HOW TO BECOME A CITIZEN

Genesis chapter 4













Today we are walking in: How To Become A Citizen







Today we look to the word SCEPTRE-H7626-shebet- from an unused root probably meaning to branch off; a scion, i.e. (literally) a stick (for punishing, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.) or (figuratively) a clan: correction, dart, rod, sceptre, staff, tribe.








The Torah Testifies………………………….





Genesis 49:10




The sceptre H7626 shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.






Numbers 24:17




I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre H7626 shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.









The Prophets Proclaim…………………………





Ezekiel 19:4




And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre H7626 to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.





Amos 1:5




I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre H7626 from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.








The Writings witness……………………………..





Esther 8:4




Then the king held out the golden sceptre H7626 toward Esther. So Esther arose, and stood before the king,





Psalm 45:6




Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre H7626 of thy kingdom is a right sceptre H7626.










The Principle and Power of Kingdom Citizenship: Keys to Experiencing Heaven on Earth by Myles Munroe






The Responsibility Of Government




The hostility toward the kingdom concept is very common, and I do not find it hard to understand. Just think of the domineering kings throughout human history. The quality of a kingdom depends on the character of the king, and if the king is corrupt, his kingdom will be corrupt as well.




Some parts of the Old Testament read like history textbooks, with lists of kings and their wars and what happened to them. Once in a while, a good king came along who reigned over a period of peace and harmony, but such rulers are rare. Most of the time, the people lived in the midst of upheaval and tumult, all because of their bad kings.




More than once, the Most High spoke through His prophets to correct royal abuses, and in general He tended to include these instructions:




*A king must fear the Most High.




*A king must not gather wealth to himself.




*Rather, a king must use his wealth to take care of the poor.




*In other words, a king must be benevolent toward his people, even loving.




Of course most kings have ignored the advice of the King of kings, carrying out their own schemes, making the same mistakes over and over. But their failure does not change the act that love is the foundation of a sound throne. The requirements for a good kingdom hinge on the disposition of the king, on his character and integrity.




Unrighteous kings, on the other hand, oppress their people. This is why we have proverbs like this one: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2). The quality of a kingdom comes down to a question of authority and how it gets exercised.




Authority




A powerful leader forces people to do what he wants. Oppressive power controls people, restricts them, masters them by means of fear of punishment. The people groan. Authority, especially divine authority, is not the same as raw power. Authority is powerful, but it is not absolute. True authority is derived from the Most High Himself.




I can think of seven qualities of true authority, and every one of them applies to a good king who exercises his governing responsibilities well:





A person of authority fears the Most High and submits to Him. A leader’s personal submission to the Most High ensures that authority will not be exercised abusively. For example, a pastor who fears the Most High and submits to Him will never take advantage of a woman or a child sexually, even though he is stronger and more powerful than they are. He fears One who is greater than he is, and he submits to His commandments.




2. A person of authority has high morals and personal discipline. Fear of the Most High leads to a morally upright, ordered lifestyle.




3. People eulate a person of authority. People admire and want to imitate that kind of lifestyle. This makes leadership easier. A good example of this use of authority is parenthood. The model of the parents’ good behavior becomes a standard for the child’s behavior.




4. A person of authority does not seek to benefit from someone else’s success. He or she will rejoice about someone’s success, but the person in authority will not infringe on it for personal profit.




5. A person of authority does not use other people to promote him/herself. Similarly, the authority figure will not try to ride on the coattails of someone else's success, using it to improve public perception of his or her effectiveness.




6. A person of authority does not expect anything from other people except their own success. People should not have to support a leader financially or in any other regard.




7. A person of authority wants the people under him to become great. He wants people to achieve more than he has. Yahusha Himself said, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Abba.” (John 14:12)




When the person in authority is a king, all of the citizens benefit. The people in his kingdom do not need to waste time or effort defending themselves from his abuses and exploitations. The people are happy to serve his government. The entire nation rejoices and flourishes.




Governments Protect Their Citizens




It is a fact of citizenship that all reputable governments, whether they are kingdoms or some other form of government, protect their citizens from harm. Even when people are not within the borders of the country, their government takes responsibility for their welfare.




When two American missionaries were detained in an Asian country, the US Navy moved ships into the nearest port. Military helicopters were mobilized. Diplomatic messages flew back and forth. It became a matter of international urgency, even a potential cause of war--simply because they were American citizens and they were in trouble in a foreign land. When one young Israeli soldier was captured by the Palestinians, the “incident” drew worldwide concern as it escalated tension between the two governments. The government of Israel, concerned for his welfare, negotiated for five long years before they could arrange for his release, at great expense and increased risk.




If this is true of governments in general, how much more is it true in the all-powerful, love-motivated Kingdom of the Most High? When Kingdom citizens are under attack, the King rises up to defend them. Why else, for instance, would He have spoken to saul on the road to Damascus in the way He did: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul did not know he was persecuting the Most High. He was pursuing individual believers, not thinking that their King would rise to their defence against him. The King was taking it personally.




A King Is Responsible For Citizens’ Welfare




A good king is personally responsible for the welfare of every citizen. This is not the case in a democracy. In a democracy, the leaders--the president or prime minister, the congressmen, the state or small town government, the city mayor or district councils--non of the lose any sleep if some of their citizens can’t pay their light bill. When the electric company cuts off the power to those people’s homes, the president still goes to sleep at night in his nice bed without worrying about those citizens. It is every man for himself, for better or for worse.




This cannot happen in a kingdom, because the king’s reputation is tied to his people’s welfare. He becomes personally embarrassed when any of his citizens are broke. He does not want them to have to ask for bread and water, because it makes him look negligent. It is as if they are telling the world that he had failed in his responsibilities, he has forgotten his promises, and he does not have the resources in the first place.




Have you ever wondered about Yahusha’s famous teaching about not worrying about personal provision? Read this with the Kingdom in mind:
Matthew 6:25-33 King James Version (KJV) 25
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.




You see, Yahusha was almost in disbelief that anybody in His Kingdom would worry about such things. He needs to remind people that He is more than able to provide everything you need. Their fretfulness sends a message that they do not believe He wants to do it. They should not be so worried, because they are citizens of the Kingdom.




He invites everyone to the most important benefits to their Kingdom citizenship:
Matthew 11:28-30 King James Version (KJV) 28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.




The King considers your welfare His responsibility. In the Kingdom, the King has a personal interest in your mortgage payment. I do not know how He does it, but He takes a concern in every citizen, personally. He visits each one of us and lives with us, following through with every provision that we need. He knows what each one of us is feeling. He can figure out our biggest needs. He is doing it right now, and He does it day and night.




In the Kingdom, the King is bound by His own laws to take care of His citizens. How many times in the Bible do we read something like this? “Here’s what I will do, because I promised to take care of you.” Even when He feels exasperated with His people, He feeds them and guides them as a shepherd guides his sheep.




Abraham knew about this when he tried to persuade the Most High not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because his nephew Lot lived there. He knew that the Kingdom constitution (Scripture) said that the Most High would never destroy the righteous with the wicked. So he kept coming back to the Most High: “If you can find fifty rightous people in the city, you cannot destroy it...fourty, thirty….” He went down to ten people but even that small number could not be found. At least he bought enough time to get Lot and his wife and daughters out of harm’s way before the rest of the wicked city was destroyed by a firestorm. (Genesis 18:22-33; 19:1-29)




I wonder how many people in each of our families could be saved if we knew our constitutional rights? The Bible says, “The seed of the righteous will be delivered” (Proverbs 11:21). That means we can claim our children for the Kingdom, even if at present they are wandering far away like the Prodigal Son.




Protection On Foreign Soil




I made a point in the previous teaching describing the power of a passport. A passport-carrying citizen has immunity from all sorts of problems when he or she is away from home.




With a passport, you have the authorization to “pass the port.” A port refers not only to the place where ships dock, but also the airport, the customs booth along the highway, or in the case of a Kingdom citizen, the “port” of Heaven. Your passport enables you to move from on jurisdiction to another with freedom.

Because the passport is actually the property of the government of that citizen, the entire power of that government lies at the passport-holder’s disposal. Most of the time, people take their passports for granted. But when they have a problem on foreign soil, suddenly they do not.




For a Kingdom citizen, this means that you have the full protection of Heaven regardless of what happens around you. You can always be sure that your government and your King are looking after your safety as well as your every provision.




The Kingdom takes care of its own in the here and now, not just in the future, by and by. Yes, Kingdom citizenship carries with it a guarantee of Heaven, but in the meantime you get a personal security escort from the King and his angels.




You have citizenship, so you have a passport that list all of the promises and provisions of your government. You do not have to go home to your country (Heaven) to be blessed. You do not even need to be in Heaven to experience freedom from pressure and problems. You can have it all right now.




