The colonization effort of the Kingdom of The Most High is designed to bring Kingdom citizens the advantage of dual citizenship, because the earthly citizenship we start out with cannot protect us.
If only we could stop making our earthly citizenship our first reference! The Kingdom economy is never affected by anything, and all the power of Heaven is working in our favor. Your future is secure--and so is your present. None of it depends on what happens in this world, good or bad, only on what happens in Heaven. And in Heaven, everything is always okay.
From chapter 1, remember what I said about the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. The whole reason I wanted to bring up the idea of dual citizenship is because if you choose to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, inevitably you will hold dual citizenship, whether or not you recognize the fact. All earthly citizenships, even the ones that supply excellent benefits and protections, are tainted by the kingdom of darkness. How could it be otherwise? But once you hold dual citizenship, you can give preference to the kingdom of light, and I guarantee that you will not regret it.
Christians are not in the Kingdom. I know that is a shocking statement. Members of other religions are not either. That is because most people who identify themselves as members of a Christian church have remained citizens of the same kingdom of darkness as the people around them. As such, they can only rise to the level of the jurisdiction under which they live. Their lifestyle does not change. They may attend meetings at a church, but they are not as “born again” as they may think they are. Just watch: you may catch them singing gospel songs on Sunday and cussing out people in traffic on Monday. That’s the way it goes.
They do not carry dual citizenship. They cannot give preference to a superior citizenship, because they do not know about it and they have not sought it out. They do not reflect the culture of light, freedom from conflict, and more.
Time To Pay Your Dues
Citizenship in the Kingdom immerses you in a culture, not a collection of rituals. That is hard to get across, because we were born into a collection of rituals. Every organized religion, even the simplest ones, have them. They have meetings and procedures and programs and customs and fees; it is all worked out. Every weekend the religious crank up their rituals. (Most of the Christians hold their meetings on Sundays. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Jews hold theirs on Saturdays. The Muslims hold theirs on Fridays. Everybody’s got their special days.)
I mentioned in chapter 3 that you cannot “practice” citizenship. The word has a double meaning. Not only can you not practice and rehearse for citizenship, you cannot claim citizenship because you practice and perform various rituals. You can practice a performance or a religion, but never citizenship.
You cannot “do” a country like you do a ritual. Think about it. How many times are you a citizen? At what time of day? For how long? Only on the weekend for an hour? Only when you are using a certain language or eating certain foods?
You just are a citizen, aren’t you? If all the lights go out, you are still a citizen. If you do not pay your taxes or your tithes, you are still a citizen. You may be an irresponsible citizen, but you are still a citizen no matter where you go. And if you are a kingdom citizen in good standing with your king, you will go far.
The Kingdom Is Within You
I have found that the Bible explains everything better than I can explain it. Here is a good place to pull out a few lines to explain how the culture of Kingdom citizenship is completely different from any other culture:
Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of The Most High would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of The Most High does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of The Most High is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
When they are talking about the Kingdom, people do not say, “There it is, over there!” They can’t say that because, like any citizenship, it is invisible, although it makes a noticeable difference in its citizens. It is incorporated inside of its citizens.
People can detect a certain essence of its presence, but it is almost like noticing the way the wind shakes a leaf. To a new citizen of the Kingdom, they may say, “Hey, what is different about you? You don’t go with us to the club anymore until the wee hours. You carry yourself differently. You even drive differently. What happened to you? They didn’t see anything happen. What can you say? “Uh, I had an encounter with another country and my priorities changed.” This Kingdom causes you to rearrange the furniture inside you, and you do not want to put it back the way it used to be. You become almost like a country within a country-a dual citizen, for a fact.
Every time I go to Los Angeles, I always ask my host to please take me to Chinatown, because I like Chinese food. You enter Chinatown through an amazing gate with a dragon on it. Once you drive through the gate, it is as though you are in China. The signs are all in Chinese. The people are Chinese. The conversation is conducted in Chinese. You would never go there for pizza, and you would not ask for directions to the nearest McDonald’s. When you go to Chinatown, you know what to expect, and you do not expect it to be the same as the rest of an American city outside the gate.
As a citizen of the Kingdom you should be distinctive in a similar way. You begin to forget how to speak the same language as the country that you used to be a part of. That is why your old friends know they can’t use dirty words around you anymore, or gossip or persuade you to tell a lie. Something has changed, and it is your citizenship. After a while, the people around you will learn what to expect.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long, we are earthlings and we picked up an earthly culture.
Another way of saying the words quoted above would be to say, ‘the kingdom of the Most High does not wear a sign.’ That’s the way it is with citizenship. How do people know that I am from the United States? How would someone know that you are from South Africa? If we are not wearing T-shirts that say so, how would you know?? Do we wear baseball caps with our national insignia on them and we don’t wear tags that announce, ‘American citizen.’ Citizenship is not easily observable. It can be hard to detect. Sometimes people can’t tell until you open your mouth, and a lot of times they can’t tell even from your language or your accent.
Getting the Culture Back
When we are away from home for a long time, living in another country, we pick up on the local culture. When we return home, people can figure out that we have been someplace else. We have picked up vocabulary that we did not used to have, and our daily routines have changed.
The same thing happens when you join the Army or any of the armed services. As long as you are a part of the armed forces, you are not considered a civilian. You must follow a stringent set of rules, even down to the kind of belt or shoes you wear. If your commanding officer says ‘jump’ you jump!! People who return to civilian life after a long stretch in the military sometimes have an adjustment problem. Outside, everything is different. Inside, they still feel like they are living within the gates of the military complex.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long we think we are earthlings and we have picked up an earthly culture. This is one of the biggest reasons Kingdom citizens need to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,'' for the sake of getting their own culture back, if for nothing else. Kingdom citizens need to re-educate themselves to think like heavenly citizens, because they have almost forgotten how.
As a matter of fact, a Kingdom citizen is one of Heaven’s reps, and he or she needs to represent that country every place. Kingdom citizens have been conferred upon them. The Son of the King explained it like this: I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me--Luke 22:29. As a Kingdom citizen, not only do you represent the culture, you carry the King’s authority with you. This makes a big difference in the way you conduct yourself. A whole country has been conferred upon you.
That means that when you go to work in the morning, Heaven comes with you. Heaven drives your car down the highway. How does Heaven act under pressure? If someone cuts you off in traffic, how does Heaven respond?
These are the real issues of citizenship, and you will deal with them everyday. Do you represent your country properly? You want to make sure that you have not been away from home for so long (so to speak) that you have picked up the local culture.
People who are from earth have their minds on earthly things. This is noted in Philippians 3:19. Their minds reflect the culture around them, and they can’t help it. They try to solve their problems from the perspective of the people and culture around them. They do not have the advantage of calling on the wisdom and stability and wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. They do not even know that it is an option.
Representing your country is part of your corporate responsibility. People will be watching you, and because of you, they will decide what they think of the King and His Kingdom.
What Is Your Contingency Plan?
I told you about my friends that have dual citizenship. With dual citizenship, they have a contingency plan. If things do not work out in the country on one side of the ocean, they can move back to another country.
You do not want to live as if you have declared independence from Heaven. You want to hang onto dual citizenship, and you want to give preference to it regardless of what continent or island you may be living on. The currency of the Kingdom of Heaven can be used in any country on the face of the earth, because it is called love. In the educational system, you never stop learning. The social services system is so good it is beyond description.
I made my citizenship in the Kingdom my first choice a long time ago, and hope you do, too. I assure you that you will never find a better kind of citizenship anywhere. Keep meeting us for this series to find out how to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, if you are not already one. Time to find out how to enjoy fully the privileges and advantages of that citizenship wherever you may go on this Earth!!
We are walking in today: The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Witness double throughout the Bible: H4932 mishneh--double, copy, second, repetition
Gen 43:12
And take double H4932 money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight:
The Torah Testifies.............................
Deu 15:18
It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double H4932 hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.
The prophets proclaim...............
Jer 16:18
And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; H4932 because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.
The writings bear witness.............
********
Isa 61:7 For your shame ye shall have double; H4932 and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: H4932 everlasting joy shall be unto them.
Chapter 4 The Principle Of Dual Citizenship
Dr. Munroe has said, “there are over forty nations represented in my church in Nassau. It is a very international place. When we assemble for service, you can look around the big room and point out many of them. There is one family from the Philippines, another from Haiti, several people from Jamaica, a good number from various states in the United States, and some who have come to visit or live here that are from African countries. Each of these citizens of another government arrived in the Bahamas as a guest. Some of them intend to stay and seek Bahamian citizenship, exchanging it for the citizenship they started out with, while others will retain their original citizenship even as they adopt a new one. They will hold dual citizenship.
One of their members works in Florida, which isn’t very far away from the Bahamas. He told them, not long ago, “I just got my American citizenship.” When asked, if he was going to give up his Bahamian citizenship. “No!” he said. “I want the benefits of both countries. The Bahamas is not a poor country. If anything happens to my job in the States, I will come back.”
Another young man who visited that congregation is originally from Haiti and he got United States citizenship too. When asked if he kept his Haitian citizenship. “ Nope,” he smiled, “I’m an American now.” He saw no need to explain why he did not want to keep both citizenships.
In both cases, these men were following the promise of a better life. They moved to a country where the economy was stronger and opportunities for advancement were more numerous. In the new country, they had access to better healthcare and education for their children, and they even liked the climate. One man had left a fairly promising situation for an even more promising one, and the other man decided that his former situation did not have any promise at all. In fact, he no longer cared to be identified with his former country, so he stopped using his Haitian passport. He was not tempted to go back.
One of the pastors on staff was born in the United States. His mother is American and his father is Bahamian. So he was born into his American citizenship, but when he grew up he decided to also acquire Bahamian citizenship because of his father, and he moved to live there. He chose to carry dual citizenship because of his father. Now he has one leg in each country, and if something bad happens in one country, he can turn to the other one.
Throwing Down Your Anchor
Our citizenship should be a source of security, and we all need to be anchored somewhere. If you have no anchor, you drift wherever the current goes and you never achieve very much.
Remember: citizenship is not just a piece of paper. Your citizenship represents the entire country. After all, what do you call yourself as a citizen? You call yourself after the country, don’t you? I am a citizen of the United States, so I am a American. A citizen of the Bahamas is a Bahamian. A citizen of Nigeria is a Nigerian. Somebody from Bulgaria is a Bulgarian. In a way, you are not just a person anymore-you are a country!
