Charlie Lewis

Foundational Scripture: Psalm 1

Oh, the joys of those Who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners, or join in with scoffers, but they delight in doing everything the Lord wants, day and night they think about His law, they are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail, their leaves never wither and in all they do they prosper.

Association, definition:

• To associate
• To link or connect in the mind or imagination
• To keep company, mix socially
• A companion, comrade
• Following or accompanying, concomitant (naturally together}
• To bring into friendship
• A friend who is frequently in the company of another, drinking companion, comrade in arms, soul mate

With whom do you associate ?

• Those to whom you listen
• Those with whom you spend your time
• Those with whom you share your thoughts and ideas
• Those with whom you value the time spent together

It is said that time and words can never be recalled. It is said that time is our most valuable asset. There is a saying that says, “What I do today is important because I am paying a day of my life for it. What I accomplish must be worthwhile because the price is so valuable.”

Jim Rohn, one of my favorite life teachers, has much to say about the time we are given and how we choose to spend it. His observations are so simple and so fundamental, and yet so profound. I find myself saying, “Yeah, I have thought of that or I know that.” The next question that naturally follows and begs to be answered is “Why haven’t I done something about it?” or more importantly, “What is wrong with now? What am I waiting for?” And I am sure I am the only person who says, “I am, just not now.” The timing is not right, or I have to do this first, and THEN, I will… and before I know it, a great amount of time has passed and I have yet to respond to the obvious awareness that I have and know that is waiting and begs to be addressed.

One of the greatest challenges we ever face is the choice of those with whom we choose to associate. Probably some of the most traumatic circumstances I have ever faced in my life are dealing with the impact of those with whom I have chosen to associate. Here are a few:

1. My Church – The Church I grew up attending
2. My Friends- Many I had known most of my life
3. My Work- It did not take me where I believed God wanted me to go
4. My romantic attachments – lovely and beautiful, but not who God had chosen for me
5. My Pastor- a man I loved, believed in and cared much for, but his heart was unclean and his motives impure
6. Family members – Sometimes may have difficulty seeing who we have become because they remember who we were

And there are many more. How many traumatic experiences have you had because it was necessary to change an association?

With whom we associate is very, very IMPORTANT. It influences and directs and determines our DESTINY, and the destiny of posterity. Examples – Good and Bad:

• Adam/Eve – ultimately everyone born after them
• Moses/Joshua
• Elijah/Elisha
• Paul/Timothy
• Jonathan/David – Mephibosheth
• Samson/Delilah

What is our belief? Where did we get our belief? What is an Idea? Where do our beliefs and ideas come from? What makes us who we are?

Dr. Myles Munroe, the late master teacher of the Kingdom, provided his thoughts about our ideas and the source of our beliefs. These observations are worthy of consideration and evaluation. They are as follows:

Our beliefs are developed by the ideas to which we are exposed. The process can be outlined like this.

1. An original thought is a precept
2. A conceived precept is an idea
3. A conceived idea is a concept
4. An accepted concept becomes a conviction
5. An accepted conviction becomes a belief
6. An accepted belief becomes our ideology
7. An accepted ideology becomes philosophy
8. An accepted philosophy becomes a lifestyle

Understanding the source of our beliefs is very, very important. It is so easy, so natural to absorb our beliefs almost as if by osmosis from our surrounding – our Family, our Friends, our Church, our Schooling, our Government, the Media. Many people do this and never consider if what is being said or portrayed is correct. Why? It was what my Parents believed, and they did alright.

All of these influences are better described as culture. Culture can be defined as the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. It is defined by the shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize that group. The challenge with that approach to our beliefs is that it is not stable. It constantly changes. Can anyone dispute that the attitudes, values, goals and practices of our nation and our world have changed constantly over your lifetime? Our beliefs must be established on a Culture that is based on Truth and does not change. Truth is not situational. It does not change with circumstances. As Citizens in the Kingdom of Jehovah God our Creator, we must not be swayed by the Kingdom of Darkness and what we see around us. Our Citizenship is of a nation whose government and its community and culture do not change. It is the only place a person on planet earth will ever find a stable government and a community and culture where the values, the laws, the moral standards, the ideals, the norms and the true spiritual authority that is constant and it does not change. Humanity longs for this place and we have been charged to deliver this (Heaven) to earth and to show this Kingdom to those who dwell here. How serious is this? How important for humanity?

Read Romans 8: 19-22 KJV/NLT:

Where are we Citizens? Are we in this world but not of this world? Are we showing forth His praises until He comes? Are we living a life of victory different than those around us? Do they see the Kingdom Government of our God demonstrated in our lives both in our community and our culture?

For the earnest expectation of the creature is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. The entire of creation (humanity) groaneth and travaileth in pain together.