Until I knew about the way the Kingdom works, I never could understand that Yahusha meant when He said this: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).




Now I understand that Yahusha was making a threat. In essence, He was saying, “If you dare touch one of my citizens, you had better commit suicide before I arrive to deal with you.” Anyone who tries to hurt a Kingdom citizen triggers the King’s anger.

Deep in the Kingdom constitution (2 Chronicles 16:9), you can find this line:




For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.




If your heart is right before Him, He is watching over you. When you think you are alone, stuck in traffic with all the other drivers acting like they are crazy, you have got all of Heaven watching to make sure you are okay.




You can also count on this one:

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. (Psalm 91:11).




Don’t wonder why citizens of the Kingdom can go anywhere with confidence and peace; it is because they do not have to worry about taking care of themselves.




The government of the Kingdom takes care of its citizens when their earthly governments turn against them. Daniel’s earthly government put him in a lion’s den, but the Most High’s government put the lions to sleep (Daniel 6). Paul’s earthly government locked him up in a Philippian prison, but the Most High’s government sent an earthquake to set him free (Acts 16). Your government may fire you from your job, but the Kigndom government will pay your bills while you are unemployed. The government of Heaven exercised diving power on behalf of its citizens.




The Most High interrupts evil activities all the time. You don’t know about it, because nothing happens to you after all, and you do not know something got interrupted. When Saul was breathing murderous threats against the Kingdom citizens in Damascus, he definitely got interrupted. I wonder if those citizens even knew they had been first targeted and then preserved. That is something to think about.




“Father, Do Not Take Them Out Of The World…”




Now even a child knows that we are not living in Heaven yet. Regardless of how many times the King protects his own, citizens of the Kingdom do suffer persecution, mishaps, illnesses, financial hardship, hunger and more.




During the first century, believers in Yahusha got driven out of town and killed. They had their houses burned down because they believed in Yahusha. As time went on, the Roman Empire clashed with the Kingdom again and again. Believers were brutally murdered. It is still happeing in some places around the world.




No wonder the early Church prayed, “Come quickly, Lord Yahudha!” (Revelation 22:12, 20). If you were living under those conditions, you would want Maschiach to come right away too.




Yahusha prayed to His Abba on behalf of believers, but He did not pray that they would escape every hardship. Instead, He prayed:

John 17:15-18 King James Version (KJV)

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

In our time, we have built a belief system that is afraid of tough times. We want relief from the pressure. We forget that we too have been sent into the world; we are colonists of the Kingdom, sent to subdue and dominate the evil one, one victory at a time. In the midst of the battles, it must be possible to be kept free in our spirits from the clutches of evil, even as we may suffer in our bodies, because Yahusha prayed for us to be kept from the evil one. Therefore it is possible to live right to the end of life, preserved from the evil one’s impact and influence. It is possible to brush aside fear of evil, because we know that our King is stronger than anything the evil one can throw at us.




Our King has obligated Himself to provide total defensive coverage to His citizens. He wins every time. He never leaves us to our own devices, although we often think we are on our own. Remember when Yahusha was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. His disciples were with Him. Peter grabbed a sword because he thought, “Most High needs help!”




And he cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, John 18). Yahusah took time to heal it. Peter should not have done that. Shortly afterward, Yahusha stood before Pilate and He explained,

John 18:36 King James Version (KJV)

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.




Yahusha did not call His disciples or the messengers to deliver Him, because the whole reason He had to come to the Earth was to suffer and die on that crucifixion stake. Yahusha was a king to the end, exercising his kingly dominion by not interfering with the plan of the Most High, and giving generations of believers courage to face whatever they had to for the sake of the Kingdom.




Citizens’ Authority




Following from all that we have discussed in this teaching, we can see that the government of the Most High invents its citizens with divine authority. The King gave it to them. He takes a measure of His own absolute authority and He bestows it on the people who live under His authority.




Unless the King gives it, the transfer cannot occur. He considers His responsibility to apportion His powerful authority to the ones to whom He has given assignments. This authority brings with it all of the strength, the stagties, and the wisdom necessary to fulfill the King’s assignments.




Yahusha’s coming to Earth signaled a new level of the transfer of Kingdom authority. He started with His twelve disciples:

Matthew 10:1 King James Version (KJV)

10 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Later He spoke of the authority He was giving to all believers: Here's how the Message version of Scripture puts it:




See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in the Most High’s authority over you and presence with you. (Luke 10:19, The Message)




He gives His citizens authorization to destroy the works of the evil one. In this way, the King enlarges His Kingdom. He extends the purpose for which He came to Earth to His colonist-citizens: “For this purpose the Son of the Most High was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). From the time we become citizens of the Kingdom, it is our job, too and we need the appropriate divine authority to do it. He gives his citizens authority to go to the root of problems--the evil ruler of the world.




Yahusha was going to be leaving the Earth for the time being. But, as He told His disciples, He was not going to leave them orphans (John 14:18). He was sending His Spirit to swell in them, and subsequently in us. Through His Spirit and in His authorivice name, we would be able to overcome the world (John 16).




This heavenly authority is the foundation of all the benefits and privileges that come with citizenship in the Kingdom. The government of the Kingdom takes responsibility for granting it to each of its citizens, and the key to retaining it is righteousness on the part of the citizens. We have described how important it is to remain in right legal standing with the government if you expect to stay out of trouble; people who break the law lose certain privileges. But upright citizens do not have anything to worry about. Quite naturally, they can enjoy the benefits and privileges that come with their citizenship, without begging or bargaining for them.




We will see more how this works in the next session of this series.

BORN INTO CITIZENSHIP

Genesis chapter 4













Today we are walking in: Born Into Citizenship










Today we look to the word- CHANGE- H2015- haphak- a primitive root; to turn about or over; by implication, to change, overturn, return, pervert:—become, change, come, be converted, give, make (a bed), overthrow overturn), perverse, retire, tumble, turn (again, aside, back, to the contrary, every way).












The Torah Testifies…………….






Genesis 35:2




Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that werewith him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change H2015 your garments:




Leviticus 27:10




He shall not alter it, nor change H2015 it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good: and if he shall at all change H2015 beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy.





Leviticus 27:33




He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change H2015 it: and if he change H2015 it at all, then both it and the change H2015 thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.












The Prophets Proclaim………





Jeremiah 2:36




Why gaddest thou about so much to change H2015 thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.






Zechariah 3:4




And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change H2015 of raiment.






Malachi 3:6




For I am the LORD, I change H2015 not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.










The Writings witness……………





Job 14:14




If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change H2015 come.






Psalm 102:26




They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change H2015 them, and they shall be changed:






Proverbs 24:21




My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change H2015:













The Most High has been our Abba from before our birth. Yahusha is His firstborn Son, and the rest of us are meant to be Yahusha’s younger brothers and sisters. “He is the image of the invisible Most High, the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15). You do not talk about a “firstborn,” you know, unless other children are born after him.




Another name for Yahusha is the Word:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with The Most High:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with The Most High, and the Word was The Most High. He was in the beginning with The Most High” (John 1:1-2). This Word is the One who speaks words of life into each one He calls into His Kingdom.




I hope you know that you can’t earn your way into His good graces. Kingdom citizenship is not like membership in the Kiwanis Club, where good works count as membership points. Many people make the mistake of thinking that citizenship in the Kingdom can be obtained through good works. They visit the sick and send money to Haiti. They attend church for fifty years straight. They take communion at six in the morning on Sundays and they sing in the choir. But none of that gets them into the Kingdom. It does not even crack the door open!




You can’t become a citizen or a member of the family of The Most High by good works or by association with His family members or even by longevity. You can try for ninety years and you will still be an illegal immigrant when you die! The only way to get into the Kingdom is to respond to an invitation. With the ears of your spirit you hear, “Come,” and you respond to it by leaving behind your old ways of doing things and coming Home.




It is just like physical birth; you leave behind the confines of your old existence and you enter into the endless possibilities of new life. The difference is that this birth is a birth of your spirit. In the words of Yahusha: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).




The bottom line is this: you must be born into the Kingdom if you want to become a part of the family of the Firstborn.




Free At Last From The Power Of Death

Rebirth means shaking free of death’s grip once and for all. Remember that in the Garden there was no death-at first. But when Adam sinned, death came into the picture. That is why the Bible says, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). The world is filled with death. Death is the final punishment. We do not want to think about it.




But back in the Garden, Abba had already set in motion a plan to rescue the people He had created from their own sin. But to accomplish the plan, somebody would have to die. He asked His sinless, firstborn Son to do it. Then everyone who would accept the substitution could escape the punishment of death.




