KingSpeak: Get Your Story Straight

What story line do you see yourself and your family living in?  Is it a “late inning” story of survival and escape from a worsening world, or is it a story of triumph over darkness in an increasingly better planet? You may not realize it, but IT REALLY MATTERS!  The way you perceive the future greatly informs the way you live your life and influence those around you.

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Transcript

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It absolutely matters. The way you view the future, the storyline that you see yourself as being part of, because we're part of His Story, right? God has a storyline and he's doing something in the earth, and he's revealed a lot of that to us in scripture. And whatever our revelation of that is, it helps us to live a more focused and determined life and powerful life, the more we understand what that story is. But if we've been born into a storyline that says, for instance, we're the, the greatest basketball team, we're championship level, but what we're told we're, we're told all these things about how great we are as, as, as people, as basketball players. But we're in the fourth quarter of a game that we're down 30 points and there's only three minutes left. Uh, okay. So, you know, we're champions. So we're not gonna just, you know, give up and walk off, you know, take the ball and go home. We're gonna play out the game. But if someone then shows up and says, oh, no, no, the scoreboard's wrong, it's actually the first quarter. And yeah, we're down a few points, but we're gonna win this game, you know, like before the end of the season, we're gonna win the game. Now get back out there and play. You play at a different level. You play in a different way. If you have the mindset that we are part of a glorious, victorious kingdom on earth, that the prophet Isaiah said of the, the increase of it, the increase of the government and peace that comes from Jesus Christ's kingship, it will never end. Meaning it'll never stop increasing once, and in fact, the prophet goes on to say from this day forth, and of course he's referring to the day that a child is born and the son is

