What does it look like to be King?

Welcome to my new blog. I do not want to confuse anybody, this blog is strictly a things from my quiet time. For some time, God has been telling me to write and share them but I always resisted. I journal often but I was not writing to share so this is that and I hope to update several days a week. I will still maintain a missions blog separately. If you are looking to see what God is speaking to me in my quiet times, this is the place. If you subscribe in the link, it will be emailed to you each time I post.


This morning I had to go to Midway and drop a friend off. It gave me a chance to sit and talk with God and I had a question for Him. He has been speaking to me about several things but one stood out these last couple of days. In our men's group at Church we have been going through a series about authentic manhood called the 33 series, based on the 33 years Jesus walked the earth. In the last 2 lessons, we discussed 4 faces of manhood. They are King, Warrior, Lover and Friend. I know that I have a need to grow in all of these but one, the first, King was on my mind especially because of a word given to me by one of the visiting teachers while I was at Kaleo.

She said to me "You are a King." This was not something that she went into detail on. That was it and it was for me. I knew that it was God speaking and it was about learning to embrace the identity God had for me. It was not a word to make me proud or boastful and it was not exclusive. Anyone following Jesus has a royal identity as we are adopted into the family of God. It has caused me to think about what this means. How does it impact how I am to live. After I dropped my friend off, I was praying and God reminded me of the word and so I asked Him again with time to listen and determination to hear.

As I prayed about this identity as King, he spoke a lot.  A king has a place at the leader's table. He is not excluded from the council of the Kings. He is involved in the process of planning, he is valued for the things that he brings to the table. Jesus is the King over all others but that does not diminish the identity He gives the other Kings. It elevates His identity. I was blown away. God sees me as noble and has a place at the table for me. He has a role for me to lead and not just follow someone else, one of the select few. This is not about hierarchy because we are called to live and work together as one. It is about embracing an identity that knows I belong at the King's table.

This leads to the question, "How do I live?" I was surprised where the answer went. I knew that we are called to lay down our lives and to serve the needs of those around us but I seldom saw it as  being from a position of strength and authority. God pointed me to a story that I would have never thought was about servant-hood and strength under control, buffered by love.  Mat 26:49-53 ESV - 49 And he came up to Jesus at once and said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" And he kissed him. 50 Jesus said to him, "Friend, do what you came to do." Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?

In the past, I had often read this with a human mindset. Jesus could beg the Father and escape the cross but that is not what it says. It says that He could appeal or ask the father and he would have 12 legions of angels at His disposal. He would command them if He asked that they be sent. There was not a time in the whole process of His crucifixion that Jesus was not in control of what happened to Him. To demonstrate that He still had authority as He was in the process of His death, He healed the ear of the guard that had been cut off and then He rebuked the disciple that tried to maintain the Kingdom by human force and effort. At the moment men were coming to arrest, torture and kill Him, Jesus still demonstrated His kingly demeanor. He still loved His enemies and had mercy on a man sent to harm Him. He still had His authority and strength. Healing the man was just a demonstration that He had not lost His position and power as The Son. He chose restraint out of love for us. The religious leaders and the Roman soldiers were not in control of anything that happened. They may have chosen to be merciless but Jesus was in control and could have stopped the process at any point.

What does that mean to me? I am not being crucified. Many in the world see Christians as whining, sniveling, helpless wimps these days. The truth is that most of us are living this way. We are in fear of everything. We live on the defensive. Most of what we do is a reaction to the evil we see in the world. Often, we give up and don't act at all. We don't see the odds in challenging the opinion of the societal elites. We lose battles because we do not expect to win. Often we look at the world's weapons and what we have in our hands and we feel outmatched. We do not engage because we are probably going to lose. After all, we are outnumbered and they have more money or resources than we do. They have more weapons and they do not fight fair. How can we fight that? Unfortunately, it seems that when we do engage, it is on their level. We try to win battles in the media, which we lose or we try to use force, which we again lose. Ultimately, most of the battles get reduced to political battles and waiting on court decisions while we complain about the state of things. This is not how Jesus would fight. He demonstrated how to win the battle in Matt 26:49-53.

Me at my most kingly, strength with restraint.

Part 2 coming tomorrow