Charlie Lewis

Kingdom First Reality

But seek (aim at and strive after/for, be ravenously hungry for) first of all (which is the first thing you do and where you begin, pursue, follow and engage) His kingdom (His System, His Plan, His method) and His righteousness (His way of doing and being, and that will be right/correct), and then all these things taken together will be given to you besides.”

Matthew 6:33, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) paraphrased

These are our instructions for the successful living of our lives in every area. The day
to day mundane, thoughts, actions and desires that we process. Whatever sphere of influence/Mountain you have been creatively designed to serve, this is the method for our successful pursuit. The difference between a Kingdom plan and a planned kingdom is that one is based in eternity and is focused and directed by eternal things that deal in outcomes and results and on our eternalness, while the other’s focus is on things that are temporary and that will expire, like income and things that money can buy. A Kingdom plan teaches you how to become founded and based on a living relationship with the eternal, living God through the kingdom system as the plan that is provided to humanity by our Creator and our Designer. A planned Kingdom focuses on temporary, material things that will not out live time, they will expire.

A Kingdom Church teaches you what the Kingdom is, how it works, how you engage the
Kingdom while on the earth, what the purpose of the Kingdom is for you and for humanity, and how to spread the Good News about His Kingdom. The Kingdom was the central theme and the primary message of God Himself when He was on the earth as Jesus Christ, Emmanuel. If your church is not teaching as its primary message the Kingdom of God and its engagement, it is not a Kingdom Church. A church kingdom bases and measures its success on temporary things that are all revenue generated and produced by revenue; How large is the facility, how much revenue do they generate, how many people attend, what is the size of their staff, how many programs do they have to engage people in the church, what is the size and the cost of their media outreach?

Church is important. This is where we gather together in relationship and where we corporately fellowship with one another. This is where we spend time together in a congregate setting learning about our Creator, our Designer and His forever plan for our lives. His plan begins with our choosing to be in an active and living relationship with Him. His plan for us is then activated and developed by engaging in His Kingdom, His System, His method for our living a successful and meaningful life in our here (our now), and our hereafter, (our forever). Understanding and learning about the Kingdom, how it is designed to operate and how we engage the Kingdom in our lives completely, in every area of our lives, is the primary method, the only method that we are provided by our Creator. To not know, to not understand and to not engage the Kingdom as our primary method of relationship, of fellowship and of communication with our Creator God is to
miss the joy, the peace and the active, living relationship that has been planned for us from the foundations, before the beginnings of the earth and time. His Kingdom is His correct way of doing and being.

Church is primarily where we gather (come together) congregately and fellowship together, where we look deep into who our God is, who we are to Him, and who He is to us. This is the place in our society where we are to spend time together studying our God’s plan, His system, and His method for living a successful and meaningful life on planet earth, for now and forever. If your church does not teach the Kingdom as its primary message and the central theme of all of its efforts as God Himself as Jesus Christ did when He was on the earth, may I suggest that you begin to fast and to pray and to seek an intervention from our Creator while you fellowship and communicate with your leadership asking for a Kingdom focus in all that your church does. You must be able to explain the difference between a Kingdom church and a church kingdom.

The Kingdom experience and a kingdom relationship are what humanity is searching for. Worship and fellowship are to be a continual, lifetime experience, and an all-the-time occurrence, not an experience limited to the congregate fellowship with all of the hip
trappings of smoke, lights, and loud music that orchestrate our emotions, our feelings and our minds into a high pitch frenzy. Our God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him out of or from their spirit, the eternal component of who we are. This is the worship that our God requires and the only kind that He will accept. A kingdom church will be centered around things that are eternal and that impact our eternalness. Things that change how we think, what we believe and how we act. A Kingdom Church changes you and your culture.

I am not slamming the Church, but Church is not a rock concert, where a hip person comes out and tells you how cool our God is. All of the components of a rock concert can be purchased with money. They are temporary and they have no lasting value. The true worshippers of our God do so from/out of their spirit in a manner that money cannot buy. True worship is fellowship and communication from our spirit to His Spirit. The power of corporate worship offers an unequalled joy that all of humanity longs to
experience. This desire is built into our DNA, it is who we are designed to be.

