Destined to Reign (2 page)

Chapter 1: Destined To Reign

You are destined to reign in life. You are called by the Lord to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health and to enjoy a life of victory. It is not the Lord’s desire that you live a life of defeat, poverty and failure. He has called you to be the head and not the tail. If you are a businessman, God wants you to have a prosperous business. If you are a homemaker, you are anointed to bring up wonderful children in the Lord. If you are a student, God wants you to excel in all your examinations. And if you are trusting the Lord for a new career, He doesn’t just want you to have a job, He wants you to have a position of influence, so that you can be a blessing and an asset to your organization!

Whatever your vocation is, you are destined to reign in life because Jesus is Lord of your life. When you reign in life, you reign over sin, you reign over the powers of darkness, and you reign over depression, over poverty, over every curse, and over every sickness and disease. You REIGN over the devil and all his devices!

The power to reign does not depend on your family background, your educational qualifications, how you look or how much savings you have in your bank account. The power to reign is based entirely on Jesus and Him alone. My friend, this is not a cliché from some self-help book on positive thinking. The declaration you will reign is based on a promise that has been recorded for all eternity in the Word of God:

Romans 5:17

17
For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who
receive abundance of grace
and the
gift of righteousness
will
reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ.

The word "reign" used in Romans 5:17 is the Greek word
basileuo
`
where you get the English word “basilica”. In ancient Rome, basilicas were used law courts.
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So it refers to a kingly, judicial rule. In other words, to reign here is to
reign in life as a king
, to have kingly rule and to possess kingly dominion.

The secret of reigning in life lies with receiving everything that Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross.

If you are living a life of defeat, of being defeated by sin, by perpetual guilt and condemnation, by sicknesses, by anxiety attacks, by financial lack and by broken relationships, you are not living the life that God intended for you. Based on the authority of God’s Word, you are destined to "reign in life" as a king, to have kingly dominion over all your challenges and circumstances. You are called to be
above
them all and not be trampled by them. The time has come for you to stop abdicating your right to reign in life!

Today, instead of seeing ourselves reigning in life, we see more evidence of death reigning in the world. The Bible tells us that it was because of “one man’s offense” — Adam’s sin in the garden of Eden — that death began to reign. It is important that you realize that our lives are wrapped up in those of our ancestors. You wouldn’t exist if there hadn’t been your grandpa. So we are sinners not because we sin, but because of Adam’s sin. Many believers still think that they became sinners by committing sin, but that is not what the Word of God says. What it says is that we are sinners because of Adam’s sin. By the same token, we are made righteous in the new covenant not because we do righteous deeds, but because of one Man’s (Jesus) obedience on the cross. The secret of reigning in life lies therefore with receiving everything that Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross.

Receiving Versus Achieving

The Bible states very clearly that we are to reign in life through Jesus Christ just by
receiving
two things from Him: The abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. God’s ways are contrary to man’s ways. Man thinks that for God to bless him, he needs to deserve, earn and merit God’s favor and blessings by his own efforts. Man thinks that God’s blessings are based on his performance and good works.

However, this is not God’s way. His way is not about achieving, but about receiving. He promised that when we
receive
the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we will reign in life. He did not say that when we
achieve
grace and our own righteousness, we will reign in life. But for some reason, many Christians continue to live based on a system of achievement!

“Pastor Prince, if it’s really that easy, why aren’t more Christians reigning in life?”

I’m glad that you asked that question. In answer, let me first pose you a question of my own: Do you realize that most people believe that one needs to work hard to
achieve
success in life? The world’s system of success is built on the twin pillars of self-effort and diligence. There are always some “laws” that you have to abide by, and some “methods and techniques” that you have to keep on practicing before there can be any results. Most of the time, any result that you may get will start to fade once you cease to follow through with the prescribed methods and steps.

We have been taught to focus on achieving, on doing and on relying on our self-efforts. We are driven to “do, do, do”, forgetting that Christianity is actually “done, done, done”. The world tells you that the more you do, the harder you work, and the more hours you put in, the more success you will achieve. The world’s way is to nag you to work harder, to forget about attending church on Sundays, to spend less time with your wife and kids, and to spend more time in the office working through the nights, weekends and holidays. I’m sure that you’ve heard that you need to “pay the price”, after all, “no pain, no gain”, right?

What believers do is that they take the system of the world and apply it to their Christian life. Instead of depending on God’s grace for His favor and blessings to flow, they depend on their self-efforts to try to deserve God’s favor and blessings.

Yet, God’s way is not for us to be blessed by our own efforts. You cannot earn God’s blessings by your performance. God’s blessings are based entirely on His grace. His blessings over your life have to be undeserved, unearned and unmerited. In other words, there is nothing that you can do to deserve His blessings, for they are based entirely on
receiving Jesus
, and through His finished work, the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

God wants us to stop trying to achieve, and to begin receiving the favor, blessings and healing that Jesus accomplished on the cross. When He hung on the cross some 2,000 years ago, He cried out with a loud voice, “
It is finished
!”
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Everything that you and I require to reign in life was accomplished at Calvary on our behalf. That’s why we call what Jesus did on the cross His “
finished work
”! He finished it. He completed it. It is DONE! The only thing that works is the finