Chapter ( Nine )

Results of Reconnection 

Without the Governor, a person cannot be a citi-zen of the heavenly kingdom. In his gospel, John documented this statement of Jesus: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”A person may do many beneficial things and be involved in a number of good causes and even have a religious back-ground, but if he doesn’t have the Spirit of the kingdom, he’s not in the kingdom. The King of heaven is not interested in religious practices and rituals. Just as DNA pinpoints the iden-tity of a person, the Spirit of God within a person identifies him as a citizen of the kingdom. 

There is no margin of error.Yet when you are connected to the King through his Gov-ernor, an entirely new and remarkable life opens up for you. Before we discuss specific ways in which we are trained by the Governor in the lifestyle of the kingdom, and to partner with him in exercising dominion over the earth, let’s review the initial transformation and benefits that occur when we receive the Governor into our lives. 

@Restored Relationship with the King-Father.

The first result of reconnection is a restored relationship with the King-Father. When human beings declared indepen-dence from the heavenly government, we cut ourselves off from our source of life; we became broken and confused, and this is why life on earth today is filled with such destruction, violence, grief, and lost potential. The earth is like somebody who has big plans but no money to pay for them. When the Governor enters a person’s life, he connects that person to his source of life and gives him a relationship with his Creator not just as his King, but also as his heavenly Father. 

He belongs to the King’s immediate household now, with all the rights and privileges of a member of the heavenly royal family.When we become realigned to our King-Father, we are acknowledging, “I came from you, and I must be sustained by you; I depend on you.” We place the obligation for our suste-nance upon God. As the prophet Isaiah said, the government is on the King’s shoulders. He is responsible for leading his people. The names by which he is called indicate not only his responsi-bility, but also his ability, toward us, such as Wonderful Coun-selor, Mighty God, Father Who Lives Forever, Prince of Peace. 

@Entrance into a Nondiscriminatory, Nonpartisan Kingdom. 

The second result of reconnection is entrance into a non-discriminatory and nonpartisan kingdom. Earlier, we looked at the words of the prophet Joel, who described the coming of the promise of the Father:And after ward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. This was the prophecy that Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost. 

For the people listening to Peter’s comments, this would have been a radical change from the life they knew. For the coming of the Governor affirmed the worth and value to the kingdom of every citizen on earth, whether male or female, young or old. In the past, it had only been the high priest who could be in the presence of God’s Spirit in the Holy of Holies, and only after he had been cleansed by the blood of sacrifice. In addition, only males could be priests. 

Yet here was Peter, quoting Joel, saying that the Spirit would be poured out on allpeople.No longer would people have to go through priests to receive forgiveness from God. No longer would they depend only on prophets to deliver the word of the Lord to them. The Spirit would be poured out on them, and they would have direct access to the King himself.Tod ay, ma ny people still engage in customs t hat I call “pre-Lord’s Day practices.” These are practices that the coming of the Governor has made obsolete. 

For example, some people believe they can have their sins forgiven only if they confess them to a priest. That’s basically the way it was in the day of Joel. Only one person could go in to the presence of God in the Holy of Holies and enable you be in right standing with God. Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abra-ham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.The next statement in Joel is, “Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” He didn’t say, “Young priests will see visions” or “Old priests will dream dreams.” All people who have the Gover-nor are eligible.

 It doesn’t matter if you are a child, a teenager, a middle-aged person, or a senior citizen, you can receive the Gov-ernor into your life, and he will involve you in kingdom purposes. There’s no age discrimina-tion in the kingdom of heaven.Then, just in case we missed the point, Joel said, “Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” The King repeated himself, as if to say, “All the human cultural prohibitions regarding gender, age, and social status have disappeared. When I pour out my Spirit on the ter-ritory of earth, everybody can be filled.”Again, the King desires to pour out his Spirit on allpeople. Everyone on earth needs the Governor. 

Those without the Holy Spirit feel the lack of him, whether they realize it or not, and are inadvertently seeking him as they try to fill the void in their lives. The atheist is ultimately seeking the Holy Spirit. So are the agnostic, the Buddhist, the Hindu, and the Muslim.When the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, Peter told the people,Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The prom-ise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.Later, in his second letter to kingdom followers of Jesus, Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. 