The Mountain of Religion and its culture has taken over most of our Churches. Religion is the largest and the wealthiest organization on our planet. I do not believe that our God created or organized religion. His greatest challenge when He was on the earth as Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, was with religion and with religious people. This reality remains today. Jesus mentioned the church three times and the Kingdom more than one hundred and twenty times. Never did Jesus refer to an organization with great wealth and vast assets. I do not find a New Testament example or parallel of today’s churches with all of their structures and owned gathering places and a huge payroll. Religion has more income and more assets than any other Mountain of Society. Think about this. If all of the revenue that Churches received was used to serve humanity and not to fund facilities and operations, how would that change society as we know it? If the mission and the purpose of Church became ministry, enlightenment and betterment, and not self-sustaining, how many Government services and global help organizations
would be unnecessary?  Was it and is it our God’s plan to establish all of these religious organizations that gather billions of dollars of revenue each year just to support their facilities and their operations where their smallest expenditure is actual ministry and outreach? Does God approve of billionaire televangelists? Have we lost our way? Have we left our Kingdom-First charge and accepted a substitute from the Mountain of Religion that is controlled and that is a development of the kingdom of darkness? Are we building Kingdom Churches or Church Kingdoms?

I am challenged, disappointed and dismayed by the moan and the expressed longings of humanity for a kingdom church experience and their inability to locate a kingdom church.  In casual and in serious conversation with humanity from all walks of life, the desire to experience a Kingdom relationship through a Kingdom Church is everywhere. There is a loud cry from our spirits for the Kingdom Church reality. We are tired of the empty and unfulfilling experience that we receive from a church kingdom. We must fast and pray and study and believe our God for Church change, and we must act now. We do not have to settle for the status quo of a religious church experience.

In Part 2 of this piece, we will look into the biblical precedent for Kingdom Churches, and why they matter today.

 

The pursuit of success is a lifetime quest. Success and the desire for success are part of our DNA. The desire to be successful is built-in to who we are. Every day the pursuit of success guides our thoughts, our actions and our desires. When we awake each morning, we have an idea in our minds of what our success for the day looks like, and we know how we go after our goals for that day to be successful. Our desire for success is an integral part of our makeup and who we are. No one wants to be nor plans to be a failure. Everyone wants to be successful.

Of the estimated more than one hundred thirty million books that have been published in human history, a significant number have been about success and how to achieve success. The challenge for humanity does not appear to be a source for information about the knowledge and the understanding of “how” to be successful, but rather a clear, correct and understandable explanation and definition of how to determine “what” success really is for each of us. Success is completely individual and is not and cannot be a comparable exercise. Yet, there is a framework and there are established parameters and guidelines that must be included in our personal definition of what our personal success really is for our understanding to be accurate and for our pursuit to be effective for us. Can you define, can you articulate, and can you write out what success is for You? Have you done this? This is important. When each of us do this – when we define, when we can articulate and when we have written down our understanding and our belief of what defines our success – the results of our lives will reflect this clarity and this direction in our actions and in the outcomes of our lives.

For some time now, I have felt the unction from the Holy Spirit God to write the explanation of what true success really is from the understanding that the Holy Spirit God has given to me about how success is defined from the Kingdom perspective. Even more specific, what is defined as success in the Kingdom government system of our Creator and our God. I have known for some time that the Kingdom System of our God defines success much differently than does the kingdom of darkness. I have learned this personally through my life experiences on this planet. What society and the cultures of our world define as success are often major failures in the success system of our Creator and our God. Huge successes in the Kingdom of Light are very often considered failures in the Kingdom of Darkness. We must know clearly what our Creator and our Designer defines as our personal success or we will be played like a puppet on a string by society and by the cultures of this world.

