WHEN HEAVEN COLONIZES EARTH. THE KINGDOM MANIFESTO Prepare for what comes after Christianity The stone that struck the image became a great mountain that filled the whole earth. (Dan. 2:35) Of the increase of His Government there shall be no end (Isa. 9:7) THE AUTHOR, WOLFGANG SIMSON, CLAIMS NO COPYRIGHT THIS MATERIAL CAN BE DISTRIBUTED FREELY, BUT NEVER SOLD CONTENTS: What is God’s vision of us? (page 2) What hinders it? (page 5) What is the Kingdom of God? (page 13) The 20 differences between Kingdom and Christianity (page 20) Kingdom Singularity (page 21) The solution: What do we do? (page 36) When Heaven colonizes earth (page 42) The Re-Invention of the World (page 46) Next Steps (page 48) When Heaven colonizes Earth Jesus taught people to pray: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10). If God’s will is done on earth, it is fair to say that a bit of heaven has arrived on earth. The Bible describes heaven, amongst other things, as a storehouse of originals and blueprints that wait to be accessed, literally downloaded and put into practice on earth. It is said about Moses: See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain (Heb 8:5). How much heaven there is on earth depends on how much heaven finds a welcoming space here. Those that yield and align themselves to the will of God, the political, legal and economic dimensions of the Kingship of Christ, will become the conduit and vessels through which heaven begins to colonize earth. This process has four steps: 1) INDIVIDUAL. Those that accept the political, legal and economic requirements become and remain individual Kingdom citizens. They are now under command and direction of the King and cannot anymore do what they want, but are obliged to do their King’s bidding. Their first nationality is in heaven – while they may carry a second passport of far lesser importance, as they happen to live in countries like India, China, USA, the Republic of South Africa or Germany. For religious Christians, this would require a complete repatriation from religious licentious- and kinglessness. A Kingdom citizen is not just a believer in the sense that he is a passive member of a religious group – he is a disciple. A disciple is a person under a master, a subject, including the discipline of his master. Jesus has defined at least three minimum requirements for a disciple: selflessness, carrying his cross, giving up everything (Lk 14:26-33). In the words of Argentinean Bible teacher Victor Lorenzo (London): If you wake up in the morning and have no people to defer to, who’s burden you carry, whom you regard higher than yourself and for whom you care more than for yourself, you are not in any biblical fellowship at all! 2) MARRIAGE & FAMILY. A unique window available to mankind to closely watch and observe the beautiful relationship of husband and wife is marriage. This is why marriage is supposed to be a piece of heaven on earth, where a husband, himself submitted to Christ, loves his wife just like Christ loved the church, who, in turn, submits to him in love and respect. If we lose this precious picture and it is shattered at the hands of domineering, unbroken and uncrucified men brutalizing and patronizing their women, or in the name of 42 equality or gender mainstreaming, all is lost right there. But if marriage is a prophetic reflection of the Kingdom theme of Jesus marrying his bride, children and other members of the household will be happy to reflect this spirit in obedience and respect (see 1 Tim 3:1-13; Titus 1:6-11). 3) KINGDOM HOUSEHOLDS. When several Kingdom citizens congregate to share life locally, it becomes a Kingdom House, an embassy of the Kingdom, a revolutionary cell of sorts, where Acts 2:42-47; Acts 4:32-37, 1 Cor 12-14 and the one-anothers of the New Testament are practiced as a minimum requirement. The Bible summarizes life according to the Law of Christ like this: Carry each other’s burden, and in this way you will fulfill the Law of Christ (Gal 6:2). Such a Kingdom House is not a home group or cell group that meets for two hours on a Wednesday night to conduct a small version of a church service. The Kingdom is about life, not religious programs. You live it, or you don’t. Just as an embassy is a sovereign territory on foreign soil, such a Kingdom House is a door to another world, where the life of the Kingdom is lived 24/7, through all ups and downs of life. It typically begins where people, in the name of Jesus Christ, open their house, their kitchen, their fridge, and share in the common wealth of the Kingdom in very practical manners right where they live. Because the Kingdom is open, such houses are open! This might include adopting orphans, singles, widows or widowers or simply lost sheep of humanity to come under this roof, extending the tent of parenthood to others. It can start with a few young people deciding to share life based on the three foundations of the Kingdom. It can start if a senior citizen in a sad, empty villa opens it up to be filled with life again. It can start anywhere where life happens – so long as Jesus is understood as the common King, Lawgiver and economic director. Then such a place is transformed into an Embassy of the Kingdom, where many will come, attracted like bees to the honey, to glean, participate and wonder how such a unique life is even possible. Once they find the secret, many will apply for their own citizenship in the Kingdom at such an embassy, not only touched by a message about heaven, but because they have found a house that changes the world, here on earth. 