given Isaiah 9: 1:59

6, he goes from this day, forth, it will never stop increasing. And then he puts a seal on the bottom of it, and he says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. I mean, it's such a certain thing that we win, and not without battles and not without troubles, but you play the game differently. You live your life differently. If you, if you have an understanding that we're part of a kingdom now we're in a restoration process of the earth. What, what Adam gave up, what Jesus came and suffered as a man to get back for men. We've been, we've been born into that process, that story not as slaves, not as those that are surviving and hanging on. But as kings and priests, Revelation 5 says, we've been redeemed for this very purpose. So he could make us kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. So, so we are in a, we're in a program we're, we're part of a takeover that started at the cross and resurrection. And we don't do it by guns and by force, but we do it by living in his ways and, and with his presence in us. And it's like the little leaven Jesus explained that once it's put in the dough, it's until the whole loaf rises. And we're in this process, and understanding that you go from a mindset of "I'm somebody on the Titanic that's sinking, and my job is to pull as many souls off of the Titanic and get 'em in lifeboats before this thing goes down." Okay, that's great. Evangelism's great. But the other, the other way of viewing is no, I'm part of this ever increasing kingdom where the results of it and the fruit of it are actually righteousness and justice on the earth with real people, with nations singing praises to God. And, and we don't have to wait for the return of the king to do that. In fact, the king is seated at the right hand until we actually fulfill what we're here to do. So you, you approach life completely different when you get this paradigm shift. But, but people, and myself, I had to see it in the word of God. Okay, this isn't anything new, it's new for me. But what I'm discovering is that there's whole portions of the body of Christ that have always believed that way, that that haven't bought into this short term, going down in flames, sinking titanic, anti-Christ taken over, and then Jesus will come rescue us, or we go through the tribulation and then, you know, he comes back and we get glorified bodies That's not the the only way of viewing scripture. It's not, in fact, I would say it's not the narrative. It's not really the overall big picture narrative of scripture. And we've, most of us have bought into it because we weren't taught that there was any other way of looking at it. So what are the implications then of believing the other way of, you know, looking at things, whereas, you know, you are, you are coming to the table with a very hope-filled message. We're champions, were on the winning team. And then there are a lot of people that you know, and it's no fault of their own really, that they've been brought up with this, it's-all-gonna-burn sort of attitude. And so, you know, what does that look like? A life that believes one way versus the other? Well, I mean, I'll, I'll speak from my own experience because I, I fully 100% embraced that other, uh, way of looking at life. Because I mean, the Bible verses were all there, you know, it's a very well constructed theology. Um, but in, in the, in the past five years or so, as I've read the other hermaneutic, the other view of those same scriptures, I. Before you go any further, yeah. Would you please define, um, hermanutics for our younger viewers who may not know what that means. Thought you were gonna ask me to spell it.<Laugh>. No, I wouldn't. Yeah. So I'll just say this way, way of interpreting the body of scripture. Okay. Okay. So seeing how it all fits together and, and that's considering the context that it was given in the audience, that it was given in the language they used, the symbolisms they used. So, um, so that hermeneutic, what I've found is the, the one that I believed, and I, I mean, I really believed it. I find it now to be a whole lot of taken out of context passages and, and pasted together. And I mean, some things that to me are like, are, and we'll get into this in later conversations, but uh, violations. But the way that it affects the way you live is at the very least, you, you have a competing narrative going on inside of you. Because there's so many scriptures that talk about the resources we have as a believer, the power we have as a believer. I mean, just, uh, Ephesians chapter one, you know, Paul's great, uh, high priestly prayer I'll call it. But his, his prayer of, uh, Ephesians 1: 16-17, and 18, the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened that we may know. And it's kind of a, a Holy Spirit red pill. Like Paul's crying out to God, oh, if we could just see who we really are. And there's these passages, I mean, the ones that talk about like greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. And so here we are 2000 plus years later. And what does 'greater is He mean' in me? How about this one? Jesus said the works that I do, you know, including raising the dead, you know, healing the sick, preaching the gospel, opening the prison doors, opening blind eyes, setting people free, giving beauty for ashes. He goes, the works I do those works. You my followers in my Holy Spirit, you will do those same works. But then he said, and greater works will you do because I go to the Father. Hmm. And wow, Lord, what, what's the cause causal relationship between you going to the Father and us being able to do greater works than you did? And if people have, you know, people have talked about that, like, well, we'll do more miracles. There'll be a great outpouring of Holy Spirit power and miracles. Well, that would still be doing the works. Jesus did. So, so one of the zingers that the Lord gave me and and a few years ago was Isaiah 61, is where he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord is anointed me to preach good news. Jesus. That's the verse that Jesus, that's the passage Jesus pulled out in Luke 4 when it was his turn to read in the temple, as you recall. And he says, in this day, this, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, these are the works I do. But if you go back to Isaiah 61, it's, it's, it's incredible because it goes on to say, then they and the they, there are the people that have had the works of Jesus done on their behalf. They've been, they've been saved. They're the ones who were redeemed, healed, you know, out of prison. Now they can see they once were blind. So Jesus says those people, they then will be called those who get to escape and go to heaven when they die. It's not what it says. It says, they shall be called the oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. And it goes on to say, they shall restore, rebuild, they shall repair the ruined cities. It doesn't say they'll be, they'll have the future destiny to do these things. Once Jesus returns back to earth, he says, no, because you're redeemed. The moment you're redeemed, you are now, you have now been conscripted into the army of world fixers. Okay, fix this planet that got really busted up because the domain, the dominion that I gave you as humans in the first place back in the garden, you know, it got usurped. You turned it over. And then the enemy stepped in and gained that authority. And he had a