This means that, as I mentioned in chapter 2, a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven could be called a “heavenling” or a “heavenian”, although we do not have a word for it. Two thousand years ago, when people asked Yahashua, “Where are you from?” His answer was that He came from Heaven. His point was that he was not from the Earth, but his citizenship was in another country, Heaven.
As He explained what He was talking about, people began to understand that He was inviting them to claim heavenly citizenship too. In fact, if they agreed to become “colonists,” as I described, they would obtain that heavenly citizenship automatically. At the same time, the only practical thing to do would be to retain their citizenship within a country or kingdom on Earth, because that is where they lived and worked and bore their children. So they would need to carry dual citizenship for the rest of their earthly lives.
That invitation still holds. You and I may be very clear in our minds about what country we belong to. But as we learn about the heavenly kingdom (and how it comes with our heavenly sonship, which we will learn more about later in this series), we too will carry dual citizenship- if not triple citizenship as in the case of my friends who already have two earthly citizenships to their name. You will adapt to overlapping cultures, but you will throw down your anchor in the place where you see the most promise.
Stop Making The Earth Your First Reference
A man named Paul was one of the most vocal expositors of the promises of the Kingdom of The Most High. In the years after the crucifixion of Yahusha, he explained the Kingdom of The Most High from one side of the Mediterranean Sea to the other. He wrote a letter to a group of believers in a region that is part of northern Greece today. He was trying to help them deal with persecution from their Roman rulers. The most helpful thing he could tell them was to remind them that they did not need to cope with the persecution by using the same reference points (in other words, conflicts between earthly citizenship rights), because in fact “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).
Just like any earthly citizenship, heavenly citizenship is safeguarded. Even if your fellow citizens do not like you, they cannot strip it from you. Under the covering of your heavenly citizenship, you can avoid the contentiousness that comes from the Kingdom of darkness and you can steer clear of the bad advice that leads to dead-end solutions. When you learn to make a priority of your Kingdom citizenship, you find yourself in a win-win situation every time.
Dual citizenship is particularly powerful when it is both earthly and divine at the same time. The colonization effort of the Kingdom of The Most High is designed to bring Kingdom citizens the advantage of dual citizenship, because the earthly citizenship we start out with cannot protect us.
If only we could stop making our earthly citizenship our first reference! The Kingdom economy is never affected by anything, and all the power of Heaven is working in our favor. Your future is secure--and so is your present. None of it depends on what happens in this world, good or bad, only on what happens in Heaven. And in Heaven, everything is always okay.
From chapter 1, remember what I said about the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. The whole reason I wanted to bring up the idea of dual citizenship is because if you choose to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, inevitably you will hold dual citizenship, whether or not you recognize the fact. All earthly citizenships, even the ones that supply excellent benefits and protections, are tainted by the kingdom of darkness. How could it be otherwise? But once you hold dual citizenship, you can give preference to the kingdom of light, and I guarantee that you will not regret it.
Christians are not in the Kingdom. I know that is a shocking statement. Members of other religions are not either. That is because most people who identify themselves as members of a Christian church have remained citizens of the same kingdom of darkness as the people around them. As such, they can only rise to the level of the jurisdiction under which they live. Their lifestyle does not change. They may attend meetings at a church, but they are not as “born again” as they may think they are. Just watch: you may catch them singing gospel songs on Sunday and cussing out people in traffic on Monday. That’s the way it goes.
They do not carry dual citizenship. They cannot give preference to a superior citizenship, because they do not know about it and they have not sought it out. They do not reflect the culture of light, freedom from conflict, and more.
Time To Pay Your Dues
Citizenship in the Kingdom immerses you in a culture, not a collection of rituals. That is hard to get across, because we were born into a collection of rituals. Every organized religion, even the simplest ones, have them. They have meetings and procedures and programs and customs and fees; it is all worked out. Every weekend the religious crank up their rituals. (Most of the Christians hold their meetings on Sundays. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Jews hold theirs on Saturdays. The Muslims hold theirs on Fridays. Everybody’s got their special days.)
I mentioned in chapter 3 that you cannot “practice” citizenship. The word has a double meaning. Not only can you not practice and rehearse for citizenship, you cannot claim citizenship because you practice and perform various rituals. You can practice a performance or a religion, but never citizenship.
You cannot “do” a country like you do a ritual. Think about it. How many times are you a citizen? At what time of day? For how long? Only on the weekend for an hour? Only when you are using a certain language or eating certain foods?
You just are a citizen, aren’t you? If all the lights go out, you are still a citizen. If you do not pay your taxes or your tithes, you are still a citizen. You may be an irresponsible citizen, but you are still a citizen no matter where you go. And if you are a kingdom citizen in good standing with your king, you will go far.
The Kingdom Is Within You
I have found that the Bible explains everything better than I can explain it. Here is a good place to pull out a few lines to explain how the culture of Kingdom citizenship is completely different from any other culture:
Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of The Most High would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of The Most High does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of The Most High is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
When they are talking about the Kingdom, people do not say, “There it is, over there!” They can’t say that because, like any citizenship, it is invisible, although it makes a noticeable difference in its citizens. It is incorporated inside of its citizens.
People can detect a certain essence of its presence, but it is almost like noticing the way the wind shakes a leaf. To a new citizen of the Kingdom, they may say, “Hey, what is different about you? You don’t go with us to the club anymore until the wee hours. You carry yourself differently. You even drive differently. What happened to you? They didn’t see anything happen. What can you say? “Uh, I had an encounter with another country and my priorities changed.” This Kingdom causes you to rearrange the furniture inside you, and you do not want to put it back the way it used to be. You become almost like a country within a country-a dual citizen, for a fact.
Every time I go to Los Angeles, I always ask my host to please take me to Chinatown, because I like Chinese food. You enter Chinatown through an amazing gate with a dragon on it. Once you drive through the gate, it is as though you are in China. The signs are all in Chinese. The people are Chinese. The conversation is conducted in Chinese. You would never go there for pizza, and you would not ask for directions to the nearest McDonald’s. When you go to Chinatown, you know what to expect, and you do not expect it to be the same as the rest of an American city outside the gate.
As a citizen of the Kingdom you should be distinctive in a similar way. You begin to forget how to speak the same language as the country that you used to be a part of. That is why your old friends know they can’t use dirty words around you anymore, or gossip or persuade you to tell a lie. Something has changed, and it is your citizenship. After a while, the people around you will learn what to expect.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long, we are earthlings and we picked up an earthly culture.
Another way of saying the words quoted above would be to say, ‘the kingdom of the Most High does not wear a sign.’ That’s the way it is with citizenship. How do people know that I am from the United States? How would someone know that you are from South Africa? If we are not wearing T-shirts that say so, how would you know?? Do we wear baseball caps with our national insignia on them and we don’t wear tags that announce, ‘American citizen.’ Citizenship is not easily observable. It can be hard to detect. Sometimes people can’t tell until you open your mouth, and a lot of times they can’t tell even from your language or your accent.
Getting the Culture Back
When we are away from home for a long time, living in another country, we pick up on the local culture. When we return home, people can figure out that we have been someplace else. We have picked up vocabulary that we did not used to have, and our daily routines have changed.
The same thing happens when you join the Army or any of the armed services. As long as you are a part of the armed forces, you are not considered a civilian. You must follow a stringent set of rules, even down to the kind of belt or shoes you wear. If your commanding officer says ‘jump’ you jump!! People who return to civilian life after a long stretch in the military sometimes have an adjustment problem. Outside, everything is different. Inside, they still feel like they are living within the gates of the military complex.
When we become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have some learning and unlearning to do. We have been away from Home so long we think we are earthlings and we have picked up an earthly culture. This is one of the biggest reasons Kingdom citizens need to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,'' for the sake of getting their own culture back, if for nothing else. Kingdom citizens need to re-educate themselves to think like heavenly citizens, because they have almost forgotten how.
As a matter of fact, a Kingdom citizen is one of Heaven’s reps, and he or she needs to represent that country every place. Kingdom citizens have been conferred upon them. The Son of the King explained it like this: I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me--Luke 22:29. As a Kingdom citizen, not only do you represent the culture, you carry the King’s authority with you. This makes a big difference in the way you conduct yourself. A whole country has been conferred upon you.
That means that when you go to work in the morning, Heaven comes with you. Heaven drives your car down the highway. How does Heaven act under pressure? If someone cuts you off in traffic, how does Heaven respond?
These are the real issues of citizenship, and you will deal with them everyday. Do you represent your country properly? You want to make sure that you have not been away from home for so long (so to speak) that you have picked up the local culture.
People who are from earth have their minds on earthly things. This is noted in Philippians 3:19. Their minds reflect the culture around them, and they can’t help it. They try to solve their problems from the perspective of the people and culture around them. They do not have the advantage of calling on the wisdom and stability and wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. They do not even know that it is an option.
Representing your country is part of your corporate responsibility. People will be watching you, and because of you, they will decide what they think of the King and His Kingdom.
What Is Your Contingency Plan?
I told you about my friends that have dual citizenship. With dual citizenship, they have a contingency plan. If things do not work out in the country on one side of the ocean, they can move back to another country.
You do not want to live as if you have declared independence from Heaven. You want to hang onto dual citizenship, and you want to give preference to it regardless of what continent or island you may be living on. The currency of the Kingdom of Heaven can be used in any country on the face of the earth, because it is called love. In the educational system, you never stop learning. The social services system is so good it is beyond description.
I made my citizenship in the Kingdom my first choice a long time ago, and hope you do, too. I assure you that you will never find a better kind of citizenship anywhere. Keep meeting us for this series to find out how to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, if you are not already one. Time to find out how to enjoy fully the privileges and advantages of that citizenship wherever you may go on this Earth!!
Shema Selah as we walk in this dual citizenship--let us remember our true home land is from heaven as we live here on the Earth! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkoMD25BL8M
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Rights And Benefits Of Citizenship!!!!
Ephesians 2
We are walking in today: Rights And Benefits Of Citizenship!!!!
Witness companion throughout the Bible--H7453 rea'--friend, companion, fellow, another person; friend, intimate; fellow, fellow-citizen
1 Ch 27:33 And Ahithophel was the king's counsellor: and Hushai the Archite was the king's companion: H7453
The Torah Testifies.............................
Exo 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, H7453 and every man his neighbour.