Having written considerable material on achieving a successful life, including four books completely about success I began to recognize the need to define what true success looks like for humanity. Not the version of success that is presented and promoted by the Kingdom of Darkness, but success that is lasting and does not expire. Money, power and fame are the most prominent determinants used to define success by the Kingdom of Darkness. That definition is very pervasive in society and this is what the systems of the world use as their primary standard for describing and defining success. Money, power and fame can be part of success, but none of them are primary indicators nor are they necessary for true success.
It is interesting that none of my writings, including the books, began with an explanation of success as the primary focus. My motivation was to share life lessons that I had discovered on my journey of life. I knew that there were solutions and better ways to effectively address the challenges and sometimes the struggles that I had experienced and that I continue to experience daily. Life is not fair, nor is success in life a destination at which we can arrive and end our search for fulfillment. Every day that we are on this planet, we must choose the actions that determine the experiential outcomes that we innately desire. Knowing this and understanding the process will bring great peace to the process. Humanity has tried many things to define and to achieve success. Many turn to religion, or power, or fame or money in their search only to discover that the achievement of any or all of these will not provide the success that our DNA given to each of us by our Creator God calls for. Be encouraged there is an answer that works. Where and how then, do we find abiding peace, and how do we experience fulfillment? Only through knowing and understanding how we are designed to operate and to live on this planet, while we are in-time, in a vibrant, living relationship with the living God, our Creator and our Designer can we experience success that is for now and forever. The living Word of God declares that my people are being destroyed because they do not know me. Our God is RELATIONAL. He is not religious. His design for our success is not found in what we know about Him, but that we know Him personally and intimately. All of our success begins here.

In my personal pursuit of a successful life I found that my effort must be based on an eternal, living relationship with our eternal, living God whom I know personally. This is not spooky or religious, but an active living relationship where I fellowship and communicate with my Creator and the One who designed me, continually and constantly. How did I come to this understanding of relationship? My search led me to five fundamental questions that I had to know and had to answer for myself. I believe and am convinced that these are the same questions all of humanity has and they must answer personally for themselves. Whether the awareness of this search is cognitive or even if they have no idea of their search, everyone who arrives on this planet has these same questions, and needs to know the answers for themselves. This desire that we have defines the relational aspect of who we are personally and what our relationship with our Creator is designed to be. I have discovered that the correct understanding of this search and the subsequent accurate results, determines our path for success. I believe these questions are both fundamental and foundational, and that we must understand and that each of us must answer for ourselves for each of us as well as all of humanity to achieve the abiding peace and the personal fulfillment necessary for true success. For me, this was the method, and this is how it works.
I want to share these questions with you.

1) Who am I?
2) Where did I come from?
3) Why am I here?
4) What are the Standards of Conduct and behavior I am to live by?
5) What happens to me when my spirit leaves my body?

The knowledge of these facts, the wisdom to know how to apply these facts to our life experiences personally and effectively, and then the understanding of how this process impacts all of humanity (our culture – how we think and how we live) is the only successful foundation that is provided to us by our Creator and our Designer for the success of an abiding peace and a fulfilled life, now and forever.

Many of you have noticed a lack of blog activity since the end of last year/beginning of this year, and I am glad to report that the drought is over!

The beginning of this year has been extremely busy as we plan and prepare for a remarkable year in ministry (I am looking forward to several speaking engagements lined up throughout the year. If you are interested in having me come speak to your church, business, civic group, conference, or any other group, please email my team at speaking@charlielewis.net so we can get you on the calendar as soon as possible). But I have also been very busy writing something that the Holy Spirit God has laid upon my heart.

It is an introduction of sorts to the Kingdom System Series — a look into the heart cry of every person who has ever lived, and answers to the questions that humanity longs to know. God has been waking me up in the night, prompting me to write down what He has been speaking to me. This material I have been writing will most likely be further developed and edited into a book, and perhaps an accompanying e-course. But for now I want to share it with you all in a more raw, immediate form.

I have a fair amount written already, so I plan on releasing it in small segments over the next few weeks. I hope you will stay tuned here and follow along. And, as always, please feel free to send me feedback if this material impacts your life (you can leave comments below, or reach me at my Facebook page).