What are we telling them? What are we showing them? Or, are we the ones being told and shown? All of humanity is looking and longing for the Kingdom. The Kingdom has been given to us. It has been placed inside of us; God has called us to be Kingdom Birthers. Everywhere we go we must share the Good News of the Kingdom of our God. As Dr. Munroe has said, the Kingdom was God’s big idea from the beginning. It is a powerful thought. It is the idea that will change our world into the Kingdom of our God. Share the Good News.

Ideas are powerful.

The Influence and Impact of Ideas:

1. The most powerful force on earth is an idea
2. Everything on earth is the result of an idea
3. Everything began and begins as an idea
4. Ideas produce everything
5. Ideas are more powerful than death
6. Death cannot kill an idea
7. Ideas cannot be destroyed
8. Ideas multiply when attacked
9. Ideas submerge and reemerge
10. Ideas are the source of belief
11. The world is ruled by dead men’s ideas
12. Ideas are stronger than death

Dr. Jerry Horner used an illustration appropriate here. Place a boat in the water and it floats. Place too much water in the boat and it sinks. Place the Citizens of the Kingdom in the world, and they will rise above it. Place too much of the world in the Citizens and they sink.

We — all of humanity — are eternal spirits. We live in a body and we are managed by our minds. The minds that we have programmed. Yet, eternity escapes us. We just do not go there. We do not get it. Eternity is not a factor in most of what we do. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 (AMPC) says:

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

As we analyze the knowledge (knowing the facts), wisdom (knowing how the facts apply to us personally) and understanding (knowing the facts and how they apply to us personally fits into our Creator God’s plan for all of humanity), this scripture presents a very real and strong relationship between humanity and eternity.

Knowledge/ Fact: Our Creator and God placed eternity in our spirits and in our minds

Wisdom: Knowing the facts about our relationship with and through eternity provides information and direction for understanding and operating in our unique purpose. We know that this is provided for all of humanity from our Creator God and that it is “divinely implanted” in each of us even before our birth. Without understanding and following their individual purpose, Humanity struggles through life for meaning and often is never aware of their Created Design. Knowing one’s Created Design provides direction and fulfillment that nothing else can or will provide.

Understanding: Most of humanity goes through their existence on Earth pursuing goals and ambitions that have little or nothing to do with their or anyone else’s outcome. Most often the motivating factor is income and a desired lifestyle on the earth. Even if they achieve wealth and position, they also experience great frustration and enormous discontent because they are unfulfilled and not happy. “Nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy humanity” and provide the fulfillment and contentment we so desperately long for. All of this appears to be based on eternity and upon our eternal purpose.

In a previous study on Eternal Life we addressed exactly what Eternal Life means. In many presentations on the subject, the idea seems to be that Eternal Life begins when Humanity’s life on earth ends — when our spirit departs our earth suit, and our spirits enters a new dimension or environment that very few of us know very little about. Eternal Life is defined as life without beginning and without ending. We live in that environment now. We experience the reality of eternity now. Where our bodies are mortal and temporary (ashes to ashes) our spirits already are eternal. We will never die. We will not “spend” eternity anywhere. Eternity does not “spend.” It is forever. We are eternal beings now.

To leave out the understanding and the perspective of eternity in our lives and in all that we do, and especially all of the decisions and the choices that we make now on this planet, is to miss our primary purpose for our being here. Life on this planet is about relationship. More importantly, our lives are about our “eternal relationships.” It is almost like we are in school. We are studying and we are learning how to prepare for and how to plan our eternity. This understanding and this preparation determines our experience of eternity, or how we enjoy our eternal life. The correctness and the accuracy of our eternal choices are very important.

Most of the results on eternity of our day to day choices are not readily visible to the human eye. They can only be seen through the eyes of our eternal spirit. That requires a reprogrammed mind that understands and that chooses to operate on the eternal level with an eternal viewpoint of our choices. However, because the present and temporal impact are so easily seen, it is difficult to allow our eternal impact to even play a part in our decision of our choices of conduct and behavior.

We have become an instant society, and we enjoy immediate and immediately visible results. I am not sure that is all good. The impact on eternity of our choices and decisions is immediate. However, it requires observation and understanding through a mind that is programmed to think like our God thinks. Eyes to see and ears to hear, both come from the Lord and from a relationship with Him.

The understanding of Kingdom is an understanding of eternity. Proverbs so accurately presents the Dynamics of eternity through Kingdom choices. The conflicting and competing forces are the Kingdom of Darkness, which is about everything temporary, and the Kingdom of Light, which is completely about eternity.

How does the Mountain of Economy and/or Business function today in consideration of what the Kingdom System of our God declares is right and what is just? As a business person and entrepreneur all of my life, I have firsthand knowledge and actual experience on this Mountain.

