WHERE DOES YOUR LIFE AND MINISTRY BEGIN? Men and women who aspire to ministry in an answer of the call of God on their lives must come back to Jesus first, to learn [the] message from Him and they must become thoroughly rooted and grounded in an understanding of the Kingdom of God or they cannot adequately represent God on His terms. Many of us have substituted Jesus specific instructions to His disciples to preach the same Kingdom message Jesus himself preached, with the idea that we are to preach whatever we feel inspired to preach. What makes this reality even more challenging is that God will indeed use what you preach to reach as many as He can, but could you just imagine for a moment what it would be like if we all believed Jesus instruction to His disciples in Matthew 28:18-20? Matthew 28:18-20King James Version (KJV) 18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Of course we ALL are pretty much acquainted with the above verse right? You would even just about stake your claim on the fact that you KNOW this verse right? Weve been calling the above verse the Great Commission and have commonly referred to this verse as the quintessential soul winning verse, or should I say, the verse for soul winners. But here is what weve all missed if you will be honest in this reading. What we missed is the [A] part of verse 20. Let me quote it here for you in its context. Verse 20, (A) Teaching them to observe ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU:... My friends let us not forget who Jesus was talking to. He was talking to His own disciples, those who He named Apostles who He had previously sent to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, these same disciples who had become experienced in casting out devils, healing the sick and preaching the Kingdom of God. Therefore it stands to reason that Jesus must have certainly intended that everything He taught the disciples they were now to teach the people. You cannot do that successfully without preaching, teaching and demonstrating the Kingdom of God just as Jesus did previously and instructed the disciples to do in the early course of their ministry training. Many of todays so-called apostles focus has been on concepts like Restoration of Apostles and Prophets, and Apostolic Succession and Spiritual Fathering but these same leaders have virtually no substantive conversation regarding the Kingdom of God, what it is, the urgency of the Kingdom message, its purpose or priority in the life of the minister or the people who are being ministered to. Another interesting reality of ministry today is that so much preaching is about some ministers favorite topic like grace or faith, or prosperity or healing. We are even calling so-called apostles as being apostles of faith or prosperity or apostles of grace, etc.... I have even received invitations to various ministers consecration service where they were being elevated to the office of apostle. Then there are those who see themselves as being designated of God to be spiritual fathers over other members, even over regions and territories and yet a great number of these leaders are only repeating the same errors theyve learned from ministers that they admire because there is something about that admired minister and/or that organization that resonates with the follower. And indeed every group can use scripture to support their belief and when there is no scripture to adequately support these leaders or the groups they represent then those who they lead are expected to just go along because the the leader said and everyone is just to follow the leader no matter what. What we are now learning is that Jesus never came to bring us a religion, not even the religion of Christianity as most of us have come to know it. The first century Church never called themselves Christians. Those who were onlookers, observers of this new sect, furious heathens, many incensed that the followers of Jesus were going here and there acting like just like Jesus, named Jesus followers Christians. Consequently, today we have many people who graduate Bible School, Bible College, University, even Seminary but almost all of their theology they learned from those individuals, various teachers, mentors, professors and other leaders they trusted to know more about Jesus and the work and ways of God than the aspiring Bible student did. And yet the universal theology of the Christian Church almost unanimously agrees on the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and His substitutionary sacrifice for our sins as attested to by the scriptures and reinforced by the instructions of our leaders and sermons from the pastors the world over. No one would readily disagree with the plan of salvation and what it really means to be Born Again. If you profess Christianity you most certainly agree to the gospel of salvation and the means by which we all became Born Again. You believed in your heart and confessed out of your mouth the Lord Jesus and you became saved. From our experience of salvation we set out on a quest to know God better and to be followers of Jesus, right? And you most likely began to experience Jesus and the leadership of the Holy Spirit in so many ways.....but there was something missing. We failed to come back to Jesus according to the scriptures and learn from Him the gospel that He came preaching and as a result weve been laboring with correct yet incomplete doctrine and what weve created is a religion of our own making and have not preached the message Jesus preached, advancing Gods Kingdom throughout the nations of the world. Lets take a look at Mathew 28:20(A) again. Jesus said to His disciples who became Apostles, He said; Teaching them to observe ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU:... Beloved, if youve read this far then perhaps you are getting my point. We learned everything about salvation, about Christianity, many of us even attended schools of the prophets, paid our tuition to become more sensitive to the presence of our spiritual gifts and to covet that we would be able to prophesy, but we never learned the Kingdom message Jesus preached and