I will begin by sharing a summary of this new material:

---

All of humanity is searching for the purpose of their lives. We want to know why we are here. Are we just matter, physical substance that is occupying time and space at rest mass, without influence and without consequence? Or, is there meaning to our life and purpose to our being here? There is a longing for hope, the knowledge and the assurance that there are good outcomes that are planned for our lives. Are there plans for us? If there are plans, we want to know what those plans are, how we engage them, and how we go after them with all that we are and all that we are capable of mustering. We want to know clearly and without doubt, how we are to live our lives so that we are successful in achieving our purpose and in fulfilling our destiny.

These questions and the desire for correct answers are universally held by all of humanity. To obtain accurate results for our search, we must know where to begin our search, what questions we are to ask, and where to find correct, verifiable answers to our questions.

For good and correct answers, we must begin at our origin, the place where our life in-time began for us. Are we merely the result of someone’s egg being fertilized by someone else’s seed and that is all there is to us? We have no plan and we have no purpose. Is it up to us to make the best of this life we have been given and hope everything turns out okay? Or, are we creatively designed by an amazing Creator and Designer who has provided a written plan of purpose for our in-time journey and for our eternity? Recorded history for thousands of years provides indisputable proof and absolute, verifiable evidence of the transcendent relationship that exists between humanity and their Creator. For humanity to live a meaningful life of successful purpose, there must be an open, continuous, and free flowing relationship of fellowship and communication between the eternal spirit of man and the eternal Spirit of their Creator and their God. Life is completely about eternity and not the temporary “things” of time.

For us to live successful and meaningful lives, we must know who we are. Not the trappings of our earthly lineage, but who we are forever before we became who we are in-time. There is a nexus where who we are in-time and who we are eternally and forever meet. Our consideration for living in time consists of the temporary and the horizontal plane where our body is now, and the forever and eternal plane, the vertical, transcendent relationship between our spirit and the Spirit of our Creator. This is where we came from and this is where we will be forever. All of our choices and all of our decisions in-time must be viewed from this vantage point. Our priority and the deciding factor for actions that we choose in the living of our lives must always be based on the forever, the eternal.

As the song written by George Wyle and Edward Pola says, “it’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” We hear the melody in our minds as we recall that line. Celebration is in the air. We honor our Creator and our God. There are beautiful decorations and bright, colorful lights everywhere. We gather with Friends and Family for festive meals and parties, and we exchange gifts as we celebrate the greatest gift humanity has ever received.

Recalling the reality of our Creator and our Designer clothing Himself in flesh and becoming one of us, so that He could redeem humanity from the tyranny and from the oppression brought on us by the lies and the deceits of the defeated Satan, our enemy, and so that He can restore us to an unrestricted relationship with Himself, stirs my spirit to overflowing joy.  My spirit within me leaps with excitement and with appreciation. My spirit swells with thankfulness. How incredibly wonderful are His plans for you and me. The whole of who He is and what He does is about us. He is not lackadaisical about our lives and where we are now, He tells us that every day of our life is written in His book before our first day begins, and before our first moments have passed. He tells us that He has plans for us and that His plans are good. His plans include a future and they are full of hope. He has no plans for disaster for us.

Our life does not begin at conception. The home of our eternal spirit begins at conception, but our Creator said, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb, before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations,” (NLT).  We are eternal. We will never die. We existed before our journey and our experience in time. We entered time with gifts, talents and unique abilities for our “appointment” while we are in time. We are ambassadors of our King. We represent the country of our origin. We return to our country when our spirits leave our bodies, our home in time.

