This blog comes from a sermon I spoke on the radio in Rwanda this weekend. I was able to speak on the local christian radio station. This was an incredible experience that I will never forget. I didn’t write out the whole sermon but I wanted to share what I spoke to the people of this beautiful country!!
I want to tell you a little bit about a prophecy that was spoken over me the day I was born. My name was supposed to be Grace after my sweet great grandmother. & my parents have this funny story about the moment the saw me. I was loud, strong and a little crazy. They said, there is no way we can name her after sweet quiet and gentle Grace. Let’s name her Regan. This is a family name, also the name of a very famous President in America.
I love learning the meaning of people’s names and I love that here in Rwanda the church or families give “Kinrawadian” names or “christian” names to people that believe in Christ. (My kinrawadian name is Mugisha which means blessed). I think these names are so significant because it prophecies over who they are and how God sees them. Well my name Regan which means regal, or royalty. As I have gotten older I have started to seek out more what this means for me. Am I going to marry a prince? No probably not? Do I want my future husband to treat me like a Queen? Yes. But what does this really mean for my life and how does God see me as royalty?
Today my blog is about how we are called by God to reign in life. This blog is about how we are all royalty.
Let me begin with the story of the Kings in Israels history.
It started with King Saul, the Israelites insisted that they could have a king but unfortunately there was no one ready, no one had been groomed by God to be King yet.
Saul was the best that Israel had to offer. As they insisted a king, God released an anointing and a grace for him to be a good king. The beginning years he rose with humility, great zeal, and he used his position well.
Through time he lost that grace, he gave it up through personal sin and began to manipulate his position. He ended in a shipwreck. He abandon his role. So the Lord raised up David. While Saul was still King David was being prepared by God to become King.
Saul was jealous of David because David had such favor.
David knew what Gods presence was like. He went from following the sheep to becoming King of Israel. Typically Shepards don’t follow sheep, but the point is that in order to be a good King you have to be aware of the people around you.
So the Lord began to groom him, to become the King he desired.
Saul spent 10 years trying to kill David. Saul inherited the position ungroomed, and David inherited the position very groomed.
10-13 years of someone trying to kill you helps to prepare you to be a unique leader. Many can read this story and say that God never intended for the Israelites to have a king and that God was supposed to be their one true king, but I believe that is not true.
When the Lord spoke to Abraham, the father of faith, who would come Issac. God told him, and from your offspring I will raise up kings.
But our definition of royalty, is almost always self serving. Our view of kings are always sustaining their own wealth and life. Israel had some good kings but Jesus came to show us a fresh perspective on what a good king looks like. Jesus came to bring a fresh revelation of what royalty is like from his perspective.
He did that because his intention for every believer was royalty. He designed for every believer to be a king of the earth. When we think about everyone being a king, it can sound self serving and self promoting. When we see that Jesus was a perfect example and is a perfect king, we can look at the example of when Jesus took a towel and washed his disciples feet. That was a servant act and he was illustrating what a real king looked like from Gods perspective. Everything he did models what a real king does.
We are to rule with the heart of a servant and serve with a heart of a king.
God is redefining this issue and this is because he has an intention for you life. That we would take our right place as royalty that uses the unlimited resources of heaven for the well being of the people around us.
See a King doesn’t listen to a problem in his kingdom and wonder who will fix it.
A king faces a problem knowing he has the authority and the resources to solve anything that comes his way.
When someone comes to you, kings know we don’t pass the problem up. Jesus illustrated what it was to be a king by addressing every problem that was before him because we are drawing fro the unlimited resources of Heaven.
We are supposed to train a generation with an awareness that as we serve Christ we have access to unlimited resources for anything or everything he has called us to do. Whether its an anointing to do a miracle, a word of wisdom, or finances for a call that he has put us on our life. The point is that Kings don’t think with the same limitations that everybody else in the kingdom lives with. God has called us to be kings and priests.
I know that The Lord has desired from the beginning that people, would have there identity in the one who called us to himself for salvation. None of us can have our identity built around our title or our function or our gift, or what we have the most power in. These things do not define you. They are privileged functions but they are not the thing that God uses to release identity. Our identity is entirely in the one who called us to salvation.
So what I have learned personally when trying to imply this to my life is that I will not be able to reign in my life if I have things holding me back. Those “things” include bitterness, forgiveness or hatred. When I have hard feelings towards someone, they don’t just effect me spiritually but physically. I know that if I want to be an impactful King, I have to have a clear heart and mind that lets me see others clearly too.
I also know that the most important place for me to rule first, is my internal world. I know I need to treat myself kindly, to manage my emotions and understand myself and how I feel before anything else. I know that it is important for me to have the same mindset that Christ has. To take on the way he views money, relationships and family. I need to value his opinion on these things before I take into account my own.
So here is this responsibility to view who we are through his eyes. In Romans chp 8 there is a place where he says all things work together for our good. Then it says nothing can separate us from Gods love. He goes through a list of things that cant separate us and one of them is things present and things to come.
Then we can look at 1st corinthians 2 and 3. And in the end of 3 I picture myself sitting informant of a lawyer while he reads off the last will, everything I will inherit after Jesus death.
The lawyer says, you inherit the world.
The whole thing?
Yeah it’s all yours. We are responsible for taking care of the planet.
Then the lawyer says life is yours and oh now death belongs to you.
That is what I am inheriting, life and death?
Then he says things present and things to come.
What does that even mean things to come?
How can you own in the present what is not yet? T
hat hurts my head to think about.
So in both these chapters the writer says you own things present and things to come. But something was omitted. The past. You don’t have access to the past because it has been purchased.
Anytime we revisit the events of yesterday apart from the blood of Jesus we are visiting something that is no longer true. We open ourselves to a spirit of deception because we are no longer in the condition we remember it. The beginning place in the shift in identity starts right there. You have the present and the future, but you don’t have the past because it has been purchased by the blood of Jesus. It no longer has a voice to haunt you, cripple you. It doesn’t have authority over you because it was bought.
You would never sell a car to someone and then find a spare key to it and go to their driveway and take it for a spin. The point is, its not yours. Your past is not yours.
So identity in christ begins at that place. Learning to reign in life is to see our life today through that lens. Everything up until this point is covered by the blood of Jesus and it will not be used against me, it is in his possession to be used on my behalf.
So here we have an issue of our past, bitterness and hatred and all the things. But remember the Lords prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. Notice what he did. He linked together our ongoing need for forgiveness with our responsibility to be an ongoing forgiver. He put the two in the same breath because we can never operate the two.
But some people say “you don’t know what they have done to me. & I know some people have experienced horrific things that I cant possibly imagine. But here is the deal, my sin against a perfect God is much greater than my sin against an imperfect person. He forgave me and created the standard that must be maintained to illustrate, yes I reign in life.
Reigning in life, also means reigning in every area. Two areas that we often find ruling over us is relationships and finances. When you reign in life money doesn’t rule over you, you rule over money. This doesn’t control me. Once it controls me it becomes the master that I serve. I cant afford to have my soul reigned over by this. It is the quickest way to poverty of soul, to serve money. In relationships we are not controlled by the latest opinion of that family member. We are not manipulated or governed by peoples opinions because you are reigning in life.
Everybody is designed to reign in life. If you feel you are not in that position, know that it is in your inheritance and that all you need to do is readjust your thinking to be open to what God has made available to us.