commanded to be preached until the end comes. Matthew 24:14King James Version (KJV) 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. We took the word gospel to mean any good news we found in the word of God as being the same as preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and therefore if we preached the good news that Jesus saves, then we were preaching the Great Commission. Beloved when Jesus sent them to teach all things whatsoever Jesus had commanded He most certainly intended that they would preach everything Jesus had commanded concerning the present and eternal Kingdom of God. Without Jesus preached doctrine of the Kingdom the blind have led the blind and many continue to fall in the ditch all the while getting their praise dance on and looking for a spiritual breakthrough, after all, God is faithful and your season is coming. In other words, while we call Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords we never really learned His Kingdom message, what the Kingdom is and is not and what is to be the urgency, power and priority of our Kingdom citizenship as we respond to the great Kingdom message Jesus came preaching. The Kingdom is the royal rule, reign, dominion, authority and active rule of God, over a people, over a territory, impacting them with His will, as He produces a culture of Kingdom citizens who are sons and daughters of the most High, who together with Christ, the Holy Spirit and the operation of God, advance the Kingdom throughout the nations of the world, by preaching the same Kingdom message Jesus preached while living the culture of the Kingdom that becomes manifest in all who submit to the reign of God as Supreme King. How much do you know about the Kingdom of God? What is the definition of the Kingdom according to the words of Jesus in the gospels? Did Peter and the other disciples preach the Kingdom? What verses tell you that the disciples understood the Kingdom of God? What did Paul preach to those who visited him when he was under house arrest? How often does your pastor teach about the Kingdom of God, what it is, how it operates and what your responsibility is as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ? How many verses do you yourself know concerning the Kingdom of God? You see, as a follower of Jesus, one who gives heed to the instructions found in the word of God, you must admit that we are called to try the spirits to see if they are of God and we are to try apostles to know whether they are authentic or not. We are trained by the word of God to prove all things. Both Jesus and Paul warned that there would be false prophets and teachers that would arise and that there would be false apostles. Paul warned that there would be many who depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. So I am here to tell you that no matter how well versed you are in Bible stories and how great your oratorical skill in delivering your message to the people, and no matter that you flow in the apostolic and prophetic, if you do not know, understand, preach, teach and demonstrate the Kingdom of God on Gods terms then you are not adequately equipped to represent the Kingdom of God, beseeching men and women to be reconciled back to God as one who is pleading with others, while standing as though Christ Himself was standing before them. Again the heart cry of heaven towards those God has chose for Himself is a heart cry for men and women to understand the doctrine of the Kingdom that Jesus came preaching, and that each man and woman would preach the same Kingdom message Jesus and the disciples preached. As we seek first Gods Kingdom and righteousness not only will the provision of the Father come over to us for whatever we need, even those things that the Gentiles seek, but we will also experience such a life changing, supernatural transformation from the inside out, that it will be like becoming born again, again. Only in this Kingdom transformation and reformation of the Church as weve come to know it, will we experience the whole counsel of God and truly be about our Fathers business just as Jesus was about His Fathers business. For the anointed man or woman of God, the Kingdom must become priority to you in your studies and most important, in your daily living, and your preaching. When the good news that the Kingdom has arrived is preached people begin to realize that Jesus did not come to bring them a religion but that Jesus came to bring them a government in which God is Supreme King and Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords and we were all brought into the royal family of God and made a nation of kingly priests who serve with God in reconciling man back to God and restoring to mankind the dominion, the Kingdom God had given to Adam at the first. Jesus said that unless you become as a child and are converted you will in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God. He also said that there were those who were dull of hearing, who had hardness of heart who could not perceive and therefore could not be converted and healed through the Kingdom message Jesus came preaching. If youve made it this far in your reading only one question should loom in your hearts and minds. That question is; Will you now begin to study the Kingdom of God and His righteousness as though your spiritual life depended on it? Remember, according to Jesus declared message of who would enter into the eternal Kingdom and who would not, Jesus said that there will be those who come to Him calling him Lord, lord but they dont do the things that He says do. Jesus said that they do not give heed to the words of the Father even though they prophesy in Jesus name and cast out devils, and do many miraculous works, Jesus will call them iniquity or lawless and they will not enter into the eternal Kingdom. Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness..... Through the New Birth life in the Kingdom AND ministry starts with making priority what God makes priority. Ambassador, Dr. Leonard Robinson 267-357-9816
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:21:22 +0000
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