The joy of Christmas increases when we know who we are and who our Creator is to us. He has made us special. We are unique, one of a kind, an original. No one else has your gifts, your talents and your unique abilities.  As challenging as this is for our finite minds, our Creator designed us for success and for happiness. His plans are for our design to bless us, to bless our families, and for our gifts and our talents to be a blessing to all of humanity. The AMPC translations says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and I approved of you as My chosen instrument. And before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you (dedicating you for a special purpose) I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” A prophet is an inspired teacher or a proclaimer of the will of God. That is who you are designed and set apart and anointed to be. You may be an engineer, a pilot, a politician or any number of other things as your employment in time, but your deployment by your Creator is to be an inspired teacher and proclaimer of the will of God to and for your benefit and for the good of all of humanity. We are all ambassadors and ministers of the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom, the plan of our Creator for our success. We are on assignment. Our employment may not be our deployment, but it may be our platform for our deployment. Which is more important, our employment or our deployment? One is temporary, the other eternal. A slight difference in perspective with an exponential increase in results. Income versus Outcome.

Why are we celebrating? Because we know the real meaning of our lives in time and we have hope. This is not all there is to us. We have joy. We have relationship. We are in a living relationship with the living God. We know Him. We celebrate His birth in time, and His wonderful and powerful provision for all of humanity. Rejoice.

Luke 2:10-11New Living Translation (NLT):

10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

It is a privilege to live in a county where there is a day set aside each year to give thanks. Early in our country and even recently, as a nation we have been called to fast and to pray and to engage Heaven in our life experiences on planet Earth. What does that mean? Why is that important?

Fasting, praying, being thankful and calling Heaven to the Earth are chosen Dynamics of our Conduct and our Behavior that have huge impact on the outcomes of our lives on Earth and forever. A Dynamic is defined as an interactive system involving completing or conflicting forces. This simply means that for our being thankful there is a corresponding reaction. We choose our outcomes by the actions that we freely and completely select to follow. These actions impact the Earth and our life experiences on this planet. Our present life experiences are entirely the result of the actions that we have chosen previously.

I have often asked myself how important is being thankful to our Creator and our God, and what does the Manufacturer’s Handbook say about thankfulness?

The words “thank,” “thanks,” and their variations are used 139 times in the King James Version of the Scriptures. In the New Living Translation they are used 168 times.  That amount of usage makes the word, its variations and their meanings and usages, important to the Author of the writings. If it is mentioned that many times by our Creator and our God, then we must determine why it is used, how that pertains to us as Humanity, and how this understanding impacts us as Humanity. I believe this is important, particularly in the understanding of our likeness to our Creator.

In a very large majority of the usages of the words thanks and/or thanksgiving, there is the pairing of the admonition or directive to combine thanksgiving with the presentation of our praise to our God and our King. I have often been intrigued by the record in the letter to the Romans identified as Chapter 1 verse 21. There is described here a very clear picture of how our God looks at thanksgiving and praise from Humanity.

The King James says –

“Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful…”

The New Living Translations says –

“Yes, they knew God, but they would not worship Him as God or even give Him thanks…”

There appears to be several things that are identified here as important.

• Recognition – our Creator wants to be recognized as God. Knowing does not appear to be enough.  There is an element of recognition.  Recognition is defined as the act of identifying someone or something because of previous knowledge, or to formally acknowledge someone. Our Creator God wants Humanity to formally acknowledge Him as our Creator and our God.

• Acknowledgement – to acknowledge means to accept or to admit the existence, the reality or the truth of someone or something, and to recognize as being valid and as having force or power.

• Worship – a feeling or expression of reverence and honor and adoration for Deity. To reverence is to show deep feelings of respect/regard and devotion. Devotion is a large expression of dedication and of loyalty.

• Glory – exaltation. The fame, admiration and honor that is given to someone who does something important. Praise of Deity. Praise and thanksgiving offered as an act of worship to Deity.

• Thankfulness – gratefulness. Warm, friendly feelings of gratitude.

These terms are key indicators of the personality of our God.  To many it may be difficult to believe that our God has a personality.  In different places He refers to His mind.  As like-produced beings we understand that we have a mind, and that is where our emotions, our feelings, and our personality are developed and where they are housed. Being created in His likeness and His image, for us to have a mind and a personality, He would have to have a personality first.  Often Humanity can only see God as some austere, non-concerned Being that has no interest in individuals, much less any interest at all in all of Humanity. I’m not sure where that perception comes from, but a casual observance of our God will dispel any such nonsense.  He is the God of great compassion and provision. Even before the foundations of the Earth, He had greatly detailed plans for each member of Humanity.

