The kingdom demands your full and total attention. And that is why God demands that the kingdom is priority. This is clearly portrayed in Matthew 4:18 when Jesus called two sets of brothers to follow him, and they left their nets, ship and father to follow him. No sooner had they followed him than they were ushered into the dominion of the kingdom of God; the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom met with the healing of all manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people. When God dominates a person or place, He displaces anything that is inconsistent with His will. With this imagery in mind, I would like to highlight an indispensable protocol of the kingdom that if you would follow, should make you a broker in establishing the dominion of the kingdom of God in the earth.
Matthew 4:18-23 KJV
And Jesus, walking by the
sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother,
casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them,
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their
nets, and followed him. And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren,
James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their
father, mending their nets; and he called them. And they immediately left the
ship and their father, and followed him.
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching
the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of
disease among the people.
Following His Protocols
I would like you to take notice of how Jesus called these disciples from their usual preoccupation to follow him into a new experience and realm of dominion. Jesus, the personality of the kingdom, is the model and subject of emulation in the kingdom. He demonstrated that the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom is incomplete without the miraculous. There is nothing like incurable where the kingdom is released. He never conducted a funeral service but interrupted funeral processions by bringing the dead back to life. And his demand is, “follow me.” If you will follow him just as his disciples did, he will plunge you into a life of dominion where you are equal to any emergency.
Matthew 11:27 KJV
All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
He said, “Nobody knows the father except the son.” You mean even Abraham, Moses and Elijah didn’t know the Father except the Son? That’s amazing! And the scripture continues to say, “…and those that he chooses to reveal the father to.” This Father is the king and owner of the kingdom, and Jesus said nobody knows Him, but he can reveal Him to you. When he says, “Follow me,” his assignment is to reveal God to you. No wonder the scriptures say that he is the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3). Without Jesus, you will accommodate fallacies about God based on your experiences or what others have said and you will have a misconception of the true nature of God. Jesus is the embodiment of the love, mercy, kindness, goodness and will of God.
Matthew 11:28-29 KJV
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me…
The Protocol of Prayer
Jesus invites you to come and learn from him. When Jesus says, “Come learn of me,” he doesn’t want you to rely on him to do it for you, but he wants you to learn how he does it so that you can do it for yourself. The disciples that followed Jesus in his earthly ministry saw him preaching, working miracles, raising the dead, healing, calming the storm etc. Yet they never asked him to teach them any of these but that he would teach them to pray.
Make time with God your priority this year. What the disciples really asked of him was that he would teach them to spend time with God in prayer and unrestricted fellowship with the Father. That the kingdom would come and be manifest in your life is a matter of prayer. That is why he said, “When you pray, say, ‘Thy Kingdom come…’” For the Kingdom displaces sicknesses, lack and anything inconsistent with the will of God. When you spend time alone with the King, you walk away with a royal mindset. Your perspectives are altered to accept that there is no room for impossibility. There is no way you will be prepared for the emergencies of 2019 without quality time alone with God. The prayer life of Jesus placed him in a spiritual shape that made him ready for any emergency such that even when he was asleep and a storm arose, he was up to the task. The successes he chalked were directly linked with the chronic quest in his spirit to spend time with God.
Make a commitment to spend quality time with God this year. If you would cultivate the culture of prayer and spending quality time with God, every challenge will meet you ready with the solutions. You will be ready and prepared for any demand because you would have collected supernatural supply through unbridled communion with God. May God grant you momentum and grace for consistency to steward dominion through prayer.
Rule and Subdue!
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