He is patient with you, not want-ing anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” All human beings lost the Holy Spirit when humanity rebelled, but God desires everyone to be reconciled to him and to be filled with the Governor. Some people seem to want to hoard the knowledge of the Governor for themselves. Yet the Holy Spirit is meant for every human. Receiving him into your life doesn’t make you better than anyone else. It makes you a stew-ard of kingdom authority and power. Paul wrote, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.”We should want others to receive the Spirit, as well, espe-cially since the kingdom is to cover the whole earth. 

The power to live a life in alignment with the kingdom is everybody’s privilege, because the King-Son died to give all people that right. John the disciple, in his first letter to new kingdom citi-zens, wrote, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Telling others about realignment with the Father through Jesus, and the promise of the Father, then, gives other people the oppor-tunity to receive the precious gift of the Spirit.

 @Restored Ability to Influence.  

Third, reconnection gives us a restored ability to influence the world around us. Remember our definition of power from earlier in this book? It is the ability to influence and control circumstances. This is what governments are largely about, and this is what the coming of the Governor to earth means.A governor’s job in a colony was to influence its way of life and to regulate activities in it. 

The world had been influenced and dominated by the kingdom of darkness since humanity’s first rebellion, and it was only through the power of the Gover-nor that life on earth could be set right again. As Paul wrote to first-century kingdom followers, “The kingdom of God is...a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.” The Governor gives us the king-dom authority we need to influence the colony of earth so that it reflects the nature of the King. 

 @Delegated Authorit yand Ability Authority. 

As we began to discuss in the previous chapter, there are two kinds of kingdom authority: (1) legal or delegated-author-ity, and (2) ability-authority. One gives you the right to do something. The other gives you the power and wherewithal to back up the authority by accomplishing the mandate.The royal governor in a colony had delegated-authority, which was given to him by the king. When I was at the recep-tion with the royal governor of the Turks and Caicos islands, the governor was really the only physical evidence in the colony that the queen was present there. Yet everyone treated him with great respect, bowing, shaking his hand, and calling him “Your Excellency.” Why? Because, in the Turks and Caicos, he was the government of Great Britain. He was the monarchy. 

He was backed up by the authority of the kingdom of Great Britain. The royal governor in colonial times also had ability-authority, which meant he was empowered by the king to act. A king gave ability-authority by providing people and material support that the Governor needed to fulfill his assignment. The governor was therefore backed up with the resources of the kingdom. This is a vital point because if you have del-egated authority but not abil-ity-authority, you probably won’t see much accomplished. 

The power to act means that what-ever the governor needed, the king made available to him. For example, in the days when Jesus lived on earth, Pilate, as Rome’s procurator in Palestine, had the Roman army as a resource to back up his authority.Yet, with the kingdom of God, the heavenly King grants legal authority and ability-authority that have more influence than any human institution or power. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor threatened Jesus with death, essentially saying, “I have the authority to take your life or to give it to you.” Pilate was a governor, but he didn’t comprehend that Jesus was a King with all the power of the heavenly government within him. He had infinitely more power than Pilate had. At his arrest, Jesus told Peter that he could have called twelve legions of angels [warriors of the King to rescue him. 

Jesus therefore replied to Pilate, in effect, “You would have no authority over me unless it was given to you by the heav-enly government. I have at my disposal all the resources of my kingdom to execute whatever I need on earth. However, my purpose is not to free myself but to reconcile humanity to the Father through my sacrifice.” His being handed over by Pilate to be crucified wasn’t about a lack of power on his part; he was fulfilling his kingdom mission on earth. After his resurrection, Jesus told his followers that, as King, he had the power to give them both delegated-author-ity and ability-authority to carry out their work of realigning people with the kingdom. 

His words are recorded in the book of Matthew:All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.The Greek word for authority used here is “in the sense of ability” and the “power to act.” We saw earlier that, when Jesus told his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” the word for power is dunamis, which means “miraculous power,” “force,” “might,” and “strength.”His followers would have all the resources of heaven to carry out their assignment. This ability-authority would come with the outpouring of the Governor in their lives at Pentecost. 