In other words, The Most High decided to apply the penalty of sin and death to Himself. In The Most High’s courtroom, you and I were condemned to death. But the Judge said to His Son, “The judgement on these kids is death. I want you to go to jail for them and to be executed instead of them.”




Yahusha said, “I will go to jail for them. But is there any other way to do this?” Abba said, “No Son. It is either them or you.” And the Son agreed to do it. The Son, who was every bit as much The Most High as His Abba was, came to Earth as a man. He did it so that people like you and me would be free from the execution order. The Most High’s universal justice would be satisfied. It is as if you were sentenced to die in the electric chair and it is almost time for them to throw the switch when someone comes in and says, “You can get up and walk out of here. Go ahead. I will take the sentence for you.” And He sits down in your place.




Have you ever thought about it that way? Have you ever realized that Yahusha would have never died at all, even to this day two thousand years later, if He had not carried our sin to the crucifixion stake when He died? Sin is what brings death, and Yahusha did not have any sin at all, none. He was perfect. He was The Most High.




But He went to the crucifixion stake carrying our sins. Because of His overwhelming love, He shouldered the punishment for not only your individual sins, but for every sinful act that ever happened. The prophet Isaiah wrote that His body was so marred that it was hard to recognize Him as a man anymore. (See Isaiah 52:14) Sin did that to Him. He was carrying all of our evil thoughts, our broken hearts, our diseases, our injuries, our wickedness. He did it to restore His Father’s sons and daughters back to His family and to citizenship in His Kingdom.

The whole Old Testament leads up to the time when Yahusha came to do that. People do not like to read parts of it, because it is all about blood sacrifices. Even back in the Garden, the first thing The Most High did for Adam and Eve was to kill an animal so they could have clothing made out of its bloody hide (see Genesis 3:21). They had covered themselves with fig leaves.But leaves are not a good covering. Leaves do not have blood.




From that day forward, people began to offer living creatures to the Most High as a sacrifice for their sins. All through the Old Testament they kept offering goats, sheep, heifers, doves and more. Adam and Eve’s sons, Cain and Abel, tried to work the sacrificial system. Cain brought an offering of vegetable produce from his fields, but Abel brought a lamb. (See Genesis 4:3-7.) The Bible says that The Most High was displeased with Cain’s offering, but He received Abel’s offering. That does not make any sense to us unless we understand how The Most High sees it. In His perfect system of justice, blood (death) compensates for sin, because sin is punishable by death. Cain’s produce did not have any blood in it.




However, killing an innocent animal as a sacrifice is not the same as killing an innocent man. The penalty for sin was on humans, so The Most High needed a sinless human offering to serve as the ultimate payment for sin. Yahusha was that offering. And now, if we accept what Yahusha did, these words can apply to your own lives:




We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as HaMashiach was raised from the dead through the glory of Abba, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with HaMashiach, we believe that we will also live with him. (Rom 6:4-8 NIV)




In other words, once He died, nobody else had to die. His death paid for all that sin. In fact, it is as if He made it possible for us to be born anew. Now we can live forever, as if we never sinned even once.




This is the salvation story. If you want to make it your own story, you need to be reborn. Just as both water and blood are involved in natural childbirth, both water and blood were part of HaMachiach’s death (see John 19:34), and they signify every new life:




For whatever is born of The Most High overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Yahusha is the Son of The Most High?




This is He who came by water and blood--Yahusha HaMashiach; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: Abba, the Word, and the Ruach Hackodesh; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. (1 John 5:4-8)




Born Into Citizenship




You know you cannot be born for your children and you can’t be reborn for them, either. Just because their parents are in the Kingdom of The Most High does not automatically put them in.




A religious leader who talked with Yahusha had been born into the religious community. He was in charge of the synagogue and I am sure he knew the books of the Torah by heart. But when he met Yahusha, he knew he needed something more.




“Yahusha,” he said, “I would like to enter the Kingdom. What should I do?” Yahusha answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of The Most High.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”




Yahusha answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of The Most High. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.” Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” Yahusha answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? (John 3:3-10)




Yahusha told Nicodemus that the only way to get into the country of the Kingdom is the same way he got into the nation of Israel--through birth. No paperwork. No waiting. Of course this confused Nicodemus. It did not make sense to his theological mind.




So Yahusha explained to him that his body was not him. His spirit was. His body was just a house for his spirit. His body had already been born. Now it was his spirit’s turn. And just as a highly educated ruler of the Jews should already know that the best way to natural citizenship is through birth, so he should know that the way to enter a spiritual kingdom is through a spiritual birth.




A person cannot work for Kingdom citizenship. You do not have to pass a test or reside in a certain place for a specified length of time. You do not have to observe rituals, keep traditions, or follow rules. You cannot become a legal citizen of the Kingdom because the King likes you. You must be born anew in your spirit by the power of the Ruach Hakodesh.




The word Yahusha used is “see.” He said that unless Nicodemus was born again, he would not be able to see the Kingdom. The Greek meaning is “experience.” In other words, until he was born anew, he would not be able to experience the Kingdom personally. No one can understand a country unless he has been in the country, and no one can enter the Kingdom country to experience it unless he gets born again.




Now Yahusha isn’t saying that being born again is what we might call a “religious experience.” It is a process, a pathway. In fact, this is the only time in the Bible that he mentioned being born again. Most of the time, He simply preaches that the Kingdom is here, now; the Kingdom has arrived. New birth is the avenue to citizenship.




Nicodemus was not making fun of the idea when he asked about entering a second time into his mother’s womb. He was taking Yahusha seriously. He was willing to try the impossible if only he could get into the Kingdom. He knew that no one would be able to tamper with his citizenship if it came through being born, because spiritual birth cannot be reversed any more than a physical birth can be reversed. As Yahusha’s disciple Peter wrote: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. Through the living and enduring word of The Most High” (1 Pet. 1:23, NIV)




How would Nicodemus know he had been reborn? The same way you and I know--because we have the Spirit of Yahusha inside our spirits. Yahusha’s disciple John answered that question this way:




This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Yahusha is the Son of The Most High, The Most High lives in them and they in The Most High. (1 John 4:13-15, NIV).




When you become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven’s colony on Earth, the King sends His Governor (the Ruach) to come live in you.Your body is like the governor’s mansion.




Rebirth does not come with thunder and lightning and earthquakes. You may not feel anything or hear anything. No angels may appear to you. But that does not mean it did not happen. The Ruach Hackodesh comes and no one sees Him. Then you walk into your house and suddenly all the sins you used to enjoy make you feel guilty. You have changed. The Kingdom of The Most High has come in. Now you do not like the same things anymore.




Your citizenship in the Kingdom does not give you a physical sign, but it does change your disposition. A heavenly lifestyle comes with it. It starts right in the midst of wherever you live now. You do not have to wait for Heaven. (Heaven is not the King’s primary intention for your life, or I think He would kill us off right away after we are born again so we can go straight to Heaven.)




Once, some Pharisees asked Yahusha when the Kingdom of The Most High would come, and He replied, “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). No one sees it happen when you are born as a citizen. When you are a citizen you do not advertise it with signs; you advertise it with life and culture. You do not have to tell people that you are a believer, because they should be able to tell just by being around you. You have been reborn of the Spirit of The Most High!




Obedience To The Law--The Key To Privileges




After your rebirth, you learn how to be a citizen of this Kingdom by obeying the laws of the land. As we have already made clear, the Bible is like the constitution of the country, and the Spirit helps you understand what it says and apply it. The Ruach Hakodesh will also help you understand how the Kingdom works.




With Him living inside you, you will be able to tell the difference between true citizens and those who are pretending to be citizens of the Kingdom. Plenty of people believe that Yahusha was a good man and a famous prophet. But do they believe that He was the Son of the living Most High? Not a son, but THE Son? Do they submit to His commands?




Obedience to His commands is impossible without the help of the Ruach Hakodesh, you know. Just try this one, for example, without The Most High’s love inside you:




Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. (Matt. 5:44-45).




Love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. (Luke 6:35)




The Most High does not leave it up to you to select from a buffet of beliefs and doctrines. His way of doing things is clear. Sometimes people criticize citizens of the Kingdom. They say we are too narrow-minded. Yes, we are narrow-- and narrow is the way that leads to life! (See Matthew 7:13 and Luke 13:24.)




What is that life like? Joy-filled, stress-free and a lot more. It includes a whole lot more. “My Most High God shall supply all your needs according to His riches…” (Phil 4:19). I want to wait until later for a longer discussion of the rewards, privileges and benefits that come with being a law abiding citizen of the Kingdom.