The prophets proclaim...............
*****
The writings bear witness.............
Job 35:4 I will answer thee, and thy companions H7453 with thee.
Psa 122:8 For my brethren and companions' H7453 sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.
Chapter 3--What Is Citizenship?
This is a great question, for those that visited several countries, and really give their passport a workout. Sometimes, even though they have all the right documentation, they can run into difficulties with the customs officials. I suppose they are just doing their jobs, but, maybe sometimes they overdo their jobs. The interrogations can seem endless. When that happens, you may feel like telling the interrogator, “Look, I come from the United States, and you are making me want to not travel to other countries, and just go back home.
Dr. Munroe, who is from the Bahamas, says it is a wonderful place. The average Bahamian citizen has everything. We have everything.” He says, “it is cool, man--no harassment. Times like this make me appreciate the benefits of my citizenship.”
“Back in the Bahamas, we have people from other Caribbean nations such as Haiti clamoring for citizenship. These people want to join themselves with our government or the government of nations like the United States; they are looking for some nearby jurisdiction that is better off than their own. Although Haiti is the oldest black republic in the world and the second oldest republic in the Western hemisphere after the United States, it still struggles economically. Ordinary citizens face a multitude of problems. These are good people, but their governmental system seems to be defective. As is the case in other countries with problems, you will find a very small group of people who are rich and a vast majority who are very poor. For the average Haitian citizen, the benefits of citizenship are limited indeed. They are willing to uproot their families and start over. By some estimates, as many as 40,000 Haitians are now living in the Bahamas, and a very large proportion of that number may be illegal immigrants. They know that legal citizenship status can be hard to get and that people must want it badly enough to work for it. They know that Bahamian citizenship would provide them with opportunities they cannot have any other way.”
By definition, a “citizen” is someone who owes allegiance to a government and who is therefore entitled to receive protection from mistreatment and also to enjoy special rights and privileges that come with citizenship. A citizen is automatically connected with the seat of power of his government. That is why people want to become citizens of successful and wealthy nations; once you are a citizen you can expect your life to improve. Why else would you want to go to all that trouble?
Rights And Benefits Of Citizenship
Citizenship is the most valuable asset of a nation. Because of its power, it is not easily given or obtained and the current citizens of a nation do not readily want to share citizenship with outsiders. We are seeing this play out in many Western European countries at the present time because of the continuing influx of immigrants from Muslim countries. Such a large population shift has the potential to transform the entire religious, social and cultural complexion of Europe. Weekly, we hear of extremist riots and legal power struggles. The Muslim immigrants would not be moving into those countries if they did not offer the prospect of a higher standard of living.
From the United States, we hear reports of Mexican immigration challenges. In spite of checkpoints and an actual fence on the U.S.-Mexican border, illegal immigrants pour into the southwestern states and move northward. Some legislators want to place all illegal aliens on a fast track to American citizenship. Others want to detain and deport them.
Citizenship is such a valuable status that people are willing to do wicked things to obtain it. They falsify documents or marry people they do not even know simply to get the advantages of citizenship. All immigrants, legal or otherwise, are seeking the privileges and benefits of the host country. They want jobs, higher pay, better healthcare, greater educational opportunities, and an overall better quality of life than they can obtain as citizens of their home countries. The best way to obtain improved benefits and rights is to become full citizens of a successful and well-to-do nation.
A citizen is part of an elite, privileged group, and people who were born into their citizenship do not appreciate their status as much as they could. Citizenship is easy to come by if you are born into it, but if you must seek naturalized citizenship you soon find out that it can be a challenging process. Citizenship status is too precious for governments to hand out randomly like flyers on your windshield.
You need to know that the benefits of citizenship in a country with a kingdom system of government can far outweigh the benefits of citizenship in even wealthy nations that have non-kingdom forms of government. This is because, ideally, the king’s wealth will be distributed broadly to his citizens, whereas in a democratic country where capitalism prevails, not everyone can capitalize on the resources to the same degree. (In fact, poverty is necessary for capitalism to work, because you need “have-nots” to sell products and services to.)
The Commonwealth Principle
The word “commonwealth” exists only in kingdoms. When the Bahamas was part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, the British built the roads and provided them with clean water. They brought them electricity and other upgraded services. They had their warships anchored in Nassau harbor so they could protect the Bahamians!
When the Bahamas, decided to declare their independence, all of those types of assistance ceased. Independence means you have to manage your own affairs, pay your own bills, provide your own clean water, and maintain your own highway system. (Thus, the roads today are famous for being bumpy. They are no longer a part of the commonwealth that pays for improvements.)
Because of the commonwealth principle, the citizenry in a kingdom begins to reflect their king’s qualities, including his wealth. In extreme examples, you see something like the Palace of Versailles, which is so big that it would take three days to walk through all the rooms, with gold everywhere. It is the largest king’s palace in the world. And that’s just the house. King Louis XIV also had stables for his horses that were so extensive they would cover half of the Bahamas. Even today, those stables look better than the house many live in!
Three thousand people lived in the Palace of Versailles at any given time. They wanted to live there, of course, because everything was provided for them. The servant’s quarters had marble floors. Free housing. Free food. Free clothes. Free everything. And when the king moved to his winter house, because the palace at Versailles was just his summer house-everything went with him, all three thousand people, six thousand horses, all of the gold--the whole government had to move.
A citizen of a kingdom who is in good standing with a king has more than enough of everything. The king has more than enough of everything. The king sets the standards and he makes it possible for his citizens to achieve them. Remember our definition of a kingdom: A kingdom is the governing influence of a king over a territory, impacting that territory with his will, his purpose, and his intent, producing a culture and a moral standard for his citizens. Notice, these benefits belong only to his citizens. Citizenship matters greatly. An individual’s welfare depends on it.
The Power Of Citizenship
Citizenship empowers an individual; citizenship provides legitimate access to all the rights and privileges of a constitution and a country. Becoming a citizen, especially a citizen of a kingdom such as the Kingdom of The Most High, means that you become powerful. Your citizenship is the source of your personal authority where those rights are concerned. You have power to demand things. By the power of your citizenship, you can call in constitutional privileges and promises. The constitution is more powerful than the citizens, just as the law is more powerful than the lawyer or the judge that exercises it and certainly more powerful than the politicians who talk about it. Good citizens have access to the full protection and advantage of the law.
Remember what we learned in chapter 2 about citizenship vs. membership: countries do not have members. You cannot be a member of the United States of America! You cannot be a member of Jamaica. You can certainly be a member of a religious group or an organization, but you would never say that you are a member of a country because membership does not entitle you to the full range of rights. Citizens have rights, and they do not have to pay membership dues to keep them. Citizenship is permanent, if you want it to be. Whether or not people around you like you, you cannot be deprived of your constitutional rights by a consensus or somebody’s whim. Once you are a citizen, you are no longer a mere member; you are a legal creature, which means the law protects you. You could even say that citizenship is dangerous. Law means you remove emotions and relationships out of the equation. It doesn’t matter who you like or do not like, or who likes you. You are a citizen, regardless.
You can learn the language of a country and still not have citizenship. You can obtain a working visa and earn money in a country and remain an alien. You can live for decades in a place and never become a citizen. Only by going all the way through the citizenship initiation process can you become a citizen. For your part as a citizen, you need to submit to the rules and regulations of your government. For the government’s part, it agrees to take you in and give you powerful entitlements. You can only become a citizen when the government chooses to make an agreement with you.
Behind citizenship lies a covenant, a legal contract or solemn agreement--between the government and each individual citizen. Citizens, in other words, have a contract with their government.
That citizenship covenant gives you so much power that you can even attack the government. Governments know this, which is one of the reasons they do not give citizenship to everybody who walks by the immigration office! Citizenship is the most powerful gift, to use the term broadly, that a government can give an individual. The constitution of the government guarantees certain valuable rights to its citizens, and each and every citizen has access to the same rights.
Citizens must maintain their access to those rights by complying with a common set of laws. When you move to another country, you do not bring your own laws with you. You must submit to that country’s laws day in and day out if you expect to carry out your part of the bargain. All covenants or contracts have two parties, and the contract of citizenship is no exception. The citizen’s part of the agreement is to comply with the law of the land.
Those rights are guaranteed to you. You do not have to beg for them. You do not have to bribe anybody to manipulate favor. Once you become a citizen of a country, you are responsible to the government to follow the laws. The government is responsible for protecting your rights, but you always remain accountable for your behavior. If you transgress, you may find yourself deprived of some of your rights for a while. When people go to prison, their citizenship does not get revoked, but some of the rights and privileges do- because they did not hold up their side of the contract as law-abiding citizens.
In a very real way, citizenship is power-sharing. A citizen shares the power of the government. Essentially, a citizen becomes one with the government. (A negative example of this power would be when an elected government suddenly extends citizenship to a group of people who will then vote them back into power.)
No greater honor can be bestowed on an individual than the honor or making him or her a citizen. A government could give you a piece of property, and it would not be as secure as citizenship because they could take it back and expel you. They could give you a visa to live in the country for six months, but at the end of that time, you would have to leave. They could give you a five-year working permit and yet you would not be able to exercise the rights of citizenship--and anytime during that five years, they could change their minds, write a new law, and tell you to go home immediately.
Citizenship is a privilege, after all. You can’t just have it for the asking. Citizenship is not a right, but it is a privilege that gives you rights. You cannot demand it and you can't hurry it up. I have spoken with people who have lived in the Bahamas for years and who have applied for citizenship, but they are still waiting. National policy varies from place to place, but the only quick way to become a citizen is to be born into it, either to be born within the borders of the particular country, or to be born elsewhere to parents who are legal citizens. Some people think it is just a piece of paper that has been stamped by the immigration office. It is a lot more than that. It is a piece of the country.
Citizenship is the benefit of a nation on an individual. They take the whole country and they put it on top of you. You walk in with nothing and you leave with everything on you.
Here is my best definition of citizenship:
Citizenship is the constitutional rights and privileges bestowed upon an individual, guaranteeing legal status to the individual, which is protected by the laws of the country.
Citizen And Passport-Holder
Once you are a citizen, you can obtain a passport that says so, and people will have to respect your citizenship everywhere you go because you have the whole power of your government behind you. As a matter of fact, your passport belongs to the government, not to you personally. It’s a crime to deface it and you have to surrender it if the government tells you to do so. When an official asks to see your passport, that is the single confirmation of your citizenship that he wants to see. He does not want your birth certificate or your driver’s license. Your passport tells him that you are a citizen. In most cases, he will ask you a few questions about what you intend to do in their country, and then they will stamp it and wave you through. That passport means that they have to treat you right.
