What is Kingdom?
Your kingdom is simply this: the range of your effective will.
Like little Johnny Appleseed seedlings being left behind everywhere you go, your life causes ripples in others, but it does not stop there.
When you throw a stone into a pond, ripples of waves will, in varying degrees, affect every drop of water in the entire pond.
Conversely, your effective will, kingdom, can be used just as powerfully to increase the dominion of others, not always a good thing.
Today you will learn,
- Your three kingdom assets to defend and expand, and,
- How to be a “Just King or Queen” in your kingdom, increasing the range of your active and beautiful will.
But it first begins by seeing your kingdom.
Let’s dive in.
How to See Kingdom
Can you see your kingdom easily? How?
The quickest way to see your kingdom is to analyze a few occurrences where anger or contempt, long-simmering negative thoughts, arose towards another person.
- Has a teacher, counselor, or other leadership role caused negative feelings in how they handled you or your kids?
- Has a friend or family member come against your goals for your kids, for yourself?
- Has your partner or spouse worn you down on achieving a thriving life?
These are familiar places where your kingdom felt threatened.
Why?
These adverse circumstances caused your kingdom’s goal to be blocked, inhibiting the reign of your effective will.
How else?
From squirrels getting into your bird feeder, a hand trying to snag dangling cash from your pocket, and advertisements bombarding for your attention,
- The range of your kingdom is infringed upon, threatened, every day.
Additionally, there has been a lot of beauty in your kingdom.
Nights where the fire and company are perfect, time stands still. Days where the kids, pets, and chores came together seamlessly. And, positive ways you have influenced, helped, and empowered others.
You are reigning for a purpose, know why?
Can You See Your Kingdom’s Specific Role?
In Madeline L Engle’s epic book Wrinkle in Time, she causes one of the leaders, Mrs. Whatsit, to proclaim these words. Which may help to see what your kingdom is supposed to do.
“If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we’d be – we’d be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet.
There are fourteen lines… all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?
But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn’t he?
Calvin responds, “You mean you’re comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Whatsit said. “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”
The sonnet of your kingdom is either being written from you, or others are writing it for you.
Here are the three fundamentals of your kingdom’s framework and form to cultivate and establish via stewardship.
Your 3 Kingdom Assets to Defend and Expand
1. Time
Time is one of the fundamental ways life is currently measured; what do we say?
How old are you?
The meaning of this is, how much time have you possessed and used on this earth?
Deeds done, thoughts thought, and every action you make –
- All involve time and are either coming alongside the goals of your kingdom, or are deviating you away.
From watching Netflix to studying Aristotle, doing dishes and serving soup to the homeless. Every decision you partake in is a determination of how you choose to use the time that you now possess.
Doing what you want to do with your time, instead of alternatives, is the first step in securing an inward fortress.
When you manage your time effectively, what you desire for your kingdom to accomplish, can become realized.
2. Money
Want more money? So does every other kingdom.
A fascinating but often overlooked conversation about money is…
There is only a fixed amount of it that gets continually spread around.
Money can not be in two hands at the same time. When your estate grows, the effect is, in fact, a defensive and offensive move for your kingdom.
These two shifts take place when you control and direct more cash,
- How you desire the money to be used then occurs
- You keep it from others you don’t want to have it
Via the stewardship of cash and assets, your talents, you establish and increase the range of your effective will.
3. Body
Time, money, and every other element within your kingdom are under your body’s direction and control.
Your body is the storehouse and control panel of your thoughts, feelings, soul, actions, and words.
Want to control your time? Make more money? Die sooner than you should? Increase your dominion?
The power and potential, or lack thereof, is housed within your body.
Look:
When you use your body to consume (news, movies, TV shows, brownies, social media), you yield your potential power to another.
Here’s how.
The Levels of Kingdom
Listen:
Through possession and use of a kingdom, you exist. Without a valid will, there is no life.
Creating, writing the sonnet of your life is how your kingdom’s expressions and ideas, your will, manifests. Like anything else worthwhile, this occurs in stages.
- Your inward kingdom
- Outward kingdom in various levels
The range of your effective will begins by securing an inward fortress, before creating and establishing outside of your “four walls” can take place.
There is a universal law at play; more will be given to him that hath.
What does this mean?
When you possess and use time and money, more will be given. Or said differently,
- Your body begins to possess the power that makes being able to handle more time and money possible.
Here’s how.
Time:
When you use your time to create from your body, more than you consume another kingdom’s creations, you can then cultivate more time for even more.
Creating takes on many forms, from music to pottery, to the effective spoken or written word, and hundreds more worthwhile endeavors.
The contrary?
You can stay in fear by using your time to consume other kingdom’s creations and be exploited. Having what little time you have, taken away.
Some positive, but you typically consume to recoup just enough energy to use tomorrow’s time for someone else’s kingdom.
- More time will be given to him that hath.
Money: Possessing and using money to consume, what you have being taken away. Or through the possession and use of money to expand the ideas and expressions, the will of your kingdom.
- Everywhere you are, for great or for ill, like the stone into the pond, these ripples are going forth whether you want them to or not.
How to be a “Just King or Queen”
Words like kingdom, reign, judge, and rule invoke negative connotations. Why?
Because the tyranny, control, and manipulation by kingdoms in “power,” are real.
However, most don’t set out to reign unjustly from their kingdom; why do many go wrong?
How do you become a “just king or queen”?
You begin by learning the game the demons don’t want you to discover, that you can only play to an audience of one.
- Your kingdom
Vs.
- The kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven?
The place of utter confidence in God’s care and provision on earth as it is in heaven, the kingdom of God.
Once there (which you likely already are): you never again have to lie, use anger, lust, or hurry because you’re involved in participating in the kingdom of heaven now.
You will be a just co-reignor by not cooperating with evil. From your body, kingdom, co-laboring with what God is already doing in the world, for such a time as this.
“You begin to know the kingdom of God when you undertake the things you’re sure won’t work, and they do.” Dallas Willard
Heaven is a reality; everywhere you are.
“To everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.” Revelation 2:17