Several years ago while filling the role of pastor in the local church I met with people who were in some kind of trouble every day. In the open meetings I had told the people over and over about how God by his Son and his Holy Spirit had come to my rescue hundreds of times. In my marriage, business, my job, friends, really difficult things where I did not know what to do! I always told them that He would do the same for them too. Because of the very idea of being a child of the King, Over the years with Jesus, I have become a person who has learned in life not to take “no” for an answer to what this world tries to offer me. I am always amazed how many times the Lord’s word spoken through me or my children overcomes really big obstacles just because we back up again and give things the extra “push”.

Those desperate people who came to the pastor’s office to look for answers to their difficult problems were really honestly searching for what to do. But as we talked, I kept hearing people say “well, ya know, God is still in control” or “why did God allow this?” Then they went on to tell me why the thing that they were praying for or the other disappointment in their life had fallen through and cheated them of God’s best. But, “Oh well, God is control.”

In 1988, a ministry associate of mine wrote a paper for a pastors association we both worked with. She called it “Study for Leaders”. It is a simple one-page list of attributes of these two words and how the patterns of control really operate through God’s enemy, not Him even though God could take control of literally everything in the universe at any moment he chose. I summed it up as simply the cry of a culture that had lost touch with the concept of authority.

The American culture of the 1980’s began to see the erosion of the foundation of authority that built the U.S. I had grown up around authority, gone to military school as a boy and worked in corporate America, so I had come to expect everyone to just understand this principle. I was wrong. As I observed people interacting with life, especially their little children, it was obvious they had no personal ability to operate in authority with the simplest things. Often rare assertive personalities would come along grasp the operation of authority…but it was often mixed with ego or anger. I stood in a doorway at Kmart for about 5 minutes while a mother attempted to coerce plead, beg and negotiate with a 3 year old who did not want to go to the car. I stood watching this amazing spectacle just to see how long she would tolerate the child’s resistance to her.

In the 60’s there began a strong wave of resistance brewing in the nation’s schools and colleges to resist authority at any cost. That was producing a generation of people who “questioned authority” just as the popular bumper sticker of the 80’s proclaimed. Worse yet, they even were beginning to suspect those who had any office of authority and teach hatred for them. This seemed to be a complimentary wave of thought that fit in with feminist movements, radical politicians, and people who felt in some way left out by our culture. They seemed to focus on a confusion of authority and abuse of power. Since there are always some good examples of abuse those got the attention. The other 98% who were handling their responsibilities well didn’t sell news and so the writers and reporters just ignored the good people. Even in the late 80’s it was really fascinating to see a rather small woman principal of a high school where almost nothing got around her authority and peace reigned in a school of over a thousand kids. Good examples were everywhere at one time.

This really bothered me because I could see immediately that this confusion was causing people to miss their own personal authority as believers in Jesus and losing ground daily in life’s spiritual battles. While at the same time a larger issue was building around the idea that “God is in control”: That larger issue was that the people who actually believed this twist were beginning to sound more and more like victims to everything. That fit with another major wave in the culture- Victim Mentality. If you reason this out in its most simple form this companion idea says that if God is in control, we have none at all. We are just little worms (created in his image?) who have nothing to do with our outcomes! Conveniently, we have no responsibility for what happens either.

I finally got irritated enough in my spirit and started to really search the scriptures and ask God for his ideas on how to help us.

Since earliest ages God has been given such bad press because his children really misrepresent Him. I found that God has truly been misrepresented again in this era by thousands of preachers, and popular Christian songs who innocently blast out this message on national TV and radio and recorded media. Just because we missed the significance of this principle in the scriptures. Just for fun, try telling the Iranian cab driver God is in control. Or the fireman’s wife from NYFD whose husband did not survive 9/11 that God is the one behind that! No wonder the world thinks God is such an untrustworthy beast. I have been at funerals and met the kids of believers who said “whatever that god thing was about with my dad is not for me”. When the people of God represent our father like this- it is no wonder that our neighbors have no interest in doing what we are doing!

As I studied this, I found that most people say this mantra about God because they are trying to communicate that he is sovereign. They say that when they are facing trials and they want to get the idea over that He is bigger than these little world situations and most of all somehow He has an answer. And they are right in their head but their mouth is betraying them.

Now the point. Go re-read the first chapters of Genesis. Look at the amazing sweep of authority God was attempting to invest in Adam. If you look close God reveals his role of not controller, but initiator and a giving father. The reality is: he gave Adam and his descendants the whole world! The whole enchilada man! Just a small problem though – he lost it. The entire Old Testament is stories about living in the environment of “the fall”. So on with the sequence- Adam fell, his offspring were born fallen and most of all they were forced to submit to their new master who took the keys from Adam – Satan. If you haven’t discovered yet, Satan or Lucifer the fallen one is the real author of destruction and death and he hates you.
What a mess! What are we going to do?

