Kingdom Men Rising: An 8-Day Reading Plan 预览

Chosen for the Challenge

When you purchase a game of checkers, you’ll notice that on the top of each piece is the insignia of a crown. That is because each checker was created to become a king.

A checker is crowned because it has successfully made it to the other side of the board. After that point it will have the right and authority to maneuver and function at a much higher level than it could prior to being crowned. However, the reality is most individual checkers will not successfully make it to the other end of the board to be crowned because the opposition will jump them and knock them out of the game. Whether a checker achieves its created goal of being crowned as a king is fully determined by the moves made by the hand controlling it.

When God created men, He created them with a crown because each man was made to rule under the authority of God. However, ever since the first man, Adam, Satan has sought to “jump” men to keep them from fulfilling their kingdom purposes. He goes to great lengths to keep us from functioning in alignment with God so that our families, churches, communities, and nation experience the consequences and confusion of men living independently of God. In the game of life, when it comes to spiritual warfare, you need to go on the offense. You will either need to jump, or you will be jumped by Satan’s attacks.

Satan is free to roam, within reason. God has Satan on a leash. Yet God will often allow Satan to tempt us as men, or wage warfare against us because it is in these times of testing that our true character is either formed or revealed.

The strength we need to successfully do battle with the devil is supplied by God (Eph. 6:10-11). That may seem obvious. But, judging from the way we treat this truth, it bears repeating.

Many of us tend to swing toward one of two extremes when it comes to the devil. Some men overestimate him. They become fearful and timid, lest Satan leap upon them. Others underestimate the devil. Yes, Satan is a defeated foe. But even though he is nothing more than a condemned death row inmate awaiting execution, it’s not wise to sleep in his cell.

The inability to wage ongoing spiritual warfare over the enemy has kept too many men in a cycle of defeat, discouragement, confusion, rebellion, and addiction, to name a few. As a result, we face the spiritual, social, racial, and political chaos we are experiencing today.

If, and when, God’s kingdom men decide to rise up to fulfill our calling, we will see God heal our hearts, families, churches, and land. We will see victory over Satan and his strategies. Once we learn how to wage our own battles in order to wear our own crowns, we can then be used by God to crown the next generation with kingdom values as well. We were chosen for this challenge by God.