On my passport, I can read something like this: “Allow the bearer of this document to pass freely without, let or hindrance and afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.” When I return back to the country of my citizenship, my passport will let me back in without any problem, either.
My citizenship goes with me wherever I go. I do not have to go to my country or stay in my country to be a citizen.
We are walking in today: Rights And Benefits Of Citizenship!!!!
Witness companion throughout the Bible--H7453 rea'--friend, companion, fellow, another person; friend, intimate; fellow, fellow-citizen
1 Ch 27:33 And Ahithophel was the king's counsellor: and Hushai the Archite was the king's companion: H7453
The Torah Testifies.............................
Exo 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, H7453 and every man his neighbour.
The prophets proclaim...............
*****
The writings bear witness.............
Job 35:4 I will answer thee, and thy companions H7453 with thee.
Psa 122:8 For my brethren and companions' H7453 sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.
Chapter 3--What Is Citizenship?
This is a great question, for those that visited several countries, and really give their passport a workout. Sometimes, even though they have all the right documentation, they can run into difficulties with the customs officials. I suppose they are just doing their jobs, but, maybe sometimes they overdo their jobs. The interrogations can seem endless. When that happens, you may feel like telling the interrogator, “Look, I come from the United States, and you are making me want to not travel to other countries, and just go back home.
Dr. Munroe, who is from the Bahamas, says it is a wonderful place. The average Bahamian citizen has everything. We have everything.” He says, “it is cool, man--no harassment. Times like this make me appreciate the benefits of my citizenship.”
“Back in the Bahamas, we have people from other Caribbean nations such as Haiti clamoring for citizenship. These people want to join themselves with our government or the government of nations like the United States; they are looking for some nearby jurisdiction that is better off than their own. Although Haiti is the oldest black republic in the world and the second oldest republic in the Western hemisphere after the United States, it still struggles economically. Ordinary citizens face a multitude of problems. These are good people, but their governmental system seems to be defective. As is the case in other countries with problems, you will find a very small group of people who are rich and a vast majority who are very poor. For the average Haitian citizen, the benefits of citizenship are limited indeed. They are willing to uproot their families and start over. By some estimates, as many as 40,000 Haitians are now living in the Bahamas, and a very large proportion of that number may be illegal immigrants. They know that legal citizenship status can be hard to get and that people must want it badly enough to work for it. They know that Bahamian citizenship would provide them with opportunities they cannot have any other way.”
By definition, a “citizen” is someone who owes allegiance to a government and who is therefore entitled to receive protection from mistreatment and also to enjoy special rights and privileges that come with citizenship. A citizen is automatically connected with the seat of power of his government. That is why people want to become citizens of successful and wealthy nations; once you are a citizen you can expect your life to improve. Why else would you want to go to all that trouble?
Rights And Benefits Of Citizenship
Citizenship is the most valuable asset of a nation. Because of its power, it is not easily given or obtained and the current citizens of a nation do not readily want to share citizenship with outsiders. We are seeing this play out in many Western European countries at the present time because of the continuing influx of immigrants from Muslim countries. Such a large population shift has the potential to transform the entire religious, social and cultural complexion of Europe. Weekly, we hear of extremist riots and legal power struggles. The Muslim immigrants would not be moving into those countries if they did not offer the prospect of a higher standard of living.
From the United States, we hear reports of Mexican immigration challenges. In spite of checkpoints and an actual fence on the U.S.-Mexican border, illegal immigrants pour into the southwestern states and move northward. Some legislators want to place all illegal aliens on a fast track to American citizenship. Others want to detain and deport them.
Citizenship is such a valuable status that people are willing to do wicked things to obtain it. They falsify documents or marry people they do not even know simply to get the advantages of citizenship. All immigrants, legal or otherwise, are seeking the privileges and benefits of the host country. They want jobs, higher pay, better healthcare, greater educational opportunities, and an overall better quality of life than they can obtain as citizens of their home countries. The best way to obtain improved benefits and rights is to become full citizens of a successful and well-to-do nation.
A citizen is part of an elite, privileged group, and people who were born into their citizenship do not appreciate their status as much as they could. Citizenship is easy to come by if you are born into it, but if you must seek naturalized citizenship you soon find out that it can be a challenging process. Citizenship status is too precious for governments to hand out randomly like flyers on your windshield.
You need to know that the benefits of citizenship in a country with a kingdom system of government can far outweigh the benefits of citizenship in even wealthy nations that have non-kingdom forms of government. This is because, ideally, the king’s wealth will be distributed broadly to his citizens, whereas in a democratic country where capitalism prevails, not everyone can capitalize on the resources to the same degree. (In fact, poverty is necessary for capitalism to work, because you need “have-nots” to sell products and services to.)
The Commonwealth Principle
The word “commonwealth” exists only in kingdoms. When the Bahamas was part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, the British built the roads and provided them with clean water. They brought them electricity and other upgraded services. They had their warships anchored in Nassau harbor so they could protect the Bahamians!
When the Bahamas, decided to declare their independence, all of those types of assistance ceased. Independence means you have to manage your own affairs, pay your own bills, provide your own clean water, and maintain your own highway system. (Thus, the roads today are famous for being bumpy. They are no longer a part of the commonwealth that pays for improvements.)
Because of the commonwealth principle, the citizenry in a kingdom begins to reflect their king’s qualities, including his wealth. In extreme examples, you see something like the Palace of Versailles, which is so big that it would take three days to walk through all the rooms, with gold everywhere. It is the largest king’s palace in the world. And that’s just the house. King Louis XIV also had stables for his horses that were so extensive they would cover half of the Bahamas. Even today, those stables look better than the house many live in!
Three thousand people lived in the Palace of Versailles at any given time. They wanted to live there, of course, because everything was provided for them. The servant’s quarters had marble floors. Free housing. Free food. Free clothes. Free everything. And when the king moved to his winter house, because the palace at Versailles was just his summer house-everything went with him, all three thousand people, six thousand horses, all of the gold--the whole government had to move.
A citizen of a kingdom who is in good standing with a king has more than enough of everything. The king has more than enough of everything. The king sets the standards and he makes it possible for his citizens to achieve them. Remember our definition of a kingdom: A kingdom is the governing influence of a king over a territory, impacting that territory with his will, his purpose, and his intent, producing a culture and a moral standard for his citizens. Notice, these benefits belong only to his citizens. Citizenship matters greatly. An individual’s welfare depends on it.
The Power Of Citizenship
Citizenship empowers an individual; citizenship provides legitimate access to all the rights and privileges of a constitution and a country. Becoming a citizen, especially a citizen of a kingdom such as the Kingdom of The Most High, means that you become powerful. Your citizenship is the source of your personal authority where those rights are concerned. You have power to demand things. By the power of your citizenship, you can call in constitutional privileges and promises. The constitution is more powerful than the citizens, just as the law is more powerful than the lawyer or the judge that exercises it and certainly more powerful than the politicians who talk about it. Good citizens have access to the full protection and advantage of the law.
Remember what we learned in chapter 2 about citizenship vs. membership: countries do not have members. You cannot be a member of the United States of America! You cannot be a member of Jamaica. You can certainly be a member of a religious group or an organization, but you would never say that you are a member of a country because membership does not entitle you to the full range of rights. Citizens have rights, and they do not have to pay membership dues to keep them. Citizenship is permanent, if you want it to be. Whether or not people around you like you, you cannot be deprived of your constitutional rights by a consensus or somebody’s whim. Once you are a citizen, you are no longer a mere member; you are a legal creature, which means the law protects you. You could even say that citizenship is dangerous. Law means you remove emotions and relationships out of the equation. It doesn’t matter who you like or do not like, or who likes you. You are a citizen, regardless.
You can learn the language of a country and still not have citizenship. You can obtain a working visa and earn money in a country and remain an alien. You can live for decades in a place and never become a citizen. Only by going all the way through the citizenship initiation process can you become a citizen. For your part as a citizen, you need to submit to the rules and regulations of your government. For the government’s part, it agrees to take you in and give you powerful entitlements. You can only become a citizen when the government chooses to make an agreement with you.
Behind citizenship lies a covenant, a legal contract or solemn agreement--between the government and each individual citizen. Citizens, in other words, have a contract with their government.
That citizenship covenant gives you so much power that you can even attack the government. Governments know this, which is one of the reasons they do not give citizenship to everybody who walks by the immigration office! Citizenship is the most powerful gift, to use the term broadly, that a government can give an individual. The constitution of the government guarantees certain valuable rights to its citizens, and each and every citizen has access to the same rights.
Citizens must maintain their access to those rights by complying with a common set of laws. When you move to another country, you do not bring your own laws with you. You must submit to that country’s laws day in and day out if you expect to carry out your part of the bargain. All covenants or contracts have two parties, and the contract of citizenship is no exception. The citizen’s part of the agreement is to comply with the law of the land.
Those rights are guaranteed to you. You do not have to beg for them. You do not have to bribe anybody to manipulate favor. Once you become a citizen of a country, you are responsible to the government to follow the laws. The government is responsible for protecting your rights, but you always remain accountable for your behavior. If you transgress, you may find yourself deprived of some of your rights for a while. When people go to prison, their citizenship does not get revoked, but some of the rights and privileges do- because they did not hold up their side of the contract as law-abiding citizens.
In a very real way, citizenship is power-sharing. A citizen shares the power of the government. Essentially, a citizen becomes one with the government. (A negative example of this power would be when an elected government suddenly extends citizenship to a group of people who will then vote them back into power.)
No greater honor can be bestowed on an individual than the honor or making him or her a citizen. A government could give you a piece of property, and it would not be as secure as citizenship because they could take it back and expel you. They could give you a visa to live in the country for six months, but at the end of that time, you would have to leave. They could give you a five-year working permit and yet you would not be able to exercise the rights of citizenship--and anytime during that five years, they could change their minds, write a new law, and tell you to go home immediately.
