As I explain in Peace in Your House, adopting the Kingdom of God Mindset is the best approach to understanding God’s purpose, plan, and destiny for our lives. A full treatment is offered in the book, but I’ll summarize it here.
The achieve the Kingdom of God Mindset, your thinking must have these points at your foundation.
1. Repent! (Change the way you think so you have a Growth Mindset)
The Kingdom of God Mindset is first and foremost a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed mindset. With a growth mindset, we are willing to be challenged, to learn, to be humble and teachable. Changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset involves undergoing repentance in such a way that we’re willing to go after the mind of Christ in every aspect of our lives.
2. You are an Imager of God.
God created us humans in the “image of God.” Essentially, this means “as” the Image of God, or as God’s divine imagers. It’s our identity. It’s who we are as humans.
Think of it this way. Imagine you are at a fast food place, and while in line, you begin speaking with a woman in front of you. You ask, “So, what do you do for a living?” She replies, “Oh, I work in medicine.”
She has told you she’s probably a doctor. She identifies her job as “in” medicine.
Similarly, we are “in” the Image of God. That’s our role. We’re to work “in” this image on earth.
Our identity is to function on earth as God’s representative and to act like God would act in whatever capacity we can.
God’s purpose for humans was to extend God’s dynamic rule and reign across the physical cosmos.
Sometimes a physician chooses to practice medicine in ways that are in violation of his identity and detrimental patients. We call this “malpractice” or “evil practice.” Similarly, we humans tend towards evil or bad practice of our calling. So Jesus came to fix all of that, and he invites us to step into our true identity as sons and daughter of God, co-rulers with Jesus on earth as God rules in heaven.
3. Immortals imagers of God exist also
As God made mortal beings, he also created immortal beings. The purpose for these entities was also to extend God’s rule and reign across the cosmos, especially in the spirit realm.
There are many kinds of spiritual entities and as humans have made rebellious and evil choices, so have many of these immortal beings. Some of them actively influence the world in these ways (summarized in Psalm 82)
- They empower wicked spirits
- They provoke unjust rule
- They favor the wicked
- They pursue injustice to the weak and fatherless.
- They violate the rights of the sick and poor
- They Exploit the weak and needy.
The entities are aligned against God’s just and dynamic rule and reign on earth. They make up what I call the Domain of Darkness and they have significant influence over lives and lands.
4. The Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God is the dynamic rule and reign of God. When Jesus Christ burst onto the scene, he announced his intention to
- Involve the Holy Spirit
- Bring Good News to the Poor
- Bring liberty to the captive
- Rescue the oppressed
- Heal the sick
- Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (which involved restoring lost inheritances, canceling financial debts and freeing slaves).
Jesus immediately began this work through the power of the Holy Spirit to cast out demons, heal the sick, bring God’s justice to the oppressed, feeding the hungry, and forgiving sin.
Jesus taught his followers to do the same and then sent them out to the ends of the earth.
This is the good news of the Kingdom: that God’s Kingdom was invading the earth from heaven, overturning the power and dominion of the forces of darkness. We currently live in the tension of these two forces – the Kingdom of God advancing against a powerful and very real Domain of Darkness.
5. We live in the Tension of the Kingdom of God and the Domain of Darkness
We live in the Now and the Not Yet. The Kingdom isn’t here, but it’s here. We live in this conflict, and seers can often see it in action.
6. Your mission
God’s mission for us is to partner with the Holy Spirit to advance God’s rule and reign across the world as his ambassadors and representatives. We are set free by the New Covenant, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and compelled by Jesus to bring all aspects of our lives, our families, our homes, our cities, our regions, and our nations under God’s rule and reign through preaching Jesus Christ crucified and demonstrating reality of the Kingdom.
When you see things in the spirit realm, attempt to apply the Kingdom of God mindset to filter what it is you’re seeing, while remembering God’s goal is to bring people and places into God’s rule and reign.
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