So this week I have been at the HTB Leadership Conference. God has laid some huge things on my heart over the last couple of months. I have been wrestling with a lot of things the most obvious being what is next? my Internship ends this summer and I don't really know what is next but I have the big picture now which I didn't six months ago. At the conference one speaker Stephen Furtick said this ' if you are not intimidated by your dreams then God is insulted.
God is insulted by dreams we know we can achieve in our own strength one of the other speakers said this ( I think it was Pete Greig) we need to pray for the inevitable then when it happens thank god for it because that will really annoy the atheists!
I have been thinking a lot recently about that whole Kingdom of me Kingdom of God thing. So the story of the kingdom of me goes like this. In the kingdom of me I am queen(or king if you're a guy) what I say goes and no one else matters or is allowed to have a say in how my life is run because I am totally in control it is absolute monarchy. In this kingdom you are on all the stamps and banknotes and coinage. The currency is I and the coin denomination is me.
But if we overturn ourselves to the kingdom of God then its not absolute monarchy its not a constitutional monarchy its a conquering by Christ and he is in charge as prince we offer ourselves to his empire we become a colony. So we still have our integrity and respect but we are under imperial power and rule now by the only emperor who matters which is Christ Jesus.
A lot of us - well me included - thought that its ok for there to be a constitutional monarchy in their kingdom the kingdom is God's but we rule all the day to day decisions God can do the big stuff but the little stuff that is still my domain, God is the king but we are the prime minister. But that is not what God wants us to be because well it comes down to Glory as most things seem to be with our generation. if God is the nominal figure head how is he really sovereign like if our Queen said "right on friday I would like everyone to wear Purple" the government would never pass or allow that decision and it would quietly be forgotten... see power matters and influence if we don't give God power over every aspect of our lives how can we see real change?
But Allie, what has this to do with glory? Well see if we do stuff in our own strength we feel we deserve the glory - that is only natural. but if God is totally in charge with all the power and resources then of course he deserves the glory when things go well... So in joining God's kingdom is colonisation into his empire this is why because in imperial systems its not about individual countries each has their own part to add to the might of the empire and the emperor is sovereign of all equally.
It does have its limitations as an analogy/vision like the fact that every empire has its flagship country the one that becomes the model or benefactor for the rest. In this case it is Jesus; but also most opinions on imperial rule say colonisation was not Good for the countries colonised. did you know that the British put in most of the infrastructure that still exists in what are now commonwealth countries like the train system etc and that the Romans brought infrastructure with them when they colonised like the road network and aqueducts I am not saying it was all good because it wasn't but this is a different kind of empire and yes the natives sometimes rebel against the emperor we do that too but we are under grace.
So here is the question if you were to visit that place that is your kingdom, where your choices are made and your power and influence are deployed whose face would be on the coinage? do your everyday decisions and needs come down to prayer and God's will or your own?
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