@Power in the Name. 

The authority of a royal governor was in the name of the sovereign of the country he was serving. He used that name to exercise authority in getting things done. His own name had no real weight; he had to speak in the name of the mon-arch. The King-Son operated on earth in terms of authority, and he showed us how we are to use his name in exercising dominion. He said, “I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.” The Governor also functions on earth in the same way. 

When Jesus was about to return to the heavenly kingdom, he said of the Spirit,But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. 

That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.We are therefore to act in the name of Jesus, the King-Son to whom all authority has been given by the Father, when we work on behalf of the kingdom. When Jesus was ready to leave to go back to the Father, he said in this regard,Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete....In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

Under colonial rule, the royal governor of the Bahamas had a seal with the name of Elizabeth II on it. It was a sign to those who saw it that the one who used it was backed up by the authority and power of Great Britain. Whatever he sealed in the Bahamas was sealed in Great Britain, also. He had been given that authority by the queen.Remember that Jesus gave his followers a similar authority when he said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what-ever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” If we are rightly aligned with the King, the Governor confirms that we are legal agents of the kingdom by backing us up with the power of the heavenly government. 

@Restored Dominion. 

In one sense, the Governor returning is not really the ultimate issue of the King’s purpose on earth. It is his intent that humanity should again have dominion in the world. This was his plan in the beginning, and the plan of redemption was put into effect to reclaim that purpose. I believe that we keep missing this point and stopping short of where the King wants us to be. Again, we aren’t reclaimed for the kingdom just to go to heaven. We have been reclaimed for our assign-ment of earth. Some Christians spend their lives focused only on Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and haven’t understood that God wants them to receive the promised outpouring of the Spirit in their lives. 

Others have received the promised baptism in the Holy Spirit but do not fully understand its relationship to kingdom life. All of us need to move on to the main point: exercising rulership on earth for the kingdom of God. This was God’s original assignment for humanity, and it is not temporary but eternal. Once Lucifer and the kingdom of darkness are totally defeated by the K ing of heaven, we will have what is, in essence, “Genesis II.” The King has promised that there will be a new heaven and earth, in which we will fully reflect the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Below are statements from both Peter and John about this new kingdom environment:

But in keeping with his promise we are looking for-ward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” 

@A Tr ansformed Outlook on Life. 

Fourth, it is impossible to really be in the kingdom of God and not experience change. There is a realignment of the proper functioning of a person’s spirit, soul, and body because anyone who has the Spirit of God has become truly human again.For example, a major transformation occurs in the way we think. As we saw earlier, before the rebellion, Adam’s intellect was a servant of his spirit. Afterward, when his spirit became dead to the kingdom of God, his intellect and senses took over and became dominant. 

All human beings who are not aligned with the King and have not received his Spirit find themselves in this same situation.This is why, when the Governor comes to live within a person, the Governor immediately attacks the false mind-set with which the person has been influenced by the kingdom of the world. This is also why we are instructed by the Scrip-tures—what we can call the Constitution of the kingdom of heaven with admonitions such as the following:For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other.Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

All these statements refer to the critical conflict between the mind-set of the kingdom of heaven and the mind-set of the kingdom of darkness.Our outlook is to be transformed by a thorough under-standing and reception of the mind and ways of the King, and through being receptive to the Governor’s instructions and leading in our lives. If we try to deal with life from the mind-set we’re used to, we’ll fall back on thinking that is not in line with the kingdom. We need the Governor to teach us the ways of the King.The Governor changes our inner culture by teaching us a new way to live. He reveals to us the thoughts and ways of the King so that we may understand and follow them. 

Remember that the King declared, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways....As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The word ways here means “a road (as trodden); figuratively a course of life or mode of action.” In other words, it’s talking about lifest yle, and we need to change our mind-set if we are to have the same lifestyle as the King in order to help rule the earth. Then we will be able to live according to the heavenly government, rather than in the old culture of the kingdom of darkness.We talked earlier about how a colony’s citizens were made to learn the history of the kingdom they were now under. In a similar way, the King wants you to forget your former life outside his kingdom. 