Citizens of the heavenly Kingdom obey the divine King, just as citizens of any earthly kingdom must obey their king. Those of us who live in democracies fail to comprehend this. We are used to criticizing our leaders as we get ready to vote them out of office. We are accustomed to negotiating and cooperating, because in a democracy you do not obey an authority as much as you cooperate with it.




You do not negotiate with someone who owns you and everything around you. You change. He does not!




Turning Around




When you declare that Yahusha HaMashiach is the Son of The Most High, your Lord and Savior, you turn your back on your previous “lords,” whatever and whoever you used to follow. You have been adopted as a full member of the royal family now, and you do not need to live like an orphan anymore!




This turning is called teshuvah. Yahusha considered it the only option when a person gets confronted with the Kingdom of The Most High. repeatedly, He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17).




Now, even if you have been considered rich in the world’s eyes, I hope you will be glad to trade your so-called riches for the priceless treasure of the royal house! One rich young man did not want to do it:




A man came up to Yahusha and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”...Yahusha replied….“If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” …”All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Yahusha answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Yahusha said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 19:16-17, 20-23, NIV)




This man knew he needed something, even though he had everything the world could offer: money, a powerful position, youth and a healthy body, good morals and religion. The trouble was, he could not part with his wealth. If only he had been able to understand that he did not own any of it in the first place. If he had been able to understand that he did not own any of it in the first place. If he had turned it over to the Kingdom government, he would only have been giving the government back its things.




It is impossible for a person to call Yahusha Lord and own anything. If He is your Lord, He owns you and everything you possess. There is no private ownership. So you cannot come to Him and say, “I want to submit to Your government. I want You to be my King and Lord”--and still hold onto your money, your land, and your business. When The Most High asked the rich young ruler to give it up, it was not because He needed it. You cannot give The Most High something He owns already! He was testing the man to see if he thought he owned it. Apparently, he did.

The man did not understand wealth in Kingdom terms. Wealth in the Kingdom is not measured by accumulation; it is measured by access to what you need when you need it. Wealth in the Kingdom is for distribution. Kingdom citizens are conduits, not reservoirs. Instead of collecting and keeping everything, they give it away to others. As they give it away, more comes to them. Peter, after he listened to this conversation between the rich young ruler and Yahusha--then Peter answered and said to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?”




So Yahusha said to them… “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.” (Matt 19:27-29)




Wealth in the Kingdom is family wealth, and every member of the family inherits all of it. To make a play on words, you could say that Kingdom citizenship is inherent-because the citizen inherits everything in the Kingdom.




The rich young ruler hung onto his money and possessions because he thought he was wealthy. He was poor, compared to the barefoot Teacher he was talking to.




Membership To Citizenship




When the rebellious, Prodigal Son came back to his father after spending his inheritance, his return marked his reinstatement into the family. (I told the rest of the story in a previous teaching; it is one of Yahushas’ favorite parables.) He trudged into view of the family homestead, and he spotted his father running towards him. His father fell on his neck, kissing him, overjoyed at seeing him again after having assumed he was dead. The son had thought about what he would say:




And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants “Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:21-24)




The son would have been content to work for his father as a servant. He was so ashamed and broken that he would have been glad to be allowed to be a member of his father’s household, housed and fed with the working servants. A servant is not a member of the family.




But the father would not hear of it. His son had come home! The one who had rebelled and who had run away had returned. He welcomed him back into the bosom of the family and gave him certain items of clothing to prove it.




“Bring out the best robe, “ he said. And he covered his dirty, worn-out robe with the richest garment in the house. He put new sandals on his feet. And he brought out a ring.




The ring is significant. When a king wants to give somebody government power, he gives the person a ring. The ring represents power and authority of the government. This ring was the symbol of family authority , royal authority. By slipping it onto his finger, the father was declaring that he was now far better than a member of his household. He was restored to the full status of a son. As a citizen-son he could now use the family name again, and he now had full family rights, full access to everything the family owned.




Claiming Citizenship




As soon as the rebellious son turned toward home, in teshuvah, it was as if he was reborn. He has been born to privilege, but he had rejected it. He failed to appreciate it. As a result, he had to go the long, hard way around before he could return. You can be sure that this time, he stayed.




In many ways, we are all like the Prodigal Son. We squander the resources our generous Abba gives us. We think we can do a better job of managing our lives if we turn away from Him. We were born to privilege, but we take matters into our own hands.




I always say a sinner is really a saint who does not know he is a saint. What if nobody had told us that we could return home to our heavenly Abba--it would be as if Prince William had been separated from his parents and spirited away from England at birth, kidnapped. Let’s say somebody brought him to the Bahamas, and he lived on one of the islands with a man and woman who claimed to be his parents. As a baby, he would not know any better.




He would grow up enjoying the things his village enjoyed, thinking it was wonderful. He would think it was a great life-fishing, eating coconuts, running up and down the beach. He would not know that he was royalty. He would not know the kind of wealth he could have at his disposal. Unless someone came to tell him.




Let’s say his real father, Prince Charles finds out where he is living and sends his only remaining son, Prince Harry, to get him. You can see the connection here--your real Father in heaven sent his only Son to fetch you back into His Kingdom, when you did not know at all that you were royalty and that you had a place waiting for you in the Kingdom.




Prince Harry suffers all the difficulties of the trip. He bumps along the rutted roads, endures the sand flies and mosquitoes, sleeps out in the open under palm trees. Finally he reaches the village where his brother lives and he locates the young man. Can you imagine him trying to explain who he is and why he has come?




“My father? That’s my father over there under the coconut tree.” “No, that’s your stepfather…” Imagine trying to convince this young man that he is a multi-billionaire. It might take a long time. But if he could convince him to leave behind the village where he grew up, he could step into the inheritance that had been waiting for him all those years. He could claim his position in the royal family and spend the rest of his life doing what he was created to do.




None of us can work our way into the position that the Son so freely offers us. All we can do is surrender to the offer. “Yes, I will come with You. Just tell me what to do. Your Father is my Father. I say yes.”




Have you said yes yet? It is never too late, Fiveamprayer!!!

UNDERSTANDING IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION PART 2

Genesis chapter 4













Today we are walking in: Understanding Immigration And Migration Part 2










Today we look to the word SCEPTRE-H7626-shebet- from an unused root probably meaning to branch off; a scion, i.e. (literally) a stick (for punishing, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.) or (figuratively) a clan: correction, dart, rod, sceptre, staff, tribe.






The Torah Testifies………………………….



Genesis 49:10


The sceptre H7626 shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.




Numbers 24:17


I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre H7626 shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.







The Prophets Proclaim…………………………



Ezekiel 19:4


And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre H7626 to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.



Amos 1:5


I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre H7626 from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.






The Writings witness……………………………..



Esther 8:4


Then the king held out the golden sceptre H7626 toward Esther. So Esther arose, and stood before the king,



Psalm 45:6


Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre H7626 of thy kingdom is a right sceptre H7626.








This King Wants You

The King does not sit idly while illegal immigrants erode the integrity for His realm. In fact, He does not hesitate to display the power of His Kingdom when necessary.



The apostle Paul, whose name used to be Saul, was an “illegal immigrant” at first, someone who was zealous in the extreme for his religion but who did not understand that he was fighting against the Kingdom of the Most High. Having been a student of the Rabbi Gamaliel, who was considered one of the top pharisaical scholars of the day, Saul was well-educated and motivated to make his fellow Jews follow every last one of the Hebrew laws. As a native of Tarsus, which was not a Jewish city, he seems to have been more determined than others to be the best Jew possible, and he was also a Roman citizen.


Saul could quote Greek and Roman and poets. He had been exposed to a broader culture than many other Pharisees, but he was very narrow-minded when it came to the followers of “the Way,” the name the early believers were known by. In fact, he hated the Way with a passion. He felt it was distorting and perverting Judaism, and he was determined to defend his faith from what he considered a dangerous sect.

Using his influence in high circles, he obtained permission to hunt down followers of the Way. He wants to destroy them before they become too influential. He knew he needed to hurry. The original band of eleven men had grown to a hundred and twenty people in the upper room that claimed to have had an encounter with this so-called Mashiach Yahusha after He rose from the dead. Then it had grown to five thousand and it was spreading faster than anybody had expected. The “cult” was infiltrating the synagogues and people talked about miracles. Somebody had to stop them, and Saul wanted to be part of that effort.


He joined forces with others who were persecuting the Way and they killed some of Yahusha’s followers. They drove other followers out of Jerusalem and nearby cities and scattered them across the Roman Empire. To hunt them down, Saul went to the high priest, “breathing out murderous threats against the Most High’s diciples” (Acts 9:1), in order to get a letter of permission to travel to the great trade city of Damascus northeast of Jerusalem.


