Kingdom Expansion | The Worshipper's Thought of the Day

Since I spend most of my days at work sitting in front of a computer, I spend much of my time at the office listening to the teaching of GOD's Word as I go about my daily duties. This morning, as I was listening to a message by Dr. Myles Munroe, something he said struck a chord in me: "Kingdoms expand by colonization." Most of us have, at some point in our education, learned about world civilizations (e.g. countries, nations) that sought to expand their global influence by colonizing foreign territories. Part of this colonization process included having a community of citizens from the home country to live in the foreign territory, so they could infiltrate the foreign territory with the culture of the home country.

One could literally write a whole book on this topic, but I just want to quickly leave something with you to consider. As citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven who are living in the foreign territory of Earth, we are charged with being the community of people responsible for infiltrating the foreign territory's culture with Heaven's culture. If it appears the Kingdom community's influence within a locality is either not growing or diminishing, it's simply because there's a decrease in the manifestation of the culture of Heaven in that geographic area. We can spout all the religious rhetoric, church phrases and Christian cliches we can recall, but the Kingdom influence only increases in dominance as a community of Kingdom citizens manifest the culture of Heaven through a consistent lifestyle that reflects the will, intent and purposes of our King.

What I love about the holiday season is the period of personal reflection I undergo in preparation for the New Year. It's my prayer that we all would reflect on our our lifestyles this season and evaluate how well we reflect the culture of Heaven, our home country. Do our lifestyles attract unbelievers to become Kingdom citizens and adopt Heaven's culture? Or are we living in such a way that unbelievers experience difficulty in distinguishing a difference between our culture and their own? In order to rule, reign and dominate the Earth and its resources (or as Donald Lawrence put it, "get back to Eden"), we must be determined now more than ever to advance Kingdom colonization through cultural expansion. In other words, both what we say and do MUST be consistent with our identity as Kingdom citizens, thereby exhibiting a lifestyle of holiness.