Citizenship is a privilege, after all. You can’t just have it for the asking. Citizenship is not a right, but it is a privilege that gives you rights. You cannot demand it and you can't hurry it up. I have spoken with people who have lived in the Bahamas for years and who have applied for citizenship, but they are still waiting. National policy varies from place to place, but the only quick way to become a citizen is to be born into it, either to be born within the borders of the particular country, or to be born elsewhere to parents who are legal citizens. Some people think it is just a piece of paper that has been stamped by the immigration office. It is a lot more than that. It is a piece of the country.
Citizenship is the benefit of a nation on an individual. They take the whole country and they put it on top of you. You walk in with nothing and you leave with everything on you.
Here is my best definition of citizenship:
Citizenship is the constitutional rights and privileges bestowed upon an individual, guaranteeing legal status to the individual, which is protected by the laws of the country.
Citizen And Passport-Holder
Once you are a citizen, you can obtain a passport that says so, and people will have to respect your citizenship everywhere you go because you have the whole power of your government behind you. As a matter of fact, your passport belongs to the government, not to you personally. It’s a crime to deface it and you have to surrender it if the government tells you to do so. When an official asks to see your passport, that is the single confirmation of your citizenship that he wants to see. He does not want your birth certificate or your driver’s license. Your passport tells him that you are a citizen. In most cases, he will ask you a few questions about what you intend to do in their country, and then they will stamp it and wave you through. That passport means that they have to treat you right.
On my passport, I can read something like this: “Allow the bearer of this document to pass freely without, let or hindrance and afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.” When I return back to the country of my citizenship, my passport will let me back in without any problem, either.
My citizenship goes with me wherever I go. I do not have to go to my country or stay in my country to be a citizen.
Entering Into Citizenship
You and I were born into citizenship, and that is the citizenship we had to start with whether we wanted it or not. We were born into both sonship or daughterhood and legal citizenship at the same time. Obviously, physical birth is the primary way to become a citizen of a country. You may not be able to drive a car or vote in an election until you reach a certain age, but you will be considered a citizen from day one of your life.
Soon after you learn how to talk, you learn your family name and the name of your country. Soon you will be able to complete the sentence, “I am a citizen of the Most High's Heavenly Kingdom.” You may not know what that means yet, but you are living it.
You do not have to practice to be a citizen. I never had to practice to be a Bahamian,” says Dr. Munroe. “I don’t have to think, today, I’m going to be a Bahamian. I’m going to think hard about it all day. You also do not have to practice certain rituals as part of your citizenship. No, I became a full Bahamian citizen by virtue of my birth in Bain Town, a humble little place near Freeport on the western end of the island of Grand Bahama. It is my identity, and it is permanent unless I decide to go through a lot of trouble to change it.”
Much of what it means to be a citizen will be a natural part of your life. But sometimes you can appreciate and appropriate more of the benefits of your citizenship by thinking about what it means to enter into it. Here are a few ways you can enter more fully into the already-full citizenship you possess:
Experience it right now. You do not have to wait until you are older and you do not have to visit the capital city. If you are a citizen living in a colony, you do not have to wait until you can travel to that country that colonized your region. You can experience your citizenship right where you are.
Explore your citizenship. Just becoming a citizen does not mean you know everything about your country or its freedoms and restrictions. If you are a citizen of the United States, you have fifty states and the District of Columbia to explore. You have over 300 million people to meet, different languages to learn, different foods to taste. You could spend the rest of your life exploring your country.
Apply your rights. Lay hold of the benefits and ask for your protections. Enjoy what belongs to you. Being a citizen who does not know his or her rights is like being a non-citizen.
Live in the culture where you are a citizen. Embrace more of it. Live a lifestyle that is suitable for a citizen of your country.
Submit to the constitutional laws and codes of conduct of your nation. Not only will you stay out of trouble, you will reinforce your claim on the rights and benefits that are yours by virtue of your citizenship status.
As part of entering more completely into your precious citizenship, you may decide to take a look at a copy of the constitution of your country, in spite of the fact that its legal terminology may be difficult to comprehend. Most people never do this. Many people do not even think about the fact that their citizenship is controlled by a document called a constitution.
Now it’s true that people can interpret the same constitution in different ways, but that does not make it powerless. It is also true that the constitution of your country was written by legislators who are more than likely very elderly if not already dead, so nobody can consult them and get the final word about what they intended when they chose the wording. Nevertheless, it is the only constitution you have, unless you claim dual citizenship.
Keep the word “constitution” in mind as you continue in this series, because I want to make another important point about it later. This is about the most special kind of citizenship you can possess and the attributes of your national citizenship can help you understand your Kingdom citizenship.
Shema Selah learn and walk fully in your citizen status of and from Heaven while on this earthly colony!! https://youtu.be/bzCNhL5NCkU
You and I were born into citizenship, and that is the citizenship we had to start with whether we wanted it or not. We were born into both sonship or daughterhood and legal citizenship at the same time. Obviously, physical birth is the primary way to become a citizen of a country. You may not be able to drive a car or vote in an election until you reach a certain age, but you will be considered a citizen from day one of your life.
Soon after you learn how to talk, you learn your family name and the name of your country. Soon you will be able to complete the sentence, “I am a citizen of the Most High's Heavenly Kingdom.” You may not know what that means yet, but you are living it.
You do not have to practice to be a citizen. I never had to practice to be a Bahamian,” says Dr. Munroe. “I don’t have to think, today, I’m going to be a Bahamian. I’m going to think hard about it all day. You also do not have to practice certain rituals as part of your citizenship. No, I became a full Bahamian citizen by virtue of my birth in Bain Town, a humble little place near Freeport on the western end of the island of Grand Bahama. It is my identity, and it is permanent unless I decide to go through a lot of trouble to change it.”
Much of what it means to be a citizen will be a natural part of your life. But sometimes you can appreciate and appropriate more of the benefits of your citizenship by thinking about what it means to enter into it. Here are a few ways you can enter more fully into the already-full citizenship you possess:
Experience it right now. You do not have to wait until you are older and you do not have to visit the capital city. If you are a citizen living in a colony, you do not have to wait until you can travel to that country that colonized your region. You can experience your citizenship right where you are.
Explore your citizenship. Just becoming a citizen does not mean you know everything about your country or its freedoms and restrictions. If you are a citizen of the United States, you have fifty states and the District of Columbia to explore. You have over 300 million people to meet, different languages to learn, different foods to taste. You could spend the rest of your life exploring your country.
Apply your rights. Lay hold of the benefits and ask for your protections. Enjoy what belongs to you. Being a citizen who does not know his or her rights is like being a non-citizen.
Live in the culture where you are a citizen. Embrace more of it. Live a lifestyle that is suitable for a citizen of your country.
Submit to the constitutional laws and codes of conduct of your nation. Not only will you stay out of trouble, you will reinforce your claim on the rights and benefits that are yours by virtue of your citizenship status.
As part of entering more completely into your precious citizenship, you may decide to take a look at a copy of the constitution of your country, in spite of the fact that its legal terminology may be difficult to comprehend. Most people never do this. Many people do not even think about the fact that their citizenship is controlled by a document called a constitution.
Now it’s true that people can interpret the same constitution in different ways, but that does not make it powerless. It is also true that the constitution of your country was written by legislators who are more than likely very elderly if not already dead, so nobody can consult them and get the final word about what they intended when they chose the wording. Nevertheless, it is the only constitution you have, unless you claim dual citizenship.
Keep the word “constitution” in mind as you continue in this series, because I want to make another important point about it later. This is about the most special kind of citizenship you can possess and the attributes of your national citizenship can help you understand your Kingdom citizenship.
Shema Selah learn and walk fully in your citizen status of and from Heaven while on this earthly colony!! https://youtu.be/bzCNhL5NCkU
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Membership vs. Citizenship!!!!!
Matthew 6
We are walking in today: Membership vs. Citizenship!!!!!
Witness dominion throughout the Bible: H7287 radah--to rule, have dominion, dominate, to cause to dominate
1 Ki 4:24 For he had dominion H7287 over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him.
The Torah Testifies.............................
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion H7287 over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
The prophets proclaim...............
Neh 9:28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion H7287 over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;
The writings bear witness.............
Jdg 5:13 Then he made him that remaineth have dominion H7287 over the nobles among the people: the LORD made me have dominion H7287 over the mighty.
Psa 72:8 He shall have dominion H7287 also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
Chapter 2 THE COLONY
This morning Fiveamprayer, we have to get an understanding of a colony. The Bahamas for example, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea that was a part of Great Britain. All of the Caribbean island nations have been colonized by various European countries--including Jamaica, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Thomas, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago, just too many islands to count!
What is a colony? A colony is a territory that is under the direct control of a central, imperialist government. This government, which in the case of the Bahamas is England, considers the colony an outpost of the faraway central authority. Great Britain is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean--4,300 miles away, but those who lived in the territories were considered citizens of England.
Why do they still speak English in the Bahamas and not some other language? Because of the British. Why do they speak in the ‘king’s English’ and not American English even though America is much closer than England? Because of their status as a British colony for 200 years. There are generations of people from the Bahamas who were educated in that particular type of English and all of their business is transacted in that language. Despite the fact that over 90 % of their population is of African descent, their ancestors have been brought to the islands as slaves to work on the plantations, very few of them know even a few words in their ancestors native language or their customs. While they have bloodlines that reach back to the continent of Africa, yet so many do not know any African history. What they have been taught about is various notable English people, the long succession of English kings and queens. And read all of the plays of Shakespeare.
Great Britain gave the people of the Bahamas other distinctive features, as well. They gave them the style of dress, long socks with short pants, neckties and a preference for straightened hair. They also gave them knives and forks, and drinking tea. Driving in the Bahamas, you will drive on the left side of the road, just as you would in England. These are narrow roads that also have english roundabouts at intersections. It is the strong colonial influences that you can witness even now, visiting the Bahamas today.
You can find more colonial influences wherever you go in the world. For example in Suriname which is in the northern part of South America-- still has the imprint of Holland’s influence. When you arrive at the airport, you may see a black man that only speaks Dutch. Of course he is speaking the language that he is fluent in, the language of the nation’s former kingdom!
Established Standards
A kingdom is a nation under the king’s rule, which means that the king himself establishes the standards for the country and its colonies. There is a great example of this in France. King Louis the 14th, decreed that the length of his royal foot was known as the standard 12 inch foot. Other people's feet were smaller or larger than his but, his foot became the rule. Today the French use the metric system, but when King Louis the 14th was on the throne, they did not. The king established the standards, and everybody was compelled to follow them. To this day, children in school use a straight measuring stick of a specific length called a ‘ruler’. They use it to measure things and to draw a straight line. They do not get to discuss or change the standard. They just have to accommodate themselves to it.