He and his companions made it into the city, but not as they had expected to. Before they arrived, this is what happened to Saul:
Acts 9:3-9 King James Version (KJV) 3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: 4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Yahusha whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. 7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. 8 And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.


While he was there, the Most High spoke to one of the disciples who lived in the city, an ordinary man named Ananias. He told him to go to a certain street and to ask for

Saul of Tarsus, who would be expecting him. Ananias was fully aware of how dangerous Saul was, but he obeyed:
Acts 9:17-18 King James Version (KJV) 17 And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Yahusha, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. 18 And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.


Saul’s baptism signaled his switch to the Kingdom of the Most High. His miraculous conversion changed him from being a legalistic, angry, defensive Pharisee into a tireless evangelist for the Way. He had an assignment to fulfill for the King. He was humble and contrite about his past. Soon he became to be known by a different name, Paul, which means “small” or “little.”


He never looked back toward his former status as a leader of the Jews. He had become as much a full citizen of the Kingdom as those who had walked with the Yahusha in person before His crucifixion.


The Power of Kingdom Knowledge



One of the psalms says, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you” (Ps 91:7). That means everybody around you can get laid off in a recession, but it does not have to touch you. You can go to bed at night without anxiety. The company you work for can decide to downsize, or “rightsize” the company or go into bankruptcy and you can still sleep at night with confidence that your King is looking after you.



When you place yourself under the government of the Kingdom and understand what that means, you will be living under a power that cannot be shaken by the strongest winds. You will be protected and aided in everything you do.



Kingdom Authority



Yahashua promised that when a person becomes a citizen of Heaven and therefore a member of His household, that he would give that person authority: “Behold I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). That authority is not meant for overcoming only snakes and scorpions--it covers “all the powers of the enemy.” Because of that authority, nothing will destroy a person who has it. What a deal!



That means that we can have authority to tread on every demonic power, every social resistance, every economic avalanche, every disease, every torment. We can become immune to anything that tries to harm us.



Kingdom authority refers to your personal rights to exercise your power through alignment with constitutional law. I consider it a very important Kingdom secret. You can’t have this kind of authority unless you are a citizen, and unless you exercise it as a citizen. You can’t fake it. The sons of a man named Sceva tried to do that once, and it did not turn out very well:



Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Yahusha over those who had evil spirits, saying “We exorcise you by the Yahusha whom Paul preaches.” Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.



And the evil spirit answered and said, “Yahusha I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”



Then the man in whom the evil spirit was in, leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. (Acts 19:13-16)



How many times do we step out in what we think of as The Most High’s authority only to find out that it was not? We get mixed up. We confuse power and authority, because we see power and influence all the time, but we see true authority in action less often. A drug kingpin is a powerful person who controls a sizable network of other people and assets. But in truth, all he has is a lot of influence. “The authorities”- the police and higher authorities- have legal authority over his activities, and they can win out over him.



When the police move in on criminal activity, they wear or carry some symbol of their authority such as a uniform or a badge. Even to enforce simple traffic laws, the presence of their authority is indicated by such symbols. If you tried to stop traffic on Miami Highway, you could stand there in your street clothes and hold up your hand, but I do not think the 18-wheelers would stop for you. It sounds like a recipe for self-destruction to me. However, if you went out there dressed as a traffic officer it would be different for you. Your authority to stop traffic would be obvious.



Kingdoms have symbols of authority, such as the crown. The most important symbol of authority is the scepter. Queen Esther knew about that one. She may have been the queen of the land, but she had to follow protocol to the letter if she wanted to save the minority group her family was part of. Unless her husband, the king, extended his golden scepter to her when she entered his throne room, she would be killed for approaching so boldly without permission.



She risked it, and her people were saved. (The entire Old Testament book of Esther tells the story.) We can risk it, too, because we can come before our King as if we have put on the righteous garments of His Son Yahusha, who comes with us. The death order gets cancelled, and we can make our request. The King’s authority goes out with us to accomplish the thing we have requested.



It is all in Whom you know and what you know about His Kingdom! I can assure you--the more you know about the Kingdom of Heaven and the more you step out on that knowledge, the better your life will be.



Your Own Immigration


Although you and I will probably not experience such a dramatic conversion, we are no less called to an assignment in the Kingdom. We are called to become Kingdom immigrants.


It is my prayer that every leader who hears this teaching would be able to capture the spirit of the Kingdom and understand its culture and benefits more than ever before. May nothing stop you in your search of full citizenship. May you be eager to leave behind your old loyalties and seek adoption into the only country that can guarantee both your present and your future.


May nothing get in the way of its life-changing impact. May you attract others to it. (When people ask why you are different, you will have to confess that you are from a different country, because it shows in your actions and your lifestyle that is so high and so unique that people will want to join you in citizenship in your new country. May they ask you how to get in--which is the topic of the next session in this series.

UNDERSTANDING IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION

Genesis chapter 4
















Today we are walking in: Understanding Immigration And Migration













Today we look to the word- AMBASSADOR- H6735- tsiyr- ambassador, hinge, messenger, pain, pang, sorrow











The Torah testifies……..




**************










The Prophets proclaim……..




Obadiah 1:1




The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador H6735 is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle.










The Writings witness………………




Proverbs 13:17




A wicked messenger falleth into mischief: but a faithful ambassador H6735 is health.







Understanding Immigration and Migration




When I look around this country that has new people from other countries coming in, whether legal or illegal because the governmental system of their original country is not working. Of course that is not only happening here in the US but other countries also. Every week people are moving and changing countries, seeking to improve their lives. If things work out they stay and we call them immigrants.



These people are willing to leave behind their parents, aunts and uncles, their cousins and their friends; they make many sacrifices to uproot their children and adjust to a new culture and language. Emigrating gives them no guarantees of security or permanency, but they risk it anyway.




Although this country is attractive to many of these people, the system here is failing a lot of families. They live on the edge of survival, anxious and disheartened about the future.

There are so many stories of hardships you can find several new ones on the news every night.




Even the best forms of government that people have decided are not working all that well. The very countries that are attracting the most immigrants have a lot of problems. For example, countries built on the ideology of free enterprise and capitalism have produced one of the highest extremes of rich and poor people, along with the problems such as crime that come with that disparity in wealth.




I believe that our system of government is one of the best, but our safety nets have a lot of holes in them. Almost everybody is living on borrowed money, and they are chasing their tails trying to pay it back. Part of the reason is that democracy itself is built on distrust. That is why we have the “separation of powers” in the branches of government and that is why almost everything turns into a power struggle. Most new laws or improvements come with a downside.




Desire For A Better Country




Sometimes I think the Most High is laughing at the governing authorities as they strive to make impossible situations better. In fact, I know He is. Look at this Psalm:



Psalm 2:1-2, 4-6 King James Version (KJV) 1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.




Built into human nature is this desire for a better county. Yet no county we have ever had in the world can measure up to the King’s country.




This search for a better country is in vain if you limit your search to the countries on the face of the Earth. In fact, the national situation from country to country is so changeable these days that the sooner you shift your allegiance to the only country that will never fail you, the better. We need to follow our desire for a better country straight to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a good thing that there is such a thing as dual citizenship, because that is what you and I are going to have to settle for as long as we are living on this planet.




As long as your citizenship is on the Earth alone, you can be only as secure as the country you belong to. Changing your immigration status and adopting Kingdom citizenship along with your earthly citizenship is the sole way to truly improve your lot. “My Most High shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Yahusha HaMaschiach” (Philippians 4:19), wrote the apostle Paul. The King is the richest of the rich, and the people who step under His kingship can expect nothing but the best and the most consistent provision, starting immediately.




Aliens




Immigrants are aliens. Not aliens from outer space, but rather people who came to the host country as strangers, often alone and often without many resources.




The Bible says that Abraham considered himself an alien. So did Moses. Along with him, so did Joshua and Caleb. Centuries later, Esther was an alien in the nation where she was queen. Deborah was an alien. Isaiah was an alien. What it comes down to is that we are all aliens. None of us came from here; we were sent here from someplace else.




In the letter to the Hebrews, we find a paragraph that looks back through history. It is about faith, but it is also about aliens. Look at what it says:
Hebrews 11:13-16 King James Version (KJV) 13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. 15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had the opportunity to have returned. 16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.




You and I are like them--citizens of a heavenly country, but aliens from the point of view of the Earth. We are people who happen to be located on Earth for the time being. At one time, we were separate from HaMashiach, excluded from “citizenship” and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without the Most High in the world. But now in Yahusha HaMashiach you were once far away and have been brought near by the blood of Mashiach. (Ephesians 2:12-13)




Nevermind what country you live in; none of them will be an improvement over your main country, which is Heaven. So although you may be a citizen in good standing where you live, you are also an alien there.