4) KINGDOM COLONY. When several Kingdom Houses connect with the King, each other and the turf he has placed them, this then starts a Colony of the Kingdom, the City on the Hill Jesus Christ spoke of in Mt 5:16. It represents “all the saints in Achaia” – the regional dimension of the Kingdom. This step particularly requires the presence or availability of apostolic and prophetic people to lay the foundations and provide the DNA for the household of God (Eph 2:20; 1 Cor 12:28). This colony would welcome as new members only those that accept the three basic requirements stated above as binding for themselves. Then every new member would be asked two questions: What do you bring – what do you need? Each member of such a colony has something to contribute – time, money, ideas, business ideas, connections, wisdom, special skills, humor, stories, and can serve the colony with whatever God has gifted him. Each member also has specific needs that can be met in the fellowship of such a Kingdom Colony. As there are no business transactions in the Kingdom of God (God is a Father, not a businessman), everyone will give and receive whatever he has to give and what he needs. If such a colony has dentists, doctors, electricians, bakers, gardeners, teachers, hunters and plumbers, these mutual services would be free for members of the colony. A communal way of life dramatically cuts down on costs. If each member starts to serve the other members with his contributions for free as well, costs are lowered even more dramatically. Over time, members of the colonies would become each other’s health insurance and pension plan. In their interaction with the outside world, people would still buy and sell, because people outside of the Kingdom may be good at receiving, but they may not be good at giving. In classical Christianity, the emphasis was on spiritual, not material sharing. That is why religious meetings became a place to exchange spiritual gifts like preaching, prophesying or teaching. Once sharing is applied to all of life, a far more holistic picture starts to emerge. In terms of numbers, this requires a certain threshold to gain traction and momentum. Insights from anthropology and sociology indicate that about 300 families are needed to start a culture. The Roman Empire, unlike empires before, believed in a military victory swallowing up provinces and nations into a Pax Romana. But then Rome would install a Roman governor in the new province to represent Roman government and build impressive buildings reminding people how great Rome really is. Most importantly, they would transplant about 300 families from all walks of life into the new province of the empire to model the superiority of Roman life. They believed that their culture was so much superior to the cultures of other nations that people simply needed to see this in order to believe it. If they can’t come to Rome, Rome would come to them, and model Roman life day in and day out, until people start to absorb that culture as the new standard and become Romans themselves, not by military power, but by persuasion. If you ever visited a place like Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a US-military installation near Kaiserslautern, you will find a fenced off and protected area, where, once you are inside, you find American supermarkets, schools, shops, cars, school systems, buses, and an entire airport. It is literally Little America on German ground. Every screw seems to be imported from America, even some of the drinking water is literally flown in from the US. If you immerse yourself in such a culture, you may forget that you are actually still in Germany. The place is full of American culture, American laws, and the American flag. This can be a picture of just what a colony of the Kingdom is: a place where the Kingship of Christ is observed, where the Law of Christ is valid over and above human law (“we must obey God more than men”), and where Kingdom economy is practiced. Such colonies will find ways of legally organizing themselves, be it as a cooperative, a micro nation, a business, a foundation, a trust, depending on the country that is their immediate context. Such Kingdom colonies will begin to connect with each other around the world and start to form a parallel way of life, becoming more and more independent – through their own farming, investments, education, health systems – from a world eaten up by greed, fear, war and control. They will not cut themselves off completely from their surrounding world like the Amish, some monasteries or the hermits of old, because they are not afraid of interaction. They know that greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). Such colonies will also serve as an apocalyptic version of the Ark of Noah, a divine counter-culture and parallel society that will still stand and swim, when all of humanity will be drowning as God switches into judgment mode. As the days are going to get tougher, and inflation, corruption, war and human drama will greatly increase, Kingdom Colonies will become places like Joseph’s storehouse in Egypt, where bread was found through the careful planning of Joseph, even when the whole Middle East was drowning in famine and starvation.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 05:18:07 +0000
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