But cheer up! Jesus the messiah came to get it ALL back. But now comes the missing pieces….very few of God’s children who have come to know his son by the new birth understand all the pieces they are missing. We know it should be better here, and we who have left all and followed Jesus should have a more victorious life…and on and on. The church has made up all kinds of apologies for why uncle Elbert died of cancer. And mom died of this and you are dying of something else! We are really great at apologizing and explaining why our prayers don’t work! And God is in control? Really?

Uh, this God desires you die to leave your little kids on the street and your spouse to work it out some way…really? This is THE God? Or maybe it is “a” god. Maybe your god is asleep like Elijah told the boys on Mount Carmel about theirs? No, what is asleep is our belief system. Most of the Church has never really put the whole picture together.

Jesus is graphically represented in at least a hundred movies as the suffering savior who went to the cross. He still hangs pathetically on the Catholic cross. But most of us didn’t get the whole transaction down that happened in just 3 days. Since you can read for yourself I’ll just give you the punch line- He got the keys back! He raised from the dead! He made a show of Satan openly. (Col 2:18) He toured the city with many dead saints that he rescued and showed himself to anyone who needed to see…and left a written legacy that has survived 2000 years of attempts to hide the truth.

Appropriation
You see God is really into authority, not control. He left us more in control here than He is. YES, if He decided today to change any of this or to fulfill some of his prophecies about the end of things…bye, bye! He can override anything at anytime. But he plays by the judicial rules. The ones he made to begin with and He will not violate them. He is truly the final word in the universe. But that is not our problem. The problem is: what is going down until he does pull the time plug? While we still have time to labor. Should we be like some of my friends in the 70’s who ran up their credit cards because they thought He was going to come next year and take them with him? He said we were to make his enemies his footstool! *What does that look like? It surely isn’t paying 30% interest on credit cards to some heathen. It isn’t bowing to sickness and disease and begging for health care. It isn’t doing most things that Christians do just living because they don’t know what else to do. I have listened to saint after saint tell me blood curdling stories about exploitation and destruction of their lives and families only to hear them say “why didn’t God do something” or “When is he going to help me?”

Let’s add some new pieces:
We didn’t understand that the Son Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father until the enemies are made a stool for his feet. He won’t come do it! He ain’t moving! The angels are not going to do it because they are assigned as our servants to help us do it! **The bible calls us the “heirs of salvation”. This is about appropriation. Everything that came via the cross and resurrection has to be appropriated! When I met Jesus I only knew how to appropriate my salvation. Soon thereafter I learned he was a healer…but Jesus didn’t run me down and force me to get healed. I had to do something to make it happen. We are supposed to bring the rule of God into this earth and most of the church doesn’t even know that Heaven is still waiting on us! We don’t even know we are the rightful heir. My African mentor, Benson Idahosa would say Welch! Heaven has been waiting for 2000 years!

While he was here, Jesus barely mentioned being born again, but boy did we get that! Thousands of churches will preach this message to other Christians again this week who are already born again! Jesus talked more about the Kingdom than a lot of other stuff we insist on preaching. The word “kingdom” appears 119 times in the Gospels in my bible and its always in a conversation with Jesus. Maybe we don’t seem to get the impact of what a Kingdom is-
• It has a king
• It has subjects (people)
• It has a domain (like lands or property)
• The king rules (government)
• The king has enforcement (armies, etc.)
• Every thing in the kingdom is subject to the rule of the king.

To accomplish that God has given authority to accomplish was what Jesus preached. He intended The Church (not religion) to complete this work. Just in case we misunderstood he gave an little example of the kingdom coming:

Matt. 12:28 -
“But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” Satan and his demons had ruled over man for thousands of years. People ran from demoniacs - they are dangerous. Jesus came to them and brought the rule of the kingdom over them. It was no EXORCISM. Jesus was not laboring, chanting, ranting or raving. By ruling the spirits and the spiritual world, he enforced peace for the people who he touched. Rule means the ability to have supreme command over, and the ability to make law and enforce it. The book of Hebrews firmly established Jesus as the high priest. Jesus told John the apostle about a coming kingdom of priests. (They are not going to rule heaven, God needs no help with that) The priesthood of the believer has been demonstrated every time a man or woman of God has taken up the mantle and stood against darkness. That differs greatly from ruling and standing over other people. Religion controls and rules the people. The priestly saint rules over darkness. When this kingdom of God arises, darkness flees the world systems. No, don’t go visualizing a new world system, just priests who are also kings right now where we are.

Is God a ruler? Absolutely! Am I saying that man is more powerful than God? No! The only question is how He (God) has chosen to rule. It is the prerogative of the king to say who carries out his rule. God has chosen mankind. (even you might qualify)

Jesus has made it possible for you to be one of his kings. Should you choose to accept this mission. If you are not sure that you qualify or know that you are not one of these new creation people just click here.

*Hebrews 10:13
** Hebrews 1:14