A summation of this passage would indicate that our God wants each of us to formally recognize Him as our Creator, to accept and to admit His existence, and to accept and to declare His power in our lives. We are to do this by our expression of reverence, honor and adoration. This expression is to be an exhibition of dedication and loyalty wrapped up in praises that are warm, friendly feelings of gratitude or thankfulness. This is what Jesus was telling the woman at the well in Samaria. This kind of relationship and this kind of praise and worship only comes from a thankful spirit and is received by a thankful God.

Why is a thankful spirit important?  In our World today, especially in the United States, we are a people who often find it easier to recognize what we do not have more than to recognize and to be thankful for what we do have. We are constantly being bombarded by all of the different media forms with things that appear very enticing, and they are presented as things we cannot live without. The reality is that when we get them, they do not look at all as they did in the marketing.  Passing through the Atlanta Airport recently, Fran and I stopped to get a quick sandwich.  As we sat at the table a gentleman came and sat at the table next to us. As he opened his sandwich, he looked at us and said, “Boy, I wish it looked like they show it in that photo on the wall.” It did not. Not only sandwiches, but most everything that is being marketed is shown as something that will change your life. Your life will be enormously enhanced by the experience of owning and enjoying this product.  We purchase them only to learn that the glitter is gone very quickly. My Brother once said to me, “do not buy any of those exercise products you see on television.  I have them all in my closet.  They are unused and I will let you have them at half price.” I am sure that was not totally correct, but much too much of it really is.

What are we looking for?  What is it we want, and why do we want it?  Is it possible that we are unhappy with whom we are and what we have, and all of this feeds our discontentment? “If I could only lose ten pounds;” “If I could only get a new car, a new house, a new spouse, a new job, make more money, move to a new town;” and a whole array of “other things that I do not now have.” The displeasure appears to be with ourselves, but we are led to believe that obtaining something outside of ourselves will provide the answer.  Is that a reasonable conclusion?  Is that reality?

All of the marketing we see presents us with unreasonable expectations.  Everything we are shown is perfect, without fault, without blemish.  Our skin, our bodies, our relationships, our cars, our homes, our children, our teeth, our food, and on and on and on, and we are presented with examples that are supposed to be natural, but they are all without blemish.  That does not exist.  If we can understand that we are eternal spirits that live in a body, and that we are managed by our minds, we then can set priorities and reasonable objectives with acceptable time projections for accomplishment.  All of the marketing is very one-sided.  Very little information is offered about products that are available to enhance our spirit’s relationship with our Creator.  Very little is offered to develop correct thinking that is in agreement with our Creator’s plans and the way to look at things His way. Most marketing addresses the body and satisfying the senses. This is the most temporal of all of our being.

Just as the previous terms that describe the personality of our God, they are also a part our make-up and our personality and they are not wrong.  We want to be recognized, our influence for good to be honored, our contribution and participation to be revered by the expression of loyalty and appreciation.  This is important.  It is important to our Creator, and it is important to us as Humanity.  I believe it is false humility to act like this does not matter.  He has said that we are made like Him, and what matters to Him matters to us, and what matters to us matters or is important to Him.

A spirit of thankfulness is very important to our God.  He follows this presentation in Romans with very specific outcomes and actions that are the results for those who do not honor Him as God, who choose to not worship Him, and who are not thankful.

We are told to enter His gates with thanksgiving and to come into His courts with praise.  We cannot be unthankful and constantly complaining. Our God is good and His mercy endures forever.  Be thankful unto Him and bless His Holy name forever and continually.

As the old hymn says, “Count your many blessings, count them one by one.” Make a list of the good in your life and it will overwhelm the bad or challenging.

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.”

Philippians 4:8-9, The Message

Have a Happy and Thankful Thanksgiving, today and forever!