He wants you to build a new history for yourself in the kingdom of heaven. Our history as the human race and as individuals is one of rebellion, fallenness, distorted and lost purpose, and death. But when we are born anew into the kingdom of heaven, we have a history of being redeemed. We now have purpose and potential again. Our history is one of life eternal life. 

The Governor encourages us to thoroughly learn our history, so that we can say, as Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’”This means that we are supposed to be educated com-pletely out of our history of sin. The book of Hebrews records, “‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. 

I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’ Then he adds, ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’” The King is saying, “Look, your sins are blotted out. Just remember that you were rescued from the kingdom of darkness.” 

The kingdom’s history of “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” is your own. Whenever Lucifer accuses you, saying, “You’re a sinner,” you can reply, “I was redeemed by the blood of the King-Son. He cleansed and washed away my wrongdoing.” The book of Hebrews continues, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.” Even our consciences are cleansed by the blood of our Redeemer. Again, if another person brings up your past, you can say, “You’re talking about someone who is dead. 

 I’ve been raised in new-ness of life!” So the Governor teaches you your new kingdom history, for this is the will of the King for your life.Paul wrote, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Your mind is to be transformed so that you will no longer have a mind-set filled with rebellion, guilt, depression, fear, confu-sion, and frustration, but rather righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.Remember that the Governor is the presence and nature of the kingdom of God on earth. This means that if you receive the Holy Spirit, you should be able to say, as Jesus did, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” We will explore our transition into the Governor’s culture in more detail in chap-ter eleven. 

@New Courage and Confidence. 

Jesus’ disciple John taught first-century kingdom citizens what he had learned from the Master Teacher: “You, dear chil-dren, are from God and have overcome [the kingdom of dark-ness], because the one who is in you [the Governor] is greater than the one who is in the world [Lucifer and his followers].” When the Spirit lives within you, heaven is your home country, and you have its authority and power. There is nothing or no one in the world who has more power and resources than the King. Therefore, you don’t need to be threatened by anyone on earth who tries to intimidate or harm you. 

Luke the physi-cian recorded Jesus’ teaching on this:My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pen-nies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. 

The fear of man is a snare to us as kingdom citizens because it will cause us to live by a mind-set and standards other than the kingdom’s. We won’t be acting in authority and power but in worry and timidity. Paul wrote that the King has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. We can be composed in all circumstances because we know that the King lives within us through the presence of the Governor. 

@Reconnection to Life’s Purpose. 

When the Governor comes to live within a person, he helps connect him to the assignment for which he was born. The prophet Joel talked about old men dreaming dreams, young men seeing visions, and sons and daughters prophesying the King’s will. I define a dream as something you can see being accomplished in the future, even though you may not live to see it fully completed. A vision is something you can see to do, which you can complete in your lifetime. Paul wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We are newly created when the Governor comes to dwell in us. 

We can therefore start over in the kingdom to do good works, which the King planned for us to accomplish even before we were born. The Governor gives back to older people the dreams for the future they thought they had lost. He gives young people visions for their lives to help them stop wasting their time and energy on useless things. 

He makes us all rulers in the realms of our particular giftings. Some people mistake the meaning of the Governor’s pres-ence in their lives. As we have seen, they think he came just to make them “feel good,” or that he came to give them abilities that they can use to draw attention to themselves. 

Instead, he came to give us a vision or a dream of something that only we can help accomplish, because he has given it to us as our special work on earth. 

He came to give us power so that this particular work can be realized.In addition, you can be cleansed and receive the Governor, but not understand that he wants to give you power for living the kingdom life. 

 You therefore spend all your time fighting against attitudes and desires that are contrary to the kingdom, instead of overcoming them through the authority and power of the Spirit, so that you can do the important work for which you were born. His power should work through you so you can show evidence that your life is under the influence of the king-dom. The Governor came to empower you for work. He is here to impact the earth for heaven through your vision or dream. 

@Communication with the Heavenly Government.