legitimate authority when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness and said, all these kingdoms of the whole world, I'll give them to you if you bow. And Jesus, Jesus didn't argue with him that he had that authority, but Jesus knew he had to go another way because he had to go as a man. And he had to take the, he had to be the sacrifice. So back to Revelation, chapter five says that Jesus redeemed us from every tongue, tribe, people in nation, and made us kings and priests unto our God. And when we die, we get to go to heaven. Nope. Doesn't say that. It says, made us kings and priests unto our God, and we shall reign on the earth. So we are not going to be kings and priests. We are kings and priests, but we're under his headship. And it's our mission, it's our privilege, it's our dignity and it's our dispensation to enforce and walk out, not with guns and weapons, but to, to bring the kingdom of God, to bring the manifestation of it, the, the, the benefits of it to the planet, to the earth people. Right? And, and so that's a far cry different from escaping. So what that gives me is it gives me a, a, a hope for my, not only my life, but my kids, my grandkids. I think longer term I look at the institutions that need to be reformed. I look at the cities that need to be repaired, and I, there's nothing in me anymore that would say that we need him to return, that we need, you know, glorified bodies to fix the earth when the earth was given to man in the first place. And then, you know, there's psalms like Psalm 8 and Psalm 15 that talk about, you know, the heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth is given to the sons of men. So we are perfectly suited as human beings made in the image of God and especially redeemed and born of the spirit under the headship of Jesus. We are perfectly suited and equipped and resourced to solve any problem on planet earth. It sounds like good news to me. It's really good news. It's really good news, Andy. And, and it's, uh, it, it, it does, it changes everything. It changes the way you, it changes the way you look at a problem. You know, I I like to say, you know, a lot of things that under that other system that sees things going down and in decline and getting darker and darker, which can be proven that that's not the case. Just even through historical evidence and data, it's things are not getting darker on the planet. The planet is so much better to live in today than it was 2000 years ago. We'll get into that at a, at a later deal, even with, uh, Russia invading, even with Russia invading Ukraine. Ukraine, yeah. Even the amount of carnage compared to wars of, of yesteryear, you know, I mean, anyway, well, that we will get into these real rubber meets, meets the road topics. Why do you think this is such a difficult thing for people to believe or accept? Yeah. Well, I'm, what I'm finding actually is, um, well there's a, there's a number of things here. Number one, it's not that hard for a lot of people to receive and accept, like, like yourself. There was something inside of you that resonated like there was in me. So. I wasn't aware of it, but there was definitely something in me that wanted to disbelieve, um, a catastrophic narrative. Yeah. And, and I wasn't even aware of it Yeah. Until I started, you know, hearing some of these opposing viewpoints. Right. That left me feeling more hopeful. Yeah. Because you, because you've heard scriptures like greater he that is in you, or like Jesus said in Matthew 11 to talking about John the Baptist and he said, never has there been one greater than John born of a woman. So he basically said whatever his metric for greatness was, but let's just leave that for the minute. But Jesus said it. He goes, there's never been one born of a woman greater than John, but I tell you the truth, whoever's least in the kingdom. So this new breed that he came to be the first born from the dead, right? This person, this, these born of the spirit, born twice people. I call it human 2.0. Jesus said, whoever's least in that outfit, in this new conscription into the kingdom of God's sons of the kingdom, whoever's least is greater than John, okay? We, we have not even dipped our toe in the implications of that statement because you can't, but something inside you resonates because it's a living act of word of God that says that. But we've been taught so many times that we're this thing's going down in flames and we will be great when Jesus returns and we have a glorified body and we'll be like him and we can walk through walls and stuff. So we have basically been robbed, in my opinion, we've been robbed of these, of these great exploits on earth largely, and in mentally, we've pushed them down the road because we need to be human 3.0 before we can do the job that we've been given to do on the planet. And we're equipped to do, I'm, I'll say it again. There's not a problem on planet earth that humanity is not able to solve. And that humanity under Christ human 2.0 isn't actually called an ordained required. And we get to, we get to be part of this. We get to be the William Wilburforces. We get to be the John Maxwells who's, who's, who's a reformer that revolutionized the business world, the secular business world, cuz he took the principles of the kingdom of God and took 'em out of religious language and put 'em into the marketplace of ideas. And guess what? God's ideas happen to be really good ones for business. They're best practices worldwide. We're, we're, we're gonna be doing this. I, I was gonna say we should be doing this, but I I I'm getting off the shoulda coulda would've, we will be doing this. We, your kids and your grandkids will be doing this stuff and, and it will, it will, this world is gonna change and be transformed by the renewing of our minds, okay? Because it has to start with the church. But as our minds are renewed to truth, and as we are transformed by this truth, we will have such a leavening, salting, lighting effect on every sphere of life in the planet. And the end result of that will be the nation's singing praises to Jesus on this real earth. Real people singing praises and righteousness and justice. And so, um, that's what I live for. And you know, I like to say, you know, if I'm wrong, please don't tell me because I'm having too much fun with this. I mean, it's, it's too life-giving. You know, it's like I would rather die under the, you know, delusion that we have this hope-filled, victorious kingdom that we're part of that's actually winning even through history. You know, Jim, look at that. He's all, he actually thinks that, you know, that, that the power of God inside of him, the agreement between Christians on earth, the Holy Spirit living inside, the word of God, he actually thinks that's enough power to actually transform the world. Yes. I absolutely do. I absolutely believe that. And, uh, I'm sticking to it. Well, I think this is, uh, a great first conversation and I think that I'm excited for future subsequent conversations with you on this topic. So let's wrap up this conversation now. Do we have to? Well, we can always jump back in and hit record again on, on the next one. There we go. Um, but thanks for sharing. I think that's good context for anybody who may not know you or understand the conversation as, as you know it. And, uh, I'm looking forward to the next one. Likewise. It's been great. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for listening.