We need to recognize this fact before we have to find it out the hard way, migrating from place to place in search of the right one. You know as well as I do that sometimes migration does not solve a thing. One of the biggest failure stories in the Bible is the story of the Prodigal Son, told in Luke chapter 15. It is a story about a willful migration, broken hearts, regret, and repentance. Like all of Yahusha’s parables, it is ultimately a story about the Kingdom. Here’s how the story goes.




A widower had two sons who were young men. The younger son demanded his half of his father’s estate and he took off for another country, expecting to find a better life there. Once he got there he squandered his money foolishly and brought himself to ruin. Not only that, but the country he was living in started to have a famine. He was desperate, so this Jewish boy hired himself out to a local pig farmer, who made him carry pig slop all day long. He was hungry, and that made him even more desperate. Finally, he came to his senses and realized that he would have to eat his pride and return to his father, from who he had fled.




This is a lot like the human condition, don’t you think? Starting with Adam, we have willfully removed ourselves from our Abba’s house, even though the earthly country we find ourselves in is in famine, relatively speaking. The best the world can give us is pig food, and not enough of that. We can’t trust the jobs we have or the supply of resources. No matter how wealthy the world looks on the surface, it is bankrupt.




The young man set his face toward home, rehearsing to himself what he would say when he met his father again.

“I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants’” (Luke 15:18-19)

But he never got to finish his little speech, because his father was so glad to have him back. The father quickly ordered up the best robe and new sandals for his feet and put a ring on his finger. He told the servants to kill the calf they had been fattening for slaughter and to throw a big party to welcome home the son. The father restored his younger son to full sonship status in spite of all he had done.




If you know the story, you know that the older brother did not like this at all. In fact, he was angry about it. It is similar to what happens in our churches sometimes, when hardworking, loyal church members feel unrewarded for all of their efforts and refuse to celebrate when someone they perceive as a slacker gets too much attention. This older brother was legalistic and judgemental.




He had always tried to do everything his father told him to but he never expected any party--and in his jealousy he was determined not to participate at his undeserving brother’s welcome-home party. He did not realize that he was every bit as foolish as his younger brother, but in a less obvious way. He did not know that the Most High is not impressed by his lifelong hard work, even if it was in the Most High’s (or his father’s) name.




Of course most of us do not want to identify ourselves with the older brother, but what it comes down to is that we are a lot like him after all. How does this apply to the Kingdom of the Most High? Our Father, the King, is always welcoming his sons back, and we need to get used to it. Better still, we need to become better aware of our own status as a son in the Kingdom, so we do not have to run away to find out we left something good, and so we can live to the fullest as Kingdom citizens right here and now.




Once You Were Far Away




You and I are aliens either way. I know which kind of alien I want to be, how about you? I want to be an alien in my earthly country because of my Kingdom citizenship, and not the other way around. This is a very real choice and the Bible talks about it in so many words.




As soon as you and I receive our citizenship paper from Yahusha HaMashiach, we are restored back to heavenly citizenship status. From then on we will be aliens and foreigners in our earthly country, but we do not mind.

Our objective now becomes learning a new way to live. We have been restored not only in a legal sense to full citizenship, but also, like the son in the story. To full family status as well. It takes a while to unlearn a familiar culture and to learn a new one. In our case, we need to learn to live by faith instead of by sight. All our lives, we have been conditioned to live by sight. When problems come up, we look for solutions and we worry lest we fail to find them. We lose our jobs and we panic. We get a dire medical diagnosis and we despair. It can take years to learn a new way of thinking--which is the way of thinking that we were meant for all along.




In our original state, we were not worriers. Kingdom people live by discerning and faith, not by their five human senses and their wits. Nothing could be farther from the truth, because we have come back to our family. Not only have we obtained new constitutional rights, we have got the Most High who is Echad!! He welcomes us with open arms, regardless of where we have come from, taking care of us.




Our pig-yard rags get exchanged for new garments, and --assuming we decide to stick around the abide by the rules this time--we can have everything we need, forever. We have obtained not only our legal citizenship rights but much more, because we are related to our Abba.




Once you are back in the Kingdom, you no longer have to worry about anything. Every problem will be solved by our Abba.




Once you are back in the Kingdom, you no longer have to worry about anything. Every problem will be solved by your Abba’s government. All the wealth is common. It is a great country. Oh, and I should mention that the currency in your country is love. Everything gets paid for by love. Faith works by love in Kingdom country (Galatians 5:6).




Illegal Immigrants In The Church




Now to counterbalance that good news, I have some serious news for you: not everyone who seems to be a citizen of the Kingdom is one. It can be quite a shock to discover that one place you thought Kingdom citizens would not feel like aliens, in the church. Which is not much different from everywhere else. In fact, the church is full of illegal immigrants, people who do not even know that they are only pretending to be Kingdom citizens. They carry Bibles, dress up in nice clothes, and act nice. But they are illegal because they do not have Kingdom passports.




The biggest illegal immigrant that Yahusha ever met was Nicodemus, the Pharisee. (John 3:1-21) If you will remember, Pharisees were religious specialists. They dressed right for the job; they prayed many times a day; organized services. But when Nicodemus met Yahusha, he had one question: “How do I enter your country?” He knew he was missing something.




Yahusha told him about being born again, and we will talk more about that in the next chapter. But for now I just want to point out how many Nicodemus's we have in our churches. They perform their religious duties well, but they have no relationship with Abba. They talk the talk, but they have not switched their citizenship to the Kingdom.




They are a little bit like people who go to the Bahamas and try to act like the local people to fit in. They walk down Bay Street in front of the government buildings. They buy something from a shop. They eat some Bahamian food. They try to talk like a Bahamian, ‘yeah mon…’ but none of that brings them even close to being a Bahamian citizen.




Some of these church people have been religious for a long time, but they have not changed kingdoms yet. Others may have been born again at some point, but they have not moved into thinking like citizens of their new country. They need to investigate what it means to become legal immigrants in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is never too late but the sooner they do it, the better.

THE POWER OF CITIZENS KNOWLEDGE

Genesis chapter 4










Today we are walking in: The Power Of Citizens Knowledge







Today we look to the word-KNOWLEDGE- H847 da'ath--knowledge, perception, skill, discernment







The Torah testifies.....................




Exodus 31:3




And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom,and in understanding, and in knowledge, H1847 andin all manner of workmanship,






The prophets proclaim..................




Isaiah 33:6




And wisdom and knowledge H1847 shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.









The writings bear witness.............



Job 34:2




Hear my words, O ye wise men; and give ear unto me, ye that have knowledge.







The Power of Citizens’ Knowledge




You can have a PhD in everything and still be stupid. It is not enough to learn information and understand it. You have to know how to apply what you have learned if you want to gain the highest level, which is wisdom.

In other words the secret to a full life is not getting more knowledge of facts. People think they can get happiness if only they can learn enough truth. The Bible has this to say about such people who are, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Knowledge by itself, even when the information is not false, but true, is only the first step on the way to wisdom.




Knowledge is important, however, because it does need to come first. You need knowledge in order to get understanding and comprehension. Finally after you have grown in both knowledge and understanding, you are ready for wisdom.




Not only is wisdom the highest of the three, it leads us straight to the throne room of the Kingdom of the Most High. Another verse in the Bible puts it this way: “Yahusha HaMashiach, who of the Most High is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30). Notice it does not say that Yahusha HaMashiach is made unto us knowledge. Knowledge is only step number one. Yahusha HaMashiach is made unto us wisdom because His presence leads us into the full application of all truth and righteousness, in which our knowledge can come into play.




Knowledge Comes First




The fundamental importance of knowledge can be illustrated by a well-known story, Here is another version of it:




An elderly couple won first prize in a raffle: a free ten day cruise. They had never been on a cruise before. In fact, they had never been anywhere, and they did not know anything about travelling. They had lived in the same dirty little house for decades and they had always pinched their pennies.




When they found out that they had won, they were so embarrassed. They did not know what to do. So they packed up a pitiful bundle of clothes, went down to the dock, and boarded the cruise ship. They showed their tickets, and the ticket-taker let them in. The man and his wife wandered around the decks of the ship, just taking everything in. They had never seen so much beauty. They had never seen people dressed so well. They had never seen so much activity. They had never used an elevator before.




They were shown to their cabin which was on one of the highest decks, second from the top. When they got into their room they touched their bed. They touched the floor. They ran their hands along the wall. They looked through the window and just stood there in amazement, It was like Heaven.




After they had settled in, they took out some crackers and cheese and packets of Kool-Aid. They mixed up a cool drink and just sat on the bed looking out the window as they ate. They were so excited to be on the ship.