 Finally, but very importantly, the return of the Governor gives us the ability to communicate with the heavenly govern-ment. We can bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and have dominion over it only if we are receiving clear instructions from the King. A kingdom can function in delegated author-ity only if the purpose, will, and intent of the King are being transmitted to that delegated authority. 

What the King intends for earth is to be transmitted by the Governor to his vice governors, and to be executed on earth through their rulership. Whenever the Governor is not present, or the communication of the Governor is ignored, the practical rulership of the King is absent on earth. Some pres-ence of the government has to exist. This is why the Holy Spirit is the key to the kingdom of heaven on earth. The Governor is the agent of the revelation of God’s mind to the earth through humanity’s dominion.

                                               @Access to the King. 

Let me try to illustrate how vital the Governor is to our communication with the King. In the colonial period in the Bahamas, if anybody, and I mean anybody, whether members of Parliament, local commissioners, or the bishop, wanted to go to Great Britain to see the queen, they couldn’t get close to her without going through the royal governor first. This was true even for the premier of the colony.
A similar process applies in our relationship with the King-Father. Some people think they can have access to the heav-enly throne because of their level of education or how wealthy they are, or how much they have done for the poor. We can’t have an audience with the King-Father, however, unless we go through the King-Son, who opened the way for us by his sub-stitutionary death, and unless we do so through the power of the Governor, who is our means of speaking with and hearing from the Father.
When you went to the governor in the Bahamas for permis-sion to see the queen, the governor would send a message con-cerning you to England, and if the governor in Nassau cleared you, you were in. Likewise, when the King-Son clears you, and when you are relying on the Governor to communicate your requests and desires, you can go straight to the King-Father’s throne room in the inner courts of the palace. 
As the writer of the book of Hebrews wrote, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”I’ve heard that when John F. Kennedy was the president of the United States, he was sitting in the Oval Office having a meeting with his cabinet. They were discussing the most danger-ous situations in the world at that time, the Bay of Pigs issue with Cuba and the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. 
This was the most serious meeting they had held up to that point in the administra-tion. The story goes that the door suddenly swung open, and a little boy ran across the room, around the cabinet members, and landed in the lap of the president. All the important members of the cabinet were suddenly silent. This little boy looked up at his father the most powerful leader in the world and said, “Daddy, who are these people?” And President Kennedy said, “These are my Cabinet, son.” The boy looked at this powerful group of men; then he pointed to his father and said, “This is my daddy.” At that moment, it didn’t matter who the president was meeting with. The son had complete access to the father. And the same is true in our relationship with our King-Father. 

@Hearing the Will of the King. 

When a king wanted to communicate with his citizens, the Governor was also involved in this process. For example, any time the queen came to the Bahamas to visit, she didn’t announce her visit directly to the people. She told the royal governor, and he told the people. In a similar way, whenever the King of heaven is going to do anything on earth, he com-municates it through the Governor, who tells it to us. As Paul wrote, “Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” The presence of the Governor in our lives enables us to hear and know the will of the King for us.
Hearing from the King is actually a very practical thing for a kingdom citizen, and was modeled for us by Jesus. The New Testament tells us that Jesus often went off by himself to hear the King-Father’s instructions. Prayer was his means of dealing with government business. You have to be able to receive instructions from the heavenly government before you can accurately represent it. Jesus said to his disciples, “Whenyou pray....” Prayer, therefore, is not an option; it is daily gov-ernment communication. We need to ask the King, with the help of the Governor, “What do you want done today?” And we have to be ready to listen and respond. @Keeping in Right Relationship. Worshipping the King is another form of communication with the heavenly government. 
Many people have made wor-ship into a ritual, when it’s really about keeping in right rela-tionship with the King. It is a means by which we remain in constant connection and communion with our Sovereign and honor his government.Worship protects us from establishing our own kingdoms on earth, rather than the heavenly government’s, because we acknowledge and confirm to him that his desires and will are paramount. 
We affirm that his government’s interests are the ultimate reason for our existence.The significance of our connection to the kingdom through the Governor will become even clearer in coming chapters as we explore the nature and role of the Holy Spirit and his impact on the culture of our individual lives, as well as the culture of earth.