I am gonna say that again, the definition that I used in the first teaching, a kingdom is the governing influence of a king over a territory, impacting that territory with his will, his purpose, and his intent, producing a culture and a moral standard for his citizens. In other words, a kingdom is not just a piece of real estate. It has a culture. It has morals and standards. It has values. And they get exported to the colonies of that particular kingdom. By definition, a colony is a group of citizens established in a foreign territory to influence that dominion for their home government.
In terms of the Kingdom of the Most High, you could say that when you come into the Kingdom you change colonies. But it can take a long time to lose you old ways of thinking and behaving just as the people in the Bahamas, their current culture today is saturated with British ways despite the years of being an independent and sovereign nation. When you come into the Kingdom, your personal life will carry many of your old ways as you learn to think and behave differently to match your new affiliation.
The Torah Testifies.............................
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion H7287 over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
The prophets proclaim...............
Neh 9:28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion H7287 over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;
The writings bear witness.............
Jdg 5:13 Then he made him that remaineth have dominion H7287 over the nobles among the people: the LORD made me have dominion H7287 over the mighty.
Psa 72:8 He shall have dominion H7287 also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
Chapter 2 THE COLONY
This morning Fiveamprayer, we have to get an understanding of a colony. The Bahamas for example, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea that was a part of Great Britain. All of the Caribbean island nations have been colonized by various European countries--including Jamaica, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Thomas, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago, just too many islands to count!
What is a colony? A colony is a territory that is under the direct control of a central, imperialist government. This government, which in the case of the Bahamas is England, considers the colony an outpost of the faraway central authority. Great Britain is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean--4,300 miles away, but those who lived in the territories were considered citizens of England.
Why do they still speak English in the Bahamas and not some other language? Because of the British. Why do they speak in the ‘king’s English’ and not American English even though America is much closer than England? Because of their status as a British colony for 200 years. There are generations of people from the Bahamas who were educated in that particular type of English and all of their business is transacted in that language. Despite the fact that over 90 % of their population is of African descent, their ancestors have been brought to the islands as slaves to work on the plantations, very few of them know even a few words in their ancestors native language or their customs. While they have bloodlines that reach back to the continent of Africa, yet so many do not know any African history. What they have been taught about is various notable English people, the long succession of English kings and queens. And read all of the plays of Shakespeare.
Great Britain gave the people of the Bahamas other distinctive features, as well. They gave them the style of dress, long socks with short pants, neckties and a preference for straightened hair. They also gave them knives and forks, and drinking tea. Driving in the Bahamas, you will drive on the left side of the road, just as you would in England. These are narrow roads that also have english roundabouts at intersections. It is the strong colonial influences that you can witness even now, visiting the Bahamas today.
You can find more colonial influences wherever you go in the world. For example in Suriname which is in the northern part of South America-- still has the imprint of Holland’s influence. When you arrive at the airport, you may see a black man that only speaks Dutch. Of course he is speaking the language that he is fluent in, the language of the nation’s former kingdom!
Established Standards
A kingdom is a nation under the king’s rule, which means that the king himself establishes the standards for the country and its colonies. There is a great example of this in France. King Louis the 14th, decreed that the length of his royal foot was known as the standard 12 inch foot. Other people's feet were smaller or larger than his but, his foot became the rule. Today the French use the metric system, but when King Louis the 14th was on the throne, they did not. The king established the standards, and everybody was compelled to follow them. To this day, children in school use a straight measuring stick of a specific length called a ‘ruler’. They use it to measure things and to draw a straight line. They do not get to discuss or change the standard. They just have to accommodate themselves to it.
I am gonna say that again, the definition that I used in the first teaching, a kingdom is the governing influence of a king over a territory, impacting that territory with his will, his purpose, and his intent, producing a culture and a moral standard for his citizens. In other words, a kingdom is not just a piece of real estate. It has a culture. It has morals and standards. It has values. And they get exported to the colonies of that particular kingdom. By definition, a colony is a group of citizens established in a foreign territory to influence that dominion for their home government.
In terms of the Kingdom of the Most High, you could say that when you come into the Kingdom you change colonies. But it can take a long time to lose you old ways of thinking and behaving just as the people in the Bahamas, their current culture today is saturated with British ways despite the years of being an independent and sovereign nation. When you come into the Kingdom, your personal life will carry many of your old ways as you learn to think and behave differently to match your new affiliation.
Regardless of where we live on the globe, those of us who are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven were born as colonists of the kingdom of darkness. But somewhere along the line we switched loyalties, joining forces with the colonists of the kingdom of light. When we switched, we began to shed our old habits and worldview, along with our old ways of thinking and our expectations. In time, we should begin not only to represent our new King, but to resemble Him!
When people become colonists in the Kingdom of the Most High, they sign up for a steep learning curve, but it is worth it. You may or may not know what I am talking about from personal experience. The fact of the matter is that unless we learn what it means to be a citizen of this earth-colony of the Kingdom of Heaven, we will miss out on all of the benefits that come with colonial status.
Occupy
What I am trying to explain is how colonization describes both a king’s expansion of his kingdom territory as well as an expression of his personality. Colonization means that a kingdom has been extended to a distant territory and after a time the colony can be expected to manifest the culture of the kingdom, even though the citizens possessed a different culture in their past.
Colonization does not always work out. Here is a 2000 year old parable about some of the difficulties of Kingdom colonization. It begins like this….
A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come. (Luke 19:12-13, KJV)
The “far country” is a new colony. The man went to that territory because he was supposed to receive kingship there. He left ten of his servants behind, giving them resources and telling them to transact business until he returned. “Occupy” is a word that implies not only staying behind to represent the owner, but actively conducting business. The nobleman wanted his servants to administrate and take control of the business in the place, and he told them that he would come back to check on them.
As you read the rest of the parable an unhappy story unfolds that looks like the story of humankind on earth. The nobleman-king gets rejected by the citizens of the new country, and at the same time the ones to whom he entrusted his business dealings let him down badly. True, some of the servants succeed in their business dealings and let him down badly. True, some of the servants succeed in their business dealings to varying degrees, but at least one of them refused to do anything at all with the money his master left with him; he hid it away inside a piece of cloth and left it there the whole time his master was gone. Did the king appreciate this? Not at all. He swiftly exercised his sovereign power to punish both the unworthy servant and the rebellious colonists.
It did not have to turn out that way, but the citizens and the servants chose to abandon their master’s wishes. When he came to claim his kingship, they excommunicated him from the colony territory; they told him they did not want him. Isn’t that just what we have done in many of our countries today? We have taken The Most High out of our schools and universities, out of our government. In the Bahamas they haven’t decided to erect a legal separation of The Most High and government and I hope we don’t ever do it, but in many other countries, that is the law.
The servants in the parable were instructed to “occupy” because their territory was never created to be governed without the king. But they did not. They took matters into their own hands, and the result was ruin. The stewards in the story blame their actions on their circumstances, and even on the master himself. “For I feared you, because you are a harsh man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow” (Luke 19:21). This sounds a lot like what the King, the Most High finds when He checks on the people He left to occupy the planet for Him. We say this to The Most High: “We think you are too harsh. We can’t trust you, and we prefer to do things our own way.”
The King is still bringing in the Kingdom, one colonist at a time.
How has the earth colony turned out? Just look around you. Does earth look like Heaven? Look at the bars on our windows and the guns in our houses. Every day a murder. We are afraid to jog outside, so we buy a treadmill. We are afraid to let our children visit certain family members, lest they be abused. We are unable to succeed in marriage, so the divorce business is booming. We have got nothing to show the King except broken lives, disease, depression, conflict, religious clashes, war, frustration, bankruptcy, tyrants and dictators, broken homes and broken nations.
Is it too late for us? I don’t think so. The King is still bringing in the Kingdom, one colonist at a time. Yet the only way we can occupy until He comes again is to change. We must recognize that we cannot do it on our own. We need the King to save us from ourselves. We need a Savior to save us, to salvage the colony. He is coming to bring in a new government-if we will accept it. We should realize by now that none of the governments human beings have produced are working: democracy, democratic socialism, communism… none of them. That is because they all belong to the kingdom of darkness, which people have affiliated since our earliest ancestors first declared independence from the original King.
Referring back to the parable, we need to realize that the King will be asking us to give Him an account. He will not care how your pastor did or how your boss did. He will want to know what you did with the resources He gave you to oversee. He has questions for you. “I want to know how you have been doing,” He says. “What have you done to represent my Kingdom? How have you explained and expanded my Kingdom to the people in your environment? Have you demonstrated integrity in your workplace? Have you been a good father or mother or child or friend? Have you made things better in your circle of influence? What was your attitude? Are you making investments with what I have given you? What kind of job are you doing?”
The fact is, those of us who are known as Kingdom colonists are not earthlings; we are “heavenlings” or “heavenians,” if there can be such words. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Many of us learned a prayer that includes these words: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). When we pray it, we are expecting the Father’s will to be performed in our colony, just as it is in Heaven. We are acting out of our identity as true colonists who see themselves as full citizens of Heaven and representatives of the King.
Citizenship VS. Membership
Most organized groups within societies, including religions, function on the basis of membership. However, countries, nations, kingdoms-and their colonies-are different because they function on the basis of citizenship. This is an important distinction to make, because otherwise you might assume that being part of a colony relegates you to some kind of second-class citizenship that is more like membership in a club.
You need to know that you are a full citizen of whatever nation claims your territory as a colony. This applies even to Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the territory of the King called The Most High, although it remains largely invisible to human eyes. Heaven is The Most High’s country, if you want to call it that. Heaven is an actual place. Heaven is The Most High’s headquarters. His throne is there. (The word “throne” does not mean just a fancy chair. It means a “seat of power” or fortress.)
You will hear two terms used interchangeably: the Kingdom of The Most High and the Kingdom of Heaven. They both mean the same thing except that the first one is referring to the One who owns the Kingdom and the other is referring to the territory.
That is where we get some of our descriptive terms for The Most High. People call Him the King of glory, the King of Creation, the King of the Universe. He is the King of everything seen as well as everything unseen. He owns it all and He rules it from within His original territory, Heaven.
