A Kingdom Manifesto

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The Power of an Idea

Thanks to the Internet, ideas are flying about like lovebugs in the Florida springtime. There is no shortage of things to put into your brain these days, and anyone with a computer has the potential to present their opinions, no matter how silly to all of wired humanity.  I think I’ll enter the fray and share some ideas that just might make a positive difference in your life.  Just so you know, all of these ideas are not original to me.  We can thank Dr. Myles Monroe for much of what I’m about to share with you.

Ideas are like seeds. They carry incredible potential within.  Inside of a seed is a whole orchard, or an entire forest.  However, left on the windowsill, a seed will never grow so much as a single tree, much less a forest.  Yet, when placed into fertile ground, watered regularly, and given sunshine, the miracle of life happens and that single seed can begin to reach it’s full potential of exponential growth.

The right idea in the wrong place won’t work. How many of us have dreams within – ideas that are more than average; ideas that possess that magical spark of life and the potential to become something significant, maybe even life changing or even world changing?  Yet, because of our environment, that idea cannot find a place to put down roots and move from the realm of the heart into a physical realization.

Perhaps you’ve tried to plant the seed by sharing it with those around you.  You stepped out in faith and shared your dream with someone you trusted, only to hear how ridiculous it was, or got handed a long list of reasons why your seed could never become a tree.  Maybe it was you who talked yourself out of the idea.  You wrote yourself off as a daydreamer and told yourself that your idea was not for today, or maybe not for you at all, but maybe for someone else.

It is a sad fact that our western culture is a killer of dreams, and most people take their dreams to the grave.  The fact is, you were born with a destiny to fulfill.  People think that babies come into this world as blank pieces of paper upon which parents and teachers may write anything that they wish.  This is not true.  Every baby comes into the world with a destiny hidden within their heart by the Creator.  It is the privilege and responsibility of the parents, teachers, and in reality, all the rest of society to help this child discover, explore, and ultimately fulfill this divine purpose.  Yet, often as we share our dreams with parents or teachers, we are told that they are silly and we are told to embrace reality – the reality that they believe we should have.  And we listen to them, because after all, we are merely children and grownups, being old and wise, know everything.  Rather than being planted in fertile soil and nurtured to fruition, our dreams get stuffed into sterile boxes and covered over by the debris of life.

Consider this… everything begins as an idea. The computer you are reading this on began as someone’s idea.  The car that you drive, the food that you eat, the phone that you talk on – all are manifestations of someone’s idea.  The difference between their idea and yours is simply that they chose to turn their dream into a reality.

Let’s make it practical. First, you need to daydream again.  Sometimes you need to close your eyes so that you can begin to see.  Dreaming at night is random and rarely produces fruit.  Daydreaming is different – it can be a process of envisioning the future before it comes to pass.  It is the creation of vision.  Vision is one of the very best gifts that God ever gave to man.

Sight records the present, but vision records the future. Sight is a product of the eyes, but vision is a product of the heart.  Sight is an enemy of vision, because sight restricts us to the present.

You need to see your future so clearly that you can write it down and describe it to others. If you do not see your future, then you are leaving your future up to those around you to decide.  The fact that most people die with their dreams is so tragic.  Often the reason for this is merely because they did not have the courage to rise up and leave the sterile soil they were in and find good soil where their ideas could grow into fruit producing orchards.

If the ground around you will not accept the seed of your ideas, you need to being the quest to find a better environment.  This is not easy, but it’s absolutely vital to your destiny.  This means leaving the familiar and moving into the realm of the unknown.  Recapture that sense of adventure you once had, and don’t let anyone talk you out of it!

Once you find a place where your dream can grow, you need to find those who will cultivate and fertilize your ideas.  You need people in your life who will pull up the weeds, prune you once in a while, and put good solid teaching (fertilizer) into your life on a regular basis.  We hope we can help you in all these areas through what is presented in this ministry.

May you dream again, and may you never again underestimate the power of an idea.

Until next time,
R<><

Worldview is EVERYTHING

How we view the world influences our lives more dramatically than almost any other single factor. The funny thing is, we rarely spend a lot of time thinking about it.  Worldview is kind of like the air that we breath, or the water that comes out of our faucet.  Most people take it for granted, and don’t really stop to think much about it’s purity, how it travels to us, or how our bodies are affected by it.  But if someone slipped some tasteless, odorless toxins into it, our lives would be negatively affected, and we could become sick, or even die.  I think we would be wise to become much more aware of the concept of worldview, and take some inventory of why we believe what we believe and look for any toxins that have crept into our thinking.

