Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Prince or Pauper

Here is a question for you. How do you see yourself? Do you think of yourself as just a sinner saved by grace? Or do you think of yourself as a child of the King, an joint heir with Jesus Christ, seated in heavenly places with authority to call down the Kingdom of heaven here on earth? Now some of you might say that I am both, and I know that in reality it is true that you can be both.

However, if you just see yourself as a sinner saved by grace, or if that is where your identity lies, then I want to share some things with you tonight. First you are much more. Jesus paid the ultimate price not just to save you from your sins. That was just the first step, the beginning. When He washed away your sins, they stopped existing. To continue to refer back to them is to make what He did for you and all of mankind worthless. It’s like I paid the ultimate price, and then you kept trying to pay it again, even after it had already been paid. He didn’t die just to redeem us from our sins; He died for much more.

His death was to restore us to right relationship with the father as His children. His death was to restore us to our place on the earth and allow us once again to replenish and subdue the earth for the Kingdom of God. We are more than conquerors. We are joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and we are seated in Heavenly places even as we are here on this earth. We are princes and princesses here to bring in the Kingdom of God into our sphere of influence.

But if we just see ourselves as sinners saved by grace, then how can we be effective in releasing the Kingdom of God. Instead we will be content just to survive until we get to go to Heaven. We will constantly be looking for an escape plan (the rapture) and will only be concerned with bringing other sinners into the grace that we have received. Don’t get me wrong, we all have received His grace, and I am so glad that He brought me into His love. But there is just so much more. If we stop with just the grace of having our sins paid for, we miss the main thing that Jesus was going after.

His heart was not just to set us free, but to redeem the whole world. How is He going to do that? Through us as believers who are releasing the Kingdom of God and His presence everywhere we go. He has called us as a victorious army, called to bring freedom to the captives with every step that we take. That is our assignment and we cannot do it as just sinners saved by grace. No, we have to realize that we are Princes and Princesses of the Most High God, and that we operate out of His authority and grace to bring the Kingdom of God wherever we go. We are not paupers. We operate from victory, not defeat.

1 comment:

  1. That's a great word Tom. I get so fired up over this same issue...
    blessings
    al

    ReplyDelete