THE BENEFITS OF KINGDOM CITIZENSHIP

John chapter 15








Today we are walking in: The Benefits Of Kingdom Citizenship












Numbers 24:7


He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom H4467 shall be exalted.





KINGDOM



Today we look to the word-KINGDOM- H4467 mamlâkâh, (mam-law-kaw') -dominion, (abstractly) the estate (rule) or (concretely) the country (realm):—kingdom, king's, reign, royal



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


Exodus 19:6


And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.


Numbers 32:33


And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, and unto half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom H4467 of Sihon king of the Amorites, and the kingdom H4467 of Og king of Bashan, the land, with the cities thereof in the coasts, even the cities of the country round about.


Deuteronomy 17:18


And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, H4467 that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:




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


1 Samuel 10:18


And said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, H4467 and of them that oppressed you:



Isaiah 9:7


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.




Jeremiah 18:9


And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom H4467, to build and to plant it;







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



1 Kings 9:5


Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom H4467 upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.



1 Chronicles 17:11


And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom H4467.


Psalm 145:13


Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.





You are a citizen of a country on Earth, and I hope you are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Remember that your citizenship does not mean only that the government is responsible for taking care of you, but that you have a responsibility to the government as well. It is a two-way street, and the traffic goes both ways. Just as it is for you as a citizen of your earthly country, so also in the Kingdom of Yah are you held accountable to the government by means of its constitution, in this case, the Bible. You can be a much happier and more productive citizen when you understand your responsibilities. Sad to say, many people do not want to shoulder their responsibilities. They are glad Yah has saved them, but they do not necessarily want to obey Him. They do not understand that their obedience is a way of expressing their appreciation. Yahashua Hamashiach Himself put it concisely: “If you love Me, keep My commandments”. They also fail to acknowledge that the rights that they enjoy as citizens, while they cannot be earned because they have been given as privileges, must be maintained through simple obedience to the laws of the land. Are you with me? So, When you become a citizen of a country, the laws of that country automatically become your laws. As you submit to those laws, you submit to the authority of the government. Listen to me! By submitting to the laws, you are free to remain in the country for a long time, to move around the country for pleasure or business, and to enjoy the protections and privileges of citizenship. You Break even one of those laws, however, and your freedoms will be curtailed. If you have transgressed in a significant way, you may be incarcerated in prison. You may be deprived of your passport. You may be required to go through a long process before you can be reinstated as a free citizen. Jails are filled with irresponsible citizens who did not take responsibility for keeping the law. Citizenship manifests the contract between the government and the people. The key to enjoying the privileges that come with citizenship is personal obedience to the laws of the country. So these are the facts, if you are part of the country called the Kingdom of Heaven: You are a citizen with legal rights to benefit from the constitution of Yah. You have personal rights and authority to exercise your power as a citizen through alignment with constitutional law. What I just said is the clincher. The secret to wielding authority in the Kingdom is aligning yourself with the laws of the country, in other words, obedience. You obey Yah for the sake of your life here and now. This is the Kingdom lifestyle, and maintaining it is your responsibility. Authority is a good thing, and you never outgrow your need for it. Can you imagine a plant saying this to the soil? “That is enough. You have been holding me down for all these years. I’m out of here, and I am taking my root with me.” What would happen if a plant did that? It would die, sooner than later. The absence of authority brings self-destruction. Just like Fish were created to submit to water. If a fish decides to move out from under its authority, you do not need to punish it, because it will die. The safest place for the fish to be is submitted. Surely you have seen a fish out of water. It gasps and flips and flops, trying as hard as it can to get back into water. I know people like that. They try this and that and wonder why nothing is working. When young people leave home too early, life can be very tough for a long time. It is the same principle. It is time to get back under authority. Part of submission to authority is patience. When we fly, sometimes I listen to the pilot talking on the radio. That man needs to be completely submitted to authority. If the control tower tells him he cannot land yet, he goes into a holding pattern. His flight plan is very specific. He cannot deviate from it twelve inches in any direction without getting permission. He may not be able to see any other aircraft around him, but the people in the tower can see all of them, coming and going. The authorities over us keep us from crashing into each other if we obey their directives. Freedom has boundaries, always. In the Kingdom, if the King says, “You are free to eat from any other tree, but do not eat from this tree,” He has good reasons. Disobedience is not the best way to find out about the repercussions. We like to be around powerful people, but we need to ask ourselves, “Is this person’s power under authority?” Power combines ability and energy and force, while authority is the right and permission to use that power. Authority is the right to use power effectively, not because you could, but because you should. Authority makes power legal. This is so good I hope you’re getting it. So, authority is more important than power. Teenagers may have the power to leave home, but they do not yet have the authority to leave. A person may be very aggressive and loud in speaking, but if they do not have authority, their words will not carry weight.Submission to authority is what makes a person effective. One time a military officer came to see Yahashua on behalf of his servant who was lying at home, paralyzed and suffering. Yahashua was willing to accompany him to his home in order to help the servant, but the man declined his offer. The centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Yahusha heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And Yahusha said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. Notice how the centurion addressed Yahashua. He called him “Lord,” which indicates that he honored His authority. “Lord” is a legal term, not a religious term. It means “owner”. In that culture, you would use that word for king. The centurion’s military experience gave him a more complete understanding of the way authority works. He was completely submitted to the Roamn emperor and any other commanders who ranked above him. He had at least a hundred soldiers who reported directly to him (The title “centurion” is related to the word “century”, which indicates one hundred.) Probably he has been watching Yahshua as he worked in the village. He may have seen Him healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons. Obviously, this man knew Yahashua had power. Obviously some higher authority was guiding Him. He knew that a person’s performance depended upon his obedience to the instructions he had been given. Stay with me. So he made the leap from his natural observation to faith and Yahashua was impressed with that, declaring that the servant was already being healed, and commending the centurion to the people around them. A distance away, the paralyzed servant got up from his mat, healed and whole, without Yahashua ever having had to make the trip to his house. If any of us want to experience Yah’s best for our lives, we must get positioned properly which is to say under authority and our entraties will be heard and answered.