Kingdom Reset by the King
Kingdom Reset by the KingThe Day of Pentecost is not the birthday of the Ecclesia. It is the reset of the kingdom of God. However, this reset that produced a functional kingdom culture and subsequent kingdom ekklesia captures our imaginations in many valid ways. It should.
So, picture with me a kingdom culture lead by twelve apostolic representatives, chosen by the Father, given to Jesus for preparation, tested by real-life rejection, sifted by satanic pressure, shocked by internal betrayal, and empowered by Overshadowing Glory.
Picture these twelve apostles establishing the kingdom reset with a kingdom culture, “Training them to obey all I have commanded you.” Baptizing every new citizen into a new lifestyle in the Name of the Triune God of the kingdom of Heaven. With obvious Presence of God through Holy Spirit within the temples that make the Temple and the partnership of these apostles with the One who is involved Providentially with them in this commission until the time needed to complete its goal of “discipling nations wherever you go” reach ultimate.
Picture the people so passionate for this kingdom reset that they sell houses and lands – liquify assets of invested inheritances that have been in their family lines for generations – lay the coinage at the feet of the apostles in a very public way. They “devote” themselves to the apostles as leaders, to train them in kingdom culture, to take a personal share or stake in the kingdom reset, to enjoy one another at meal times, and devote themselves to the intercessory activities of a priesthood kingdom culture.
Picture the people experiencing daily power manifestations over disease, demons, and distractions. Picture people set free from lingering, chronic conditions. Picture the mouth-to-mouth communication of these announcements of kingdom reset in villages in all of Judea and Galilee. Picture thousands of males becoming kingdom citizens and entire Oikos populations of up to 100 people following these men into new allegiance to Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Picture the response of these apostles to the sudden influx of tens of thousands of souls. The ten thousand males tell us of more than forty thousand kingdom citizens in a region of about 500,000 stepping into devotion to the twelve apostles of Jesus the King in a short period. Picture these apostles devoting themselves to the devoted. They are training people in lifestyle and culture. They are training leaders to do what they do as apostles. They are training prophets, both young and old, to release revelatory messages. They are training shepherding leaders to care for those with sheep-life behaviors. They are training leaders like Philip the Evangel.
Picture these twelve leaders having a clear understanding of the leadership roles of each apostle, with Simon Peter restoring them after the sifting, and James the brother of Jesus participating with them because the eldering counsel of apostles has more than the Twelve in attendance. PIcture the moments they spend together, and the moments they are moving about doing their leadership training.
Picture with me the moments these apostles start “getting it” concerning the things they saw Jesus do and the messages they heard Jesus speak. Picture them explaining kingdom of Heaven realities, teaching people to pray a kingdom prayer, leading them in worship with music or with a style of music that had little to do with rock star platform performances. Picture them receiving tithe and offerings from tens of thousands of people that were used to perpetuate the expanding Kingdom Center operations. (Do not assume that they were running a feeding program because feeding people became an issue.) Picture the devoted to the devoted working definition including a genuine expression of “responding to need” as individuals treated one another as equal in kingdom citizenry while maintaining all appropriate cultural roles of leadership and honor.
Picture them meeting in buildings all over the region, led by apostles and leaders being trained to lead prayers and oversee meals as individuals contributed food so that none was left without a meal. Picture them using the Porch of Solomon at Herod’s Great Temple for mass meetings of thousands with apostles raising their voices to be heard, perhaps more than one voice speaking in the Temple areas. (Forget the ridiculous notion they had no buildings to use or that the ministry was only occurring in houses. “Houses” means Oikos complexes that could house hundreds and involved thousands, nothing like the three-bedroom domicile of the modern nuclear family in a suburb.)
Picture them responding to manifestations of demons and disease but maintaining order in the streets or buildings with authoritative voices. Picture the newly-saved responding with awe and honor that these men had been walking and living with the Jesus of Nazareth Who resurrected from among the dead.
Church Growthism
Unfortunately, church growthism responded to missiology from the point of view foreign to the kingdom of God. It was interested in “cross-cultural ministry” to the extreme. It became the precursor of seek-friendly sabotage. It recreated “church-anity” to accommodate a new goal for “church” that ignored the kingdom of God purposes, principles, processes, and protocols. It created its subculture.
It accommodated subcultural “church.” It defined success as the accumulation of believers with big, many, more, grow, and expand as more important than mature, lead, influence, represent, and empower. It defined its values so differently that the kingdom became a problem to the church. It said, “We value big, many, more, expand, and accumulation.” It said, “We need money to pay for managing leadership that maintains the immaturity of those accumulated, so they become comfortable in their dependency upon us.” It worked!
Recognize that church-anity has zero places for “die for what you believe.” It cannot cost you everything because it does not even want everything. It wants something that makes church an add-on feature of “a little American life.”
“To the death” stuff is reserved for parachurch ministry people, not for church members. It has no values that match the values of the kingdom. It has no principles that require an apostle or prophet. It has no processes that presuppose the King is actively involved in the intimate details of running His Ecclesia. It has no protocols of the kingdom, only protocols of the subcultural expression that it designs, defines, and determines by human leadership models borrowed from the enemies of the Father, the world system.
Picture now a New Era Reformation of the kingdom of God, a reset as powerful and pervasive as that which shook Jerusalem, Judea, and the uttermost parts of the Earth. Picture the overhaul of the present church-anity to the extent that regions find twenty percent of the population suddenly following a council of apostles who have an internal understanding of the roles and responsibilities of their apostolic assignments.
Go back and picture what Jesus set into place, capture that imagination, place it like a grid or overlay upon the region of your assignment, then consider what must take place in 2019 to see this schematic of the kingdom of God start to become a real-life expression of the kingdom Ecclesia.
- An immediate crisis of apostolic leadership would occur in which the false and fraudulent would be confronted by the authentic.
- Nearly 80% of the present churches would cease to exist. The building would empty. The ministry would close down. The leaders would stop functioning. They have no apostolic mandate or alignment with an apostolic council. Until they did, they would rejoin the newly-saved in devoting themselves to the same things the first kingdom citizens did.
- Meeting would look very different regarding content, emphasis, and outcomes. The need for devotion would be apparent. Commitment, surrender, submission, and honor to whom honor is due would become evident.
- Rebels would riot. Apostles would allow them to scream all they want somewhere else. Those that picketed the meetings would be a beacon of advertising for the Reformation, both expected and ignored.
“Exit the building quickly, so the door does not engage with the seat of your pants,” the apostles would say to hypocrites and mixed multitude groupies who refuse to change their lifestyles but claim to be citizens of the kingdom. “We will now deal with you as pagans and pray that you come into authentic kingdom life and lifestyle.”
A general house cleaning would occur that would appear as a tsunami in the spirit, a flood, earthquake, panic attack, or riot in the spirit. It would be the proper explanation of ten thousand prophetic visions, words, and dreams.
I am picturing this, here and now. I have no other picture in my mind. Would you like to join me?