Often, those of us who dwell on the planet called Earth fail to understand the setup. We see the physical planet all around us, and we find it to be delightful and fearful at the same time. We may recognize the existence of a world outside of our immediate experience, but we do not understand its importance. We recognize our citizenship in some nation, but we do not realize that all of us possess dual citizenship-in a physical country or colony and in an unseen one.
Since Kingdom of The Most High is a country, a real place called Heaven, and since countries bestow citizenship on the people who dwell there, it is citizenship (not membership) that has been bestowed on the “heavenlings” who dwell on the colony called Earth. Citizenship comes with more guarantees and privileges than membership does, along with specific responsibilities.
You can become a member of a community within your colony or country, but your citizenship is what ties you to the community in the first place. In the same way, you can become a member of a religion or a branch of religion, but your citizenship in the kingdom of light (or, sad to say, the kingdom of darkness) will take priority over your membership in that particular religion.
Naturalized citizenship is the goal, not mere membership, whether you live in the primary country or one of its colonies, You need to pursue full citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven as if your life depended upon it, because it does. As a citizen, you will grow to reflect the culture of the country, which in turn reflects the ruler of the country. Your life will be radically changed and improved as a result.
Citizenship is a legal position. Membership is more of an accomodation. You can apply for membership in the local lodge or Rotary Club and they can decide whether or not to accommodate and include you. They can also decide to de-member (I could have written dis-member) you, making you a non-member. But once you are a citizen, no one can take away your citizenship just because they don’t like you, not even the government. (You can read how this applies to a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven in John 10:28-29.)
Having legal citizenship entitles you to certain rights, and those rights do not depend on feelings or emotions; they depend on much more powerful things: position and law. You can switch religious affiliations or other memberships without losing your citizenship in the Kingdom, and people do. They get their feelings hurt or they offend somebody, so they move on. They change their minds about what they want to do, so they find a new place that will accommodate their viewpoint.
The Declaration Of Independence
Now even though a country will not remove your name from the citizenship rolls, a citizen can remove his own name if he or she chooses. In any kind of kingdom, that is called rebellion, and it happens all the time. When the American colonists wrote their Declaration of Independence, they were announcing their intention to renounce their English citizenship, to break off legal ties with that country, to establish their own independent nation.
Independence and private ownership are an abomination within a colony. They cannot coexist with a kingdom mentality. To this day, the “American spirit” is the same as a spirit of independence, and a strong streak of individualism and private ownership has resulted in the growth of capitalism and its inherent conflicts.
When the first man declared independence from his government in the Garden, he resigned his citizenship by switching it to the kingdom of darkness. (Remember what we taught about darkness is synonymous with ignorance. Adam was ignorant of the importance of obedience to the single legal regulation of his government, and he was ignorant of the goals of his government.)
A declaration of independence results in the loss of citizenship. You may not even know what you are doing, but the end result is the same. If you change your mind, you may decide to seek citizenship again, and you may eventually be repatriated. But it will not be easy to regain your citizenship once you have lost it.
Just a note here about what the human race lost when the first human being declared his independence from his original King. We need to know what we are looking for if we ever hope to regain it. The human race did not lose residence in Heaven. I am going to say that again, the first human race did not lose residence in Heaven. The first human was created on earth and out of the earth. His residence was on earth. He never resided in Heaven and he did not fall from Heaven. He was the original colonist, and he had been allotted full citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven even as he dwelt on the earth. What he rejected was his assignment, which was to exercise dominion over the earth in obedience to the King. When he refused to follow The Most High’s directions in fulfilling his assignment, that first man lost dominion and citizenship at the same time.
As the story goes, Adam’s wife, Eve, was persuaded by a talking serpent, otherwise known as the devil, to eat some delicious-looking fruit from one of the trees in their garden paradise. Trouble was, that was the one and only thing their Creator-King, The Most High, had instructed them not to do. They had only one rule and they broke it. So they got kicked out of their garden, and all of their children, grandchildren, and so forth were born outside of the colony territory-which means that none of them were born into citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Because of what the first man did, every one of the 7.3 billion people on earth and the 259,000 who were born last night are hungry for the Kingdom of the Most High. It is not about going to Heaven someday (although most religions think so); it is about becoming repatriated into the Kingdom that our long-ago forefather lost. It is about resuming exercise of the dominion over the planet, expanding the original colony until it covers the entire globe.
In the Garden, the first man had it all. He had every provision and all the privileges that come with the assignment of stewardship and management. The Garden was the first settlement of the colony of Heaven, and the Fall changed all of that. We call this “the Fall” and yet we do not really think very much about what those first humans fell from. Innocence? Goodness? Obedience? Yes, but more importantly they fell from dominion. They fell down on the job by breaking the one rule or law they had been given. For two bites of fruit, they lost their citizenship in the colony of the Kingdom of Heaven. Through the Fall, Earth was disconnected from Heaven. No longer did Adam defer to the direction of The Most High.
When you cut off the relationship with your kingdom, you have to set up your own government. Independence can be hard to live out. Ever since they declared independence in the Bahamas, they no longer refer to England to make governmental decisions. They encountered endless problems that they never came across before, and they had to figure out what to do on their own.
High Treason
The first man’s decision to disregard The Most High’s prohibition and to eat of the fruit tree seems like such a minor thing. But The Most High regarded it as high treason. Treason involves deceit and corruption. The highest form of trust has been broken. Adam not only disobeyed the one rule he had given, he lied about it afterward.
If an ambassador of a country should sell the secrets of his country to another country, that is treason. In every country in the world, treason is punishable by death. That is why The Most High, when He gave Adam the whole world to run, entrusted all of it to his stewardship, but gave him the one single prohibition, and leveled with him about the potential punishment: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17, NIV).
The pronouncement of the punishment of death revealed the gravity of the sin. The word sin means rebellion against authority. Now Adam and all of the individuals who followed him would find death inevitable. He had committed treason. The man himself could not undo the punishment. A new Adam would have to come from Heaven to do that, and He did. He came to restore what Adam lost-everything.
The Governor Of The Colony
When the Bahamas was still a colony, the Queen hardly ever came there. In all of Dr. Myles Munroe’s life he says, she visited twice. And yet she was their ruler. This shows how a sovereign does not have to come into the territory in order to claim it or retain it. What she did was to send a man called a governor to live there. As long as he was there, the queen was represented there. A succession of governors lived in a big pink mansion known as the Government House on Duke Street in Nassau.
Naturally, when a colony declares independence from the home country, the appointed governor must leave. In the Bahamas, this happened peacefully, but in other colonies it happens with violence. Then the newly independent government must step up its own structure and rules. As the new country adjusts to its sovereign status, many citizens may long for the “good old days” when they were under colonial rule. Others will be perfectly happy forging an independent existence and creating a distinctive culture.
How does governorship translate into the Kingdom of Heaven and its expanding colony on earth? First of all, the native population cannot assume the colonial governorship role, although they can be loyal citizens. That role is reserved for a special, divine representative of the heavenly country known as the Ruach HaKodesh. The earth-colony was never intended to function without its heavenly governor, but when humankind declared independence, He had to leave. The citizens lost their legal connection to their first country, Heaven. They threw off its constitution and rulership and culture.
As a result, we have inherited a mess. Our world today is a culture of death. We have become citizens of a country (the whole earth) that, minus the stabilizing influence of Heaven, has gone completely berserk. Fighting within our homes and waging wars overseas, we keep trying to control the out-of-control situation we find ourselves in, but we can’t agree about how to do it. Can we get our first governor back?
Do you know the answer to our dilemma? Let’s explore this a little more in this series. Shema Selah return to your citizenship!!!
When people become colonists in the Kingdom of the Most High, they sign up for a steep learning curve, but it is worth it. You may or may not know what I am talking about from personal experience. The fact of the matter is that unless we learn what it means to be a citizen of this earth-colony of the Kingdom of Heaven, we will miss out on all of the benefits that come with colonial status.
Occupy
What I am trying to explain is how colonization describes both a king’s expansion of his kingdom territory as well as an expression of his personality. Colonization means that a kingdom has been extended to a distant territory and after a time the colony can be expected to manifest the culture of the kingdom, even though the citizens possessed a different culture in their past.
Colonization does not always work out. Here is a 2000 year old parable about some of the difficulties of Kingdom colonization. It begins like this….
A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come. (Luke 19:12-13, KJV)
The “far country” is a new colony. The man went to that territory because he was supposed to receive kingship there. He left ten of his servants behind, giving them resources and telling them to transact business until he returned. “Occupy” is a word that implies not only staying behind to represent the owner, but actively conducting business. The nobleman wanted his servants to administrate and take control of the business in the place, and he told them that he would come back to check on them.
As you read the rest of the parable an unhappy story unfolds that looks like the story of humankind on earth. The nobleman-king gets rejected by the citizens of the new country, and at the same time the ones to whom he entrusted his business dealings let him down badly. True, some of the servants succeed in their business dealings and let him down badly. True, some of the servants succeed in their business dealings to varying degrees, but at least one of them refused to do anything at all with the money his master left with him; he hid it away inside a piece of cloth and left it there the whole time his master was gone. Did the king appreciate this? Not at all. He swiftly exercised his sovereign power to punish both the unworthy servant and the rebellious colonists.
It did not have to turn out that way, but the citizens and the servants chose to abandon their master’s wishes. When he came to claim his kingship, they excommunicated him from the colony territory; they told him they did not want him. Isn’t that just what we have done in many of our countries today? We have taken The Most High out of our schools and universities, out of our government. In the Bahamas they haven’t decided to erect a legal separation of The Most High and government and I hope we don’t ever do it, but in many other countries, that is the law.
The servants in the parable were instructed to “occupy” because their territory was never created to be governed without the king. But they did not. They took matters into their own hands, and the result was ruin. The stewards in the story blame their actions on their circumstances, and even on the master himself. “For I feared you, because you are a harsh man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow” (Luke 19:21). This sounds a lot like what the King, the Most High finds when He checks on the people He left to occupy the planet for Him. We say this to The Most High: “We think you are too harsh. We can’t trust you, and we prefer to do things our own way.”
The King is still bringing in the Kingdom, one colonist at a time.
