Our Team
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Good Day and welcome to your Kingdom Connection Devotional for Thursday- January 11th! If you been with me since the beginning of the week you may saying, who KNEW about the NEW??? LOL Unfortunately many "Christians" don't know about the New, which is why they can be converted to other faiths, die down in their relationship with God or never experience what is readily available for all of us. My prayer is that none of you will read these devotional and remain the same AT ALL. AND! I want to hear your testimonies.
Today, I want to ensure that no one is feeling overwhelmed or powerless about all of the Newness that should be or has happened in life. Yes we should all be born again. Yes we should all be desiring and learning the word of God and yes, our spirit man is supposed to be dominating our flesh and soul as we allow Christ to rule and reign as King of our hearts. He is THE BOSS!
Now if you're saying to yourself, "Ok. That makes sense, I think. So I'm going to do this zoe thing because it's what best for me and God wants it for me." Then you're only half way through your New You. I shared earlier in the week that God takes care of His creations. From the birds, to the lilies of the field to US. He is also a God of order. While we make a personal and individual decision to begin a new life in Him, we do not walk out this new life in Him alone.
Regardless of what people think and say about churches and pastors, they are both God's ideas and blessings from Him. They are both vital in keeping individual connected to God in the order and manner God established.
Jesus prophesied in Matthew 16:17 that He would build His church. The church is not the Pastors' nor does it belong to the people who attend. It also isn't for the poor or people with problems to just leech off of whenever they see fit. The church is Christ's extension of His Kingdom here in the earth realm. While He is in heaven sitting at the right hand of the Father, He saw fit to establish locations for His citizens or sheep to be cared for, taught and equipped.
Remember, Christ is a King. He therefore has a Kingdom. It's spiritual and undetectable by the flesh and natural eye but it exists. The way that it is represented on the earth is through His church(es). These may also be referred to as embassies. Just as when we visit foreign countries and the U.S. has its' representation on the soil of another country, Christ is doing the same with His church. Now, governing the embassy, just as we see in the natural, are ambassadors. Paul explains in II Corinthians 5: 20 that we, (those who are presented by Christ according to Ephesians 4: 8-11) are ambassadors for Christ and it is as though God is making His appeal through them.
Remember, no one can call Jesus Lord except He be revealed to them. We don't just come up with Him being Lord; it has to be presented, heard and then embraced. Delegates of the embassy have to share the gospel and ambassadors have to equip the delegates. Ambassadors commit to studying and learning God's word at very deep levels and never allow anything or anyone interfere. It is a true calling. It is an arresting of their heart, and it is mad crazy to resist. The more ANY of us surrender our hearts and lives to the Lord, He bends, twists and tweeks it as He sees fits. This makes us long for and desire things in Him, even things we never thought were possible.
But today it should be clear that your walk with God is to be assisted. Christ provided the place and hand selected the people to do it. They are called Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers according to Ephesians 4:11. II Corinthians 12:28 lists the Apostle, Prophet and then the Teacher.
We must understand that Kingdoms aren't established, built and maintained haphazardly. No, Christ came and inaugurated His Kingdom, as we discussed last week. Then He appointed officers, which are gifts or presents from Him, to oversee His representation in the earth realm. His presence and His people are of the utmost importance to Him so it is important to understand the role of His gifts:
The Apostle is called to establish churches (build them/plant them) and doctrine. This office is to ensure we learn what the Bible really says and means. This office has the greatest authority of the 5 because they oversee and provide the greatest grooming, guidance and confirmation of appointments to the other offices. Apostles are "affirmed" by other Apostles as we see throughout the book of Acts.
The next office is that of the Prophet. This is office that speaks to nations, kings, and bodies of people on behalf of God. He shows them where they are off and the consequences that will occur if repentance does not happen. Many of us think Prophets are here to tell us our birthday, phone number and when we will meet a spouse. We ignorantly reduce them to wizards and warlocks for our personal "bios" and many of them accept that role for financial gain and security for their personal "bios"