Day after day it was the same. They would peep out of their door at all the well dressed passengers running past and they would close the door again and say, “Yippee! This is wonderful!” They would look out the window and see the ocean and say “Oh this is just like Heaven.” And they would enjoy some of their crackers and cheese and drink some of their Kool-Aid for breakfast, lunch and dinner three times a day.




After five days passed the captain became concerned. Two more days passed and he had never seen them in the dining room. Nobody had seen them at the clubs, at the shows or anywhere on the decks. What had happened to those two people? He thought that they had probably died there.




On the ninth day, the captain became so uneasy about them that he sent one of his assistants to check on the couple. He knocked on the door. “Come in!” There they were, sitting on the floor on a sheet from the bed, eating on the floor.




Wrappers from their crackers and cheese were all over the floor. They smiled up at him. “We are so thrilled to be on this ship. Thank you all, sir for showing us your hospitality.”




The assistant just stood there in the doorway in shock. He did not know what to say when he realized that these people had never left their room for nine days.




Finally, he gulped and said, “Excuse me, madam and sir, were you in this room all along?”




“Yes, we are so happy. Thank you so much for allowing us to have this room. It’s been wonderful.”




He caught his breath and asked, “You never came down for breakfast, lunch or dinner?”




“Oh, no, you see, we couldn’t afford that. We are just glad to be on board.”




He said, “You never came out of the room to enjoy the entertainment and extras?”




“Oh, no! We could not afford that, either.”




Realizing something was wrong the man asked to see their tickets. “Yes, sir,” the woman said as she went to her purse, took out her ticket, and handed it to him.




He looked at the ticket and said, “Didn’t you read your ticket? Didn’t you realize that your ticket gave you access to everything on the ship: all the food you can eat, all the clubs, all the games, all the swimming pools, all the Jacuzzis, all of the spas, all the saunas? You could have had everything, for free….”




But by the time they finished talking, the ship came back to the dock. It was too late. They did not know in time.




When I first heard that story, it reminded me of the Most High’s cry to humanity in the book of Hosea: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge--chapter 4 verse 6. I thought of the Kingdom of the Most High, because it is the same with the most of us, where the Kingdom is concerned. We do not know much of anything about it, even those of us who know we have got a free ticket. So we sell ourselves far short of all that the Kingdom offers. We skip right over the words of the Bible that explain the many ways the Kingdom works. We are as ignorant as new babies about the citizenship we have just been born into.




Now when you and I were real babies, we certainly did not know anything at all about our citizenship. Being born here in the United States, I did not know a thing about the country for a long time. I was just a baby, blank. After a while, I began to learn things. As time went on, I began to understand what it meant to be a citizen of the United States. It took a long time to understand my citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.




How many people go their whole lives without understanding their country, Heaven? Too many do not even know there is something to know about it. They could enjoy full citizenship, but they know nothing about how it works, what rights and privileges it brings, nothing about it’s laws. They stay ignorant all their lives and live on the equivalent of cheese and crackers.




My desire is for everybody to throw their cheese and crackers overboard and walk down to the buffet so you can enjoy the journey as much as the destination. The whole Kingdom is at your disposal: did you know?




Law And The Prophets Fulfilled




All the knowledge contained in the pages of the Old Testament could not fulfill the Most High’s promises of restoration of the Kingdom until Yahusha came. As soon as He drew His first human breath, that knowledge--much of which was prophetic foreknowledge--began to grow full of wisdom. Yahusha explained: “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).




The Law and the Prophets were not superseded when the King arrived on the planet’ they were fulfilled in Him. They represented the knowledge about the Kingdom, and Yahusha brought the application of that knowledge.




If you skim the various books of the Old Testament, you will understand what I am saying here. Start with the ‘big five’ books, which are known as the Pentateuch (meaning “five books”): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In these books, the ceremonial laws that the Most High gave Moses are laid out in great detail. Next we come to the book of Joshua, which describes the people of Israel after they had come into the Promised Land. Joshua’s job was to settle the people and teach them the ways of the Most High’s Kingdom. As we proceed through the books of the Old Testament, the Kingdom story unfolds.




Every prophet, every judge and every king in the Scriptures had something to do with preparing the way for the coming of the King. The judges and kings (the Law) embodied justice and the divinely human rights of the Kingdom. The prophets glimpsed the future and pronounced that a Maschiach would come. Together, they represent the Law and the Prophets. Who were some of these people?




After the book of Joshua, the book of Judges gives us a picture about the judges of Israel, men and women like Deborah, who took over the army and routed the invading enemy to protect the people who were being attacked. All of the judges of Israel exercised their power to ascertain and establish the rights of the citizens of Israel. The short book of Ruth appears next because it describes the lineage of the Mashiach, naming His earthly ancestors. First and Second Kings introduces us to one of the greatest prophets of all time, Elijah and his disciple Elisha. Both of them demonstrated the extreme power of the Kingdom of the Most High more than the other prophets did. In fact, Elijah came to represent the very term “prophet” better than anybody else, just as Moses represented the term “law.”

First and Second Samuel gives us a look at that time when people of Israel started asking for their first king. The Most High wanted them to wait because He would be their King, but they would not wait. They wanted to have an earthly king like the other nations did. The prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be king, but Saul did not carry the crown with honor. Next came King David who pleased the Most High and ruled a long time, giving us many illustrations of the Kingdom of the Most High. The psalms of David wrote about are all about Kingdom living. (Psalms are songs that show us how glorious the Most High, the King is.) Besides establishing a kingdom that would become the model for understanding the Kingdom of Heaven, David himself was part of the lineage of the Mashiach.

Even the two books of Chronicles, which records the history of the political and military activities throughout the years, give us some insights into the Kingdom. When we read 1 and 2 Chronicles, we learn about good kings and bad kings, that worked out well and kings that did not, kings pleased the Most High and kings that failed to please Him, kings that built cities and kings that destroyed them. The kings became so corrupt that the Most High began to send a series of prophets. Starting with the book of the prophet Ezra, we hear a common theme. It goes something like this: “Even though your kings and your countries are messed up, there is another King coming. He will set things right.”




In the midst of all the kings and prophets, we have the book of Nehemiah, which is a book of restoration and hope. Nehemiah was neither a king or prophet, but he was a strong leader who fulfilled a vision to rebuild the city of the Most High, Jerusalem. His accomplishments have never been equalled.




Not only do we see kings in the books of the Old Testament, we also see some queens. Queen Esther was one of the greatest leaders in history, male or female, and she exercised her authority well to preserve the seed of the Mashiach. He was going to come through the nation of Israel, and Esther preserved the people, who were in the minority at the time, from utter annihilation.




The book of Job is an unusual one. In terms of Kingdom, Job teaches us that no matter what the Most High does, He is right. His Kingdom cannot be stopped by adverse conditions or by human stubbornness. Job shows us that the Kingdom of the Most High is durable.




The book of Job is followed by King David’s book of Psalms, after which was written by King Solomon, the son of King David. He wrote the book of Proverbs to show readers how the Kingdom life is supposed to be. Tradition tells us that he also wrote the book of Ecclesiaties, which makes fun of the way people try to live without the Most High. The summary of that book would read something like this: “Everything is a meaningless waste of time, except obedience to the Most High. Live the Most High’s way and you will live a long life.” The third of Solomon’s books is called the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs, and it is a long poem about the love between a man and a woman. In total contradiction, King Solomon did not follow his own advice even though it has been preserved for us in the Bible. He lost his kingdom because of his own sin. His loss does not contradict the knowledge and wisdom of the books he wrote for us. It only underlines for us the reality that the Kingdom of the Most High is based on righteousness because if you decide to ignore the King’s instructions, you will lose what He has given you.




After Solomon, the Most High stopped using kings to explain His Kingdom; from that time forward He used the prophets exclusively to tell people about it. We have seventeen separate books, most of which were named after prophets whose words are in the books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (also written by Jeremiah), Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. These prophets demonstrated the power of the King even as they predicted the coming of the Maschaiach.




The book of the prophet Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, and it ends with the announcement:
Malachi 4:4-6 King James Version (KJV)

4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

The Most High was closing out all of the centuries of prophecies by saying, “There is someone coming before Me to introduce Me to everybody.” He was referring to John the Baptist, who would announce the Maschaich, Yahusha, and who would come in the tradition of the great Elijah.

This is how all of the books of the Old Testament, from Joshua to Malachi, deal with the announcement of the coming King. They saw ahead into the future and they announced the Kingdom.