How has the earth colony turned out? Just look around you. Does earth look like Heaven? Look at the bars on our windows and the guns in our houses. Every day a murder. We are afraid to jog outside, so we buy a treadmill. We are afraid to let our children visit certain family members, lest they be abused. We are unable to succeed in marriage, so the divorce business is booming. We have got nothing to show the King except broken lives, disease, depression, conflict, religious clashes, war, frustration, bankruptcy, tyrants and dictators, broken homes and broken nations.
Is it too late for us? I don’t think so. The King is still bringing in the Kingdom, one colonist at a time. Yet the only way we can occupy until He comes again is to change. We must recognize that we cannot do it on our own. We need the King to save us from ourselves. We need a Savior to save us, to salvage the colony. He is coming to bring in a new government-if we will accept it. We should realize by now that none of the governments human beings have produced are working: democracy, democratic socialism, communism… none of them. That is because they all belong to the kingdom of darkness, which people have affiliated since our earliest ancestors first declared independence from the original King.
Referring back to the parable, we need to realize that the King will be asking us to give Him an account. He will not care how your pastor did or how your boss did. He will want to know what you did with the resources He gave you to oversee. He has questions for you. “I want to know how you have been doing,” He says. “What have you done to represent my Kingdom? How have you explained and expanded my Kingdom to the people in your environment? Have you demonstrated integrity in your workplace? Have you been a good father or mother or child or friend? Have you made things better in your circle of influence? What was your attitude? Are you making investments with what I have given you? What kind of job are you doing?”
The fact is, those of us who are known as Kingdom colonists are not earthlings; we are “heavenlings” or “heavenians,” if there can be such words. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Many of us learned a prayer that includes these words: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). When we pray it, we are expecting the Father’s will to be performed in our colony, just as it is in Heaven. We are acting out of our identity as true colonists who see themselves as full citizens of Heaven and representatives of the King.
Citizenship VS. Membership
Most organized groups within societies, including religions, function on the basis of membership. However, countries, nations, kingdoms-and their colonies-are different because they function on the basis of citizenship. This is an important distinction to make, because otherwise you might assume that being part of a colony relegates you to some kind of second-class citizenship that is more like membership in a club.
You need to know that you are a full citizen of whatever nation claims your territory as a colony. This applies even to Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the territory of the King called The Most High, although it remains largely invisible to human eyes. Heaven is The Most High’s country, if you want to call it that. Heaven is an actual place. Heaven is The Most High’s headquarters. His throne is there. (The word “throne” does not mean just a fancy chair. It means a “seat of power” or fortress.)
You will hear two terms used interchangeably: the Kingdom of The Most High and the Kingdom of Heaven. They both mean the same thing except that the first one is referring to the One who owns the Kingdom and the other is referring to the territory.
That is where we get some of our descriptive terms for The Most High. People call Him the King of glory, the King of Creation, the King of the Universe. He is the King of everything seen as well as everything unseen. He owns it all and He rules it from within His original territory, Heaven.
Often, those of us who dwell on the planet called Earth fail to understand the setup. We see the physical planet all around us, and we find it to be delightful and fearful at the same time. We may recognize the existence of a world outside of our immediate experience, but we do not understand its importance. We recognize our citizenship in some nation, but we do not realize that all of us possess dual citizenship-in a physical country or colony and in an unseen one.
Since Kingdom of The Most High is a country, a real place called Heaven, and since countries bestow citizenship on the people who dwell there, it is citizenship (not membership) that has been bestowed on the “heavenlings” who dwell on the colony called Earth. Citizenship comes with more guarantees and privileges than membership does, along with specific responsibilities.
You can become a member of a community within your colony or country, but your citizenship is what ties you to the community in the first place. In the same way, you can become a member of a religion or a branch of religion, but your citizenship in the kingdom of light (or, sad to say, the kingdom of darkness) will take priority over your membership in that particular religion.
Naturalized citizenship is the goal, not mere membership, whether you live in the primary country or one of its colonies, You need to pursue full citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven as if your life depended upon it, because it does. As a citizen, you will grow to reflect the culture of the country, which in turn reflects the ruler of the country. Your life will be radically changed and improved as a result.
Citizenship is a legal position. Membership is more of an accomodation. You can apply for membership in the local lodge or Rotary Club and they can decide whether or not to accommodate and include you. They can also decide to de-member (I could have written dis-member) you, making you a non-member. But once you are a citizen, no one can take away your citizenship just because they don’t like you, not even the government. (You can read how this applies to a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven in John 10:28-29.)
Having legal citizenship entitles you to certain rights, and those rights do not depend on feelings or emotions; they depend on much more powerful things: position and law. You can switch religious affiliations or other memberships without losing your citizenship in the Kingdom, and people do. They get their feelings hurt or they offend somebody, so they move on. They change their minds about what they want to do, so they find a new place that will accommodate their viewpoint.
The Declaration Of Independence
Now even though a country will not remove your name from the citizenship rolls, a citizen can remove his own name if he or she chooses. In any kind of kingdom, that is called rebellion, and it happens all the time. When the American colonists wrote their Declaration of Independence, they were announcing their intention to renounce their English citizenship, to break off legal ties with that country, to establish their own independent nation.
Independence and private ownership are an abomination within a colony. They cannot coexist with a kingdom mentality. To this day, the “American spirit” is the same as a spirit of independence, and a strong streak of individualism and private ownership has resulted in the growth of capitalism and its inherent conflicts.
When the first man declared independence from his government in the Garden, he resigned his citizenship by switching it to the kingdom of darkness. (Remember what we taught about darkness is synonymous with ignorance. Adam was ignorant of the importance of obedience to the single legal regulation of his government, and he was ignorant of the goals of his government.)
A declaration of independence results in the loss of citizenship. You may not even know what you are doing, but the end result is the same. If you change your mind, you may decide to seek citizenship again, and you may eventually be repatriated. But it will not be easy to regain your citizenship once you have lost it.
Just a note here about what the human race lost when the first human being declared his independence from his original King. We need to know what we are looking for if we ever hope to regain it. The human race did not lose residence in Heaven. I am going to say that again, the first human race did not lose residence in Heaven. The first human was created on earth and out of the earth. His residence was on earth. He never resided in Heaven and he did not fall from Heaven. He was the original colonist, and he had been allotted full citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven even as he dwelt on the earth. What he rejected was his assignment, which was to exercise dominion over the earth in obedience to the King. When he refused to follow The Most High’s directions in fulfilling his assignment, that first man lost dominion and citizenship at the same time.
As the story goes, Adam’s wife, Eve, was persuaded by a talking serpent, otherwise known as the devil, to eat some delicious-looking fruit from one of the trees in their garden paradise. Trouble was, that was the one and only thing their Creator-King, The Most High, had instructed them not to do. They had only one rule and they broke it. So they got kicked out of their garden, and all of their children, grandchildren, and so forth were born outside of the colony territory-which means that none of them were born into citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Because of what the first man did, every one of the 7.3 billion people on earth and the 259,000 who were born last night are hungry for the Kingdom of the Most High. It is not about going to Heaven someday (although most religions think so); it is about becoming repatriated into the Kingdom that our long-ago forefather lost. It is about resuming exercise of the dominion over the planet, expanding the original colony until it covers the entire globe.
In the Garden, the first man had it all. He had every provision and all the privileges that come with the assignment of stewardship and management. The Garden was the first settlement of the colony of Heaven, and the Fall changed all of that. We call this “the Fall” and yet we do not really think very much about what those first humans fell from. Innocence? Goodness? Obedience? Yes, but more importantly they fell from dominion. They fell down on the job by breaking the one rule or law they had been given. For two bites of fruit, they lost their citizenship in the colony of the Kingdom of Heaven. Through the Fall, Earth was disconnected from Heaven. No longer did Adam defer to the direction of The Most High.
When you cut off the relationship with your kingdom, you have to set up your own government. Independence can be hard to live out. Ever since they declared independence in the Bahamas, they no longer refer to England to make governmental decisions. They encountered endless problems that they never came across before, and they had to figure out what to do on their own.
High Treason
The first man’s decision to disregard The Most High’s prohibition and to eat of the fruit tree seems like such a minor thing. But The Most High regarded it as high treason. Treason involves deceit and corruption. The highest form of trust has been broken. Adam not only disobeyed the one rule he had given, he lied about it afterward.
If an ambassador of a country should sell the secrets of his country to another country, that is treason. In every country in the world, treason is punishable by death. That is why The Most High, when He gave Adam the whole world to run, entrusted all of it to his stewardship, but gave him the one single prohibition, and leveled with him about the potential punishment: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17, NIV).
The pronouncement of the punishment of death revealed the gravity of the sin. The word sin means rebellion against authority. Now Adam and all of the individuals who followed him would find death inevitable. He had committed treason. The man himself could not undo the punishment. A new Adam would have to come from Heaven to do that, and He did. He came to restore what Adam lost-everything.
The Governor Of The Colony
When the Bahamas was still a colony, the Queen hardly ever came there. In all of Dr. Myles Munroe’s life he says, she visited twice. And yet she was their ruler. This shows how a sovereign does not have to come into the territory in order to claim it or retain it. What she did was to send a man called a governor to live there. As long as he was there, the queen was represented there. A succession of governors lived in a big pink mansion known as the Government House on Duke Street in Nassau.
Naturally, when a colony declares independence from the home country, the appointed governor must leave. In the Bahamas, this happened peacefully, but in other colonies it happens with violence. Then the newly independent government must step up its own structure and rules. As the new country adjusts to its sovereign status, many citizens may long for the “good old days” when they were under colonial rule. Others will be perfectly happy forging an independent existence and creating a distinctive culture.
How does governorship translate into the Kingdom of Heaven and its expanding colony on earth? First of all, the native population cannot assume the colonial governorship role, although they can be loyal citizens. That role is reserved for a special, divine representative of the heavenly country known as the Ruach HaKodesh. The earth-colony was never intended to function without its heavenly governor, but when humankind declared independence, He had to leave. The citizens lost their legal connection to their first country, Heaven. They threw off its constitution and rulership and culture.
As a result, we have inherited a mess. Our world today is a culture of death. We have become citizens of a country (the whole earth) that, minus the stabilizing influence of Heaven, has gone completely berserk. Fighting within our homes and waging wars overseas, we keep trying to control the out-of-control situation we find ourselves in, but we can’t agree about how to do it. Can we get our first governor back?
Do you know the answer to our dilemma? Let’s explore this a little more in this series. Shema Selah return to your citizenship!!!
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