In our Constitution, the scriptures, there are many places where our God’s view on Business or commerce is presented. In the parable of the three servants, God Himself as Jesus Christ addresses how our God looks at business in the Kingdom.

Parable of the Three Servants

14 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. 15 He gave five bags of silver[a] to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip. 16 “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. 17 The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. 18 But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money. 19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. 20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’ 21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together! [b]’ 22 “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’23 “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’ 24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’ 26 “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, 27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’ 28 “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. 29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. 30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:14-30 New Living Translation (NLT)

This is an account of how our God has designed business and commerce to function in His Kingdom on the earth, our governing authority. In the beginning of this story that Jesus Himself was sharing, He began with the declaration that “the Kingdom of Heaven is like this.” He said that the Kingdom of God experience was to be our first priority and what we pursued before anything else. The Kingdom experience in Business – as in everything Kingdom – is about profit and profit is described as success.

2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

3 John 2 King James Version (KJV)

Interesting here is the description that each of us receive talents or gifts “in proportion to their abilities.” Success is not comparable. Success is measured by what we do with what we are personally given. Everyone is given unique abilities before we enter time on the earth that are specific to us. Our charge is to recognize and to identify the abilities that we have received from our Creator and our Designer, and to maximize their impact and their influence on the earth for ourselves, for our Family and for humanity. This is prospering: increasing and making a profit. This describes the Kingdom plan, His way of doing and being that is correct for us. Profiting is described as being good and not profiting as the result of laziness and having no personal worth. 

One of my favorite authors, Dr. Myles Munroe used to describe humanity before our encounter with Jesus as being in a prison bound by the chains of slavery from the Kingdom of Darkness. We were suffering severe tyranny and overwhelming oppression from the Kingdom of Darkness and from the Defeated Satan and all of his demons.  God Himself as Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, came to the earth and burst open the door to our prison. He released and He destroyed all of the chains that had us bound. We are free and we have been given the keys to the prison. We must destroy the prison that has other humanity bound and confined. We must declare freedom to all who are oppressed and liberty to those who are bound. It is not enough just to experience freedom for ourselves. We must be about our Father’s work of destroying all of the works of our enemy, the defeated Satan. Our relationship with our Creator and our God is not passive. We must engage and we must destroy all of the works of our enemy, the defeated Satan and all of the works of the Kingdom of Darkness.

Traveling to more than sixty countries where we have shared the Good News of the Kingdom System of our God, we would identify the Mountains of influence in our society and share a curriculum from our Constitution that assisted each person attending to ask the Holy Spirit God, and to know in which mountain they were designed to birth the Kingdom for themselves and for humanity. In all of these different countries, without exception, the mountain most complained about by those participating in our program was the Legal System and Government. The common descriptions used for Government and the Legal Systems of each country were invasive, ruthless, corrupt, evil and not representing or providing justice for their citizens. Legislators and those who practice in the Legal Systems have given themselves and their System unbridled and unchecked authority and power. It has nothing to do with justice and with doing what is right. They can crush and they can destroy anyone without cause or without evidence. The Stronghold on this Mountain has used the corrupt systems of this world to gain for himself and for those who follow and work in his system unreasonable and illegitimate power over humanity. It is wrong and we must identify their practice as being wrong by calling the actions out and unseating them from their throne over Government.

Why should you be interested in the administration of our Legal system and the integrity of our Government? Why should you care? The foundations for our peace and for our security are entirely founded on our belief that we live in and are part of a just and a fair system and that our Government exists to provide governance where justice is central to all they do. No outside factors of wealth, power or position gives advantage to anyone. We are all treated with dignity, respect and with equality no matter our socio-economic or power status. This is important.

In my previous blog (read it here), I discussed the examples of Jesus, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who each shaped history by standing up to forces of corruption and injustice in their day. So my question now is where is the Kingdom person, the one who will prophesy the Word of the Lord today? I declare and I decree that that person(s) is already present, on the scene, and ready to act to restore the Government of Heaven, the Government of our God to its rightful place to replace the evil systems of this world. The present evil systems that rule in our world will be replaced. The Government of Heaven will soon occupy the throne of the Legal Systems and the Government of this world.

If the Holy Spirit God has shown you by His Word and by His Spirit that you are to represent the Kingdom (be a birther) and to present the Kingdom System of our God to the Kingdom systems of this world, then I encourage you to prayerfully reflect upon the seven points we discussed regarding Jesus, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the last blog. Then write out your answers and your personal understanding of your personal actions to each of these seven statements. Here they are again for your consideration:

1)   They heard the Word of the Lord from the Lord

2)   They came declaring the Word of the Lord to all of humanity

3)   They identified the injustice and presented the cure

4)   They took an active stand for right/justice

5)   They stood knowing the consequences for them could be horrific

6)   They valued the outcomes as being worth the personal risk, they stood firm and declared the Word of the Lord.

