Democracy Mind and the Kingdom of God (2 of 4) Mike Connell 01.07.2007 am
Okay, I want you to open your Bible, Matthew 6:33. I want to carry on about the kingdom today and I'm just enjoying so much being able to just share some things about this, so I want to just pick up where we were last week. I want to share some fresh things just to get you thinking a bit. I know it'll get you thinking a bit. I just took quite a bit of time to think about it myself and really, really good. But of all the messages I've ever heard that changed my life significantly, apart from coming to know Jesus, understanding about the kingdom of God was like the lights went on and my life changed. It changed in so many areas at once I was absolutely staggered, so I look back at the message and I can't figure out what was in the message that made the difference. All I can think it was the day when God turned my lights on and I just trust that over these next few weeks God will turn your lights on, because it will change how you live.
So we need to see the way we view something or see something affects how we relate to it. The way you look at something, or your attitude to it, then determines how you will connect with it. So when we hear about the kingdom of God and when we hear about Jesus and His authority, how we see kingdom and how we - our attitude inside will affect how we relate. And of course the dilemma for us is we're raised and we live in a western part of the world which is a wonderful thing, and of course the governing principle through the western world is democracy. So when we come to approach the things of God we approach it and the way we approach it is we think out of democratic mindsets. In other words what we're used to experiencing is our norm; we don't often stop to check whether is our norm is actually what God has in mind. So over today I want to show you some things just about the difference between democracy and kingdom, and I want you to think not just in terms of getting a bit of useful information. I want you think in terms of is this how I think? Is this how I run my life? Is this the way I operate? Do I operate with a democratic mindset, trying to advance the kingdom of God?
So when we for example are teaching on the authority of Jesus and the whole series on authority, every kind of issue we've ever had with authority will come up in our mind. All kinds of issues will come up and questions, but they will be solved most of them through the course. The issue of course is that if I want to fulfil my mandate, what God called me to do, I must have His authority and power to do it. So what we're doing is teaching on the kingdom and this whole series of undercover. It's not to put a burden or try and make life hard for people. It's to give us understanding so internally we can be positioned to see God's blessing in a greater way; for example, if you have a child and there is a demonic spirit troubling the child, a doctor can't fix it. A teacher can't fix it, a psychiatrist can't fix it. What is needed is a superior kingdom to come and displace it - and you are authorised to do it. In fact a little later I'll do a session at some stage just on what we are authorised by the Lord to do on His behalf, and you'll be quite surprised what you're authorised to do.
Of course whether you do it's another thing. Whether you do it is another thing, so like you know, if the prevailing atmosphere in your home is mainly demonic, then whether you do something about that is up to you. You just decide whether you're going to live in the kingdom blessings, or whether you decide where you're going to live under what you're used to. But we don't have to accept what we see; we can bring God's heaven, we can bring the kingdom of heaven into earth and change it see, so we need to see that. We are agents of change. Now a little later at some other time I'll just talk to you a little bit about the difference between religion and the kingdom. They're massively different again in the thinking, and what you'll find when we look at that, you'll find that for some the prevailing mindset is a religious mindset. In other words it doesn't originate in God, it doesn't originate even in the Bible. It just sounds good, looks good, we've got used to it and we think that's normal.