Four Things You Can do to Restore the Rightful King
According to The Telegraph, a British newspaper, the “rightful king” of England recently died—no less a personage than Michael Abney-Hastings, the 14th Earl of Loudoun and a forklift driver in the tiny town of Jerilderie, population 768.
According to some observers, a serious miscarriage of justice occurred in 1461, when King Edward IV ascended to the British throne. By their lights, the kingship should have returned to the House of Plantagenet instead of establishing the Yorkist dynasty. They base their claim on a belief that Edward’s legal “parents” were 100 miles apart when he was conceived, and thus, he did not have a legitimate right to accede.
Dynasties have come and gone since then. The present Windsor Dynasty derives from the Hanover Dynasty—think King George III—who were Germans brought in to rule England. Much trouble, struggle and disruption have occurred. Who has the valid claim to the throne? Does it matter at all? I would judge that, given the symbolic character of the British Crown, the matter has no importance at all. If dynastic succession did not determine who holds the scepter, elections (or perhaps even a national lottery!) would do an equally adequate job of it.
So what? Even if it doesn’t matter who the British king is, it does matter who sits on the throne of your life. For most people, a usurper has risen up to demand the Rule—their own self. Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, became the rightful king of every person on earth by bearing our sins on the Cross. When His Kingdom comes to our lives, God’s Will begins to reign on Earth as it does in Heaven. God works eternal life into us by the power of the Holy Spirit. God breaks the curse of sin in us and sets us free. Our lives become the channel through which Jesus moves to take rule in the lives of others.
There are four things we can do to place the rightful king on the throne rule of the world.
- We can make Jesus the Lord of our own lives and really live out his rule, rejecting sin and choosing the lifegiving things of God over the deadly poisons of worldliness;
- We can serve as the network through which the Spirit of God speaks to other people about the Rule of Christ in their lives, sharing our testimony of God’s transformative reign in our lives;
- We can pray for the salvation of the world, give financially to ensure the spread of the Gospel, and encourage other people to become involved in the Church’s Mission in the World;
- We can fulfill God’s Mission by partnering with God in the meeting of human need in every aspect of life. Not everyone has the spiritual gift of evangelism, and not everyone has a primary calling to the professional church ministry. Our work matters in expressing God’s Will in every area of life. God wants people to live full, satisfying lives. Our everyday work can be a holy and sacred act of worship when it expresses God’s Rule in our life for the sake of the world.
You can read more about all of this—especially point #4—in The Kingdom Net: Learning to Network Like Jesus (My Healthy Church, 2013).