7)   Society and Culture was changed because of their actions

Adam and Eve chose the Law over relationship. They reasoned in their minds that the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong would make them like God, and they would have the power to rule their own lives. That did not work then, and it does not work now. They chose to substitute what is “right” for what is “legal”. This is the method that our Government and our world operates and functions under today. The method of governance that our God and our Creator designed and provided for us to live successfully in relationship with Him and with all of humanity is everyone simply doing what is right. Doing what is right provides justice for everyone. Justice is founded in eternity and does not change. The two pillars that hold up and support the rule of our God are justice and righteousness, being in right relationship with our God. Our God began His method of fellowship and communication with humanity in the garden through relationship and that remains His plan and His desire/choice today.

Humanity’s obsession with what is legal over what is right always results in corruption. Execution of judgment is no longer based on justice and what is right. In our legal systems today, justice is not the consideration and most of the time is not possible without divine intervention. Man has substituted his thoughts, his ideas, and his opinions that are based on situations, circumstances, and on particular relationships that always advantage them. This results in their creating a new standard of what is legal and not what is right, or the administration of justice. This is humanism in its purest form. And who oversees all of this and who administers and dispenses the results that have little to do with justice (what is right)? Government. Government gives all the power for judgment to the lowest paid attorney in the room. This really is a travesty. This is a mockery, an absurd misrepresentation of justice.

This system has become so large and so powerful, we may seem helpless. However, we know with certainty that we are not helpless, nor are we without hope. We have hope and we have power. I am reminded of two things.

First, how many times has our God used one, singular person to impact society and to change culture? Jesus, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. And, how with only twelve seemingly insignificant, non-influential men, the entirety of humanity has come to know about His plan for our lives.

Secondly, what did these men do that so amazingly influenced and changed their society and everyone’s culture forever? When the Holy Spirit God revealed truth to them, they took a stand. They were no different than you and me or any others of their day. Their response to truth made the difference. It was not because of their exterior, visible difference to their society. They appeared to look like everyone else. Their impact was because of an internal, eternal response to the voice of the Holy Spirit God speaking to their eternal spirit His forever, unchanging truth. They heard and they recognized the voice of their God, our Good Shepherd. We all do. They took His Word to their mind where they evaluated it and there, they declared their allegiance and their passion to follow and to pursue His direction and His ways. They understood the objective; the desired outcome and they ran after that end with all of their might. How can we sit idly by and expect the wrong on the Mountain of Government and our Legal System to correct itself? That too is a dynamic that is part of the design of our Creator. Man calls this Newton’s Law of Inertia which states that a body in motion (something that is going one way) tends to remain in motion (follow that same path) until it is disturbed by an outside force. We are to be “an outside force.” The principle says that the motions tend to respond proportionally to the amount of the pressure/force that is applied. How much do we want Government and our Legal System to change to reflect the Government of our God?  How much pressure/force are we applying? How do we apply the pressure that becomes a force?

In the examples of Jesus, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  a similar path was followed.

1. They heard the Word of the Lord from the Lord
2. They came declaring the Word of the Lord to all of humanity
3. They identified the injustice and presented the cure
4. They took an active stand for right/justice
5. They stood knowing the consequences for them could be horrific
6. They valued the outcomes as being worth the personal risk, they stood firm and declared the Word of the Lord
7. Society and Culture was changed because of their actions

I believe this path, this method, and this process will work for reestablishing the Kingdom System of our God as the reigning culture on all of the Mountains of Society. We must first recognize that the Kingdoms/Mountains of Society of the world are under the influence and the control of the Kingdom of Darkness. Adam and Eve, Humanity gave their authority to Satan and he now controls these components of our society that have huge impact on our life experiences. We must then know that God Himself came to the earth as Jesus Christ, Emmanuel and bought our freedom from the tyranny and from the oppression of these illegitimate rulers, (redemption-freedom) and restored us to our rightful place of authority and dominion (restoration-power and authority) that we experienced before the fall/transgression of humanity.

5 Then the devil took Him up to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time [[a]in the twinkling of an eye]. 6 And he said to Him, To You I will give all this power and authority and their glory (all their magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, and grace), for it has been turned over to me, and I give it to whomever I will.

Luke 4:5-6 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)

19 Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.

Luke 10:19 New Living Translation (NLT)

18-20 Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky. See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”

Luke 10:19-20 The Message (MSG)

19 Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and (physical and mental strength and ability) over all the power that the enemy (possesses); and nothing shall in any way harm you.

Luke 10:19 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)

We are forever redeemed, and we are forever restored. Our enemy Satan is forever the Defeated Satan.