Our worldviews are continually being molded and shaped by our culture – the news we read, the movies and television shows we watch, the music we listen to, all these things carry messages that feed into our minds and hearts and become part of the way we see and interpret the world around us.

As I sit here today thinking about the upcoming elections and my lack of enthusiasm about any of the presidential candidates, I’m realizing once again just how much worldview is playing out before us.  We have a field of candidates, all claiming to be Christian.  Yet, their idealogies and what they stand for could not be more different.  As I hear the comments of people who have made up their minds of who they are voting for, I can hear their worldviews speaking.  If you think that “rich people” (commonly defined as someone who makes more money than me) should carry more of the tax burden, and the government should be doing more to help people, then Obama is your man.  If you think that Muslim extremists pose the greatest threat to our nation than anything else, McCain is probably your choice.  If you think that the Federal government should stay out of our lives as much as possible and that we should mind our own business and let the rest of the world do the same, you’re probably leaning towards Barr, the Libertarian candidate.

Three men, all “Christian”, who all view the world through very different eyes.  What makes the difference?  Their worldview.  It’s everything.

In “Rich Church, Poor Church” by John Muratori, he says that a recent Barna poll finds that only 9% of born-again Christians hold a biblical worldview, 7% for Protestants overall, and this drops to only 4% in the general population and less than 1/2 of 1% for Catholics.  I’m not sure how they arrived at these conclusions, but based on what we see out there in our culture, I’d have to agree with their conclusions.

If these numbers hold true, then the numbers for those who actually have a Kingdom worldview must be far less.  I would define a Kingdom worldview as a biblical worldview that includes an understanding of the mandate to have dominion in the earth rather than an escapist mindset that delays the Kingdom for some future time.

Not everyone is ignorant of the power of worldview. We are very much in the midst of a culture war and the war for the destiny of this nation.  Massive amounts of money are being invested by forces that are hostile to the Kingdom of God in order to influence the marketplace of ideas.  One example would be the $20 million dollar donations that both Harvard and Georgetown Universities received in 2002 from a member of the Saudi Royal Family to help advance an Islamic agenda through education.  Is it any wonder that Isalm is the fastest growing religion on college campuses today?

Clearly, the powers that control Hollywood are controlled by the Antichrist spirit.  Christianity is regularly mocked, the traditional view of marriage and family values is seen as old-fashioned, and dysfunction is celebrated and portrayed as “normal”.  Rather than viewing the harsh realities of broken lives as abnormal and something to be overcome, we are being systematically programmed to accept such tragedy as status quo and the way life should be.

Make no mistake about it – our minds are very much like computers that are continually receiving programming from what we see and hear every day. Never has there been more information flowing at us, and never has it contained so little truth in regards to what is most important in life.  We are being entertained to death.  Not that I am against entertainment, mind you.  But you cannot drink from the toilet long without picking up a nasty bug, and if your immune system is insufficient to fight it off, you will die.

Fortunately, we live in an age of technological advances.  We are no longer held hostage by the major media, news and education outlets.  The Internet has leveled the playing field, and anyone can make their opinions known to the world (just like I am right now).  The marketplace of ideas has just exploded to a whole new level and this will only increase as more and more people realize the ability they have to broadcast their worldview to others.  My intent is to arm you, my faithful readers, with the power of truth, and the One who claimed to be the Way the Truth and the Life said that the Truth will set us free.

Truth is not relative.  Facts are facts. If you believe that just believing something makes it true, then you have some serious problems with logic.  There are some things in life that are subjective, but there is objective truth in the world.  If you accept a falsehood as truth, you are deceived, and if the deception is on a significant level, it could cost your your life, or worst yet, your eternal soul.

In the final analysis, understanding how our worldview is shaped and how it influences our thinking is critical, and critical information bears repeating.  I plan to use this blog to help my readers develop a Kingdom worldview.  We simply must re-program our minds (the biblical term would be “renew”) with the truth and stop allowing the enemy to control us through the strongholds he has placed into our minds.  I feel like I’m fighting a fire with a squirtgun, but who knows… maybe if enough other squirtguns show up, we can extinguish the flames together.

Until next time, pay attention to the messages that are flowing into your brain, because they have an effect on how you live your life.  And stay away from the chocolate-coated turds.  They’re bad for you.

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