After Yahusah did come, live and work on earth for thirty-three years, suffer crucifixion and rise from the grave, He was walking down a road with some of His old friends. At first they did not recognize Him, because of course they thought that He was dead. As they walked, He went through the Scriptures with them, explaining, probably in more depth than before, that the early scriptures had to do with the coming Maschiach. When He finished, their eyes were opened and they realized He was the one talking with them. (This account can be found in Luke 24:13-34).




The Law and the Prophets

Yahusha had established these lines of connection well before that time. I have always been highly interested in something that happened on what we now call the Mount of Transfiguration. (This account is told in three of the Gospel books Matthew 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9). Yahusha took three of his disciples up on a mountain, While they were with Him up there, who should appear out of the air by Moses and Elijah, who had long been dead.




Why those two? Because they represent the Law and the Prophets the most completely. Yahusha did not take His disciples up on the mountain in order to show off His power. He went to have a meeting to pick up the baton. He went to close two books so He could open another. As He said in Luke 16:16, the Law and the Prophets were preached from the time of Moses to the time of Yahusha’s forerunner John the Baptist. Those are the only two things that could have been preached. But they pointed toward the Kingdom, which arrived on the scene with the Son of the Most High, Yahusha.




In other words, everything before John was reference notes. When Yahusha came the Law and the Prophets. He was fulfilling them. The law-givers, law-keepers and the prophets had fulfilled their duty. They had completed their assignments. The Law and the Prophets are vitally important, because they lead up to something greater, the Son of the Most High Himself. Yahusha said:
Matthew 5:17-20 King James Version (KJV)

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.



The Application of the Law and the Prophets

Yahusha came to earth to set the people of the Earth back on course by bringing His Kingdom, to fulfill all of the predictions and the foreshadowings that had come since the time of Adam. The prophets had spoken about a coming King. All of the earlier earthly judges and kings had portrayed Him to some extent. Suddenly He was here, and He won back men and women everywhere, inviting them to become His brethren, citizens of the Kingdom in the fullest sense.



Far from being as limited in scope and power as a new religion, His mission was to restore the Heaven, to the Earth. He came to render the application of the Law and the Prophets, to bring divine wisdom where only knowledge and understanding has been before. Here, listed for you, is a list of what Yahusha’s coming means for us. Yahusha came to Earth: to restore the government of the Most High. Isaiah 9:6-7 King James Version (KJV)

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

*to bring back to Earth the laws of that government. Every country is built on laws. The Kingdom is built on the Most High’s law as given to Moses.

*to bring the values of Heaven. Every colony reflects the values and culture of its parent government, and the Kingdom of the Most High is no exception.

*to bring the citizenship of Heaven. Once you get citizenship you get all the others and once you get all the others, you have citizenship.



So when Yahusha said to the people, “Repent, for the Kingdom of the Most High has arrived” (Matthew 4:17) He was saying, “Change your thinking, because another country has come back to Earth. It used to be here when Adam was alive, but Adam got rid of it. The prophets have been telling you that I would be coming, and now I have come. The reason I came is to bring that country back. That country is called the kingdom of Heaven.”



Adam’s Loss, Yahusha’s Gain

Because of what Adam did, human beings lost touch with the lifestyle of Heaven. Instead of living the high life, they started living the low life. Instead of living a life free from sickness, they became prone to sickness Instead of living a life above depression, people live under it. Humans lost the lifestyle that Adam and Eve had enjoyed in the Garden.



I am convinced that Adam never used to worry. Probably, he used to talk to the trees, walk on water, and speak to the fish. Why not? He had dominion over them. And when the Second Adam came, bringing back the original government of the Most High, He too spoke to trees, walked on water and spoke to fish.



When Adam sinned, the Most High consigned him and his children to toil in difficulties:
Genesis 3:17-19 King James Version (KJV)

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.



Yahusha turned this around. He modeled a stress-free (sweat-free) life. He showed us that in the Kingdom lifestyle there is no pressure to give you high blood pressure. When the men fished all night and caught nothing, He willed fish into their nets (Luke 5). When we wanted to get rid of an unproductive tree, He did not have to sweat and use an ax to cut it down. He just said to it, “You will die,” and the tree withered overnight (Matthew 21:18-22). When His men were in a boat that was sinking in a storm, He walked on water to save them. (Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:16-21). He had complete dominion over the fish and the trees and the storms and everything else. And that is just part of what it means to have Kingdom dominion.



Knowing Constitutional Rights



Before you can step into dominion you need to know the ways of the Kingdom. The first kind of knowledge you need is a knowledge of your constitutional rights in this new country. What rights have you been guaranteed under this government? How can you expect your life to be? How should you behave; what laws do you need to know about?



Because the Bible is like the constitution of the Kingdom of the Most High, that is where we need to go to find out our constitutional rights. The Bible is like a contract or a covenant between the King and His citizens, and it tells us how to maintain our legal status. Of course we cannot follow its guidelines if we do not know what it says.



This can be a problem in any country. Have you ever read the constitution of your own country? The average person never does it. We have no idea what is rightfully ours, so we can’t even argue for our rights for a legal standpoint. We do not even know when we have been deprived of something that belongs to us by law. (Have you noticed that most politicians are lawyers? They know something that the rest of us don’t know, and they use that to their advantage.)



A person who knows the law cannot be manipulated, and this applies to the Kingdom of Most High just as much as it does to other countries. The greatest example of this occured when the hasatan tested Yahusha in the wilderness. How did Yahusha win? He quotes Scripture. (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-3.) He did not resort to rebuking the hasatan or binding him or casting him out. He just spoke a few words from the book of Deuteronomy and whipped the tempter.



The reason Yahusha knew what to say is because He had immersed Himself in the written Word of the Most High and the Spirit brought the rights words to His mind when He needed them, just as the Spirit can do with us if we too read the Bible often and with understanding. Reading the Bible gives you legal power.



Prosperity Guaranteed



Knowing what the Bible says will keep you from taking matters into your own hands. It will help you to trust the King to take care of you. Most of us have been raised in a society that teaches us to depend on nobody but ourselves. We learn how to protect ourselves and how to hang on to what we own. We find it hard to submit to any, and we do now want anybody else to run our lives. When we come into the Kingdom of the Most High, we must change our minds and hearts or Yahusha can’t really help us very much. Yes, we pray and ask Him for help--and then we got to help ourselves. Our contingency plans are proof of the power of the spirit of independence. We pray and then we answer our own prayers. That is our old culture.



Yet dependence is to our prosperity. Remember how Yahausha condemned the man in the parable who said “I have made myself rich! I must build more barns to hold my wealth.” (Luke 12:16-21) Knowing what the Bible really says--is the key to our dependency.



When I say that, I am not advocating the prosperity doctrine that some people preach. You can’t just “name it and claim it” because you happen to want something nice. There is no such thing in the Bible as a prosperity doctrine. Yahusha never taught prosperity. He never had to, because in the Kingdom, it is irrelevant.



In the Kingdom, prosperity is a byproduct. When we seek first the Kingdom, all the things we need in order to prosper and flourish will be supplied for us. Getting into the Kingdom comes first, and that places you in a position of completed dependence.



This bothers people, especially us Americans, who see dependence on the Most High as a copout. We do not appreciate the value of dependency. We do not understand that the lower you go before the King, the higher He lifts you. The lower you go, the more He exalts you. The Most High is the King of the Universe. He owns it. The more you humble yourself before the Owner, the more you can expect to be exalted. Yahusha said, Matthew 23:12 King James Version (KJV)

12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.



You know why more miracles happen in countries where the spirit of independence is not strong? Because in those countries, people do not have an alternative Excedrin to take. When you get a headache in a remote village in Africa, you need the Most High. You can’t get medical help. But in independent-minded cultures, miracles do not happen as often, because people have their own contingency plan in their back pockets in case prayer does not work. When your trust level is low, your Kingdom life will be almost zero.



Stability Guaranteed



Those of us who have lived in the Caribbean know what happens when hurricanes come through. The only tree that does not fall is the palm tree. When the wind rips every other tree out of the ground by its roots, the palm tree will just bend down, even touch the ground, and come back up like an elastic band.



In the same way, citizens of the Kingdom, the people who have been planted in Kingdom soil will flourish in any kind of difficult circumstances. They are “the righteous,” the ones who know the right way to live, the way of Kingdom:
Psalm 92:12-13 King James Version (KJV)

12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.



When economic problems come and wipe out everybody else, the Kingdom citizen will bounce back. Kingdom citizens are under a different system of government that works for them. Kingdom citzens are like the Hebrews that the Most High took out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 7-11). The Most High made the plagues attack all of the people who were not His chosen people. He can do that because He owns everything. He can tell a locust to eat only the crops of the Egyptians and not the crops of their slaves. To them as well as us, the Most High says, “If you obey me, I will be your Most High God.”
Exodus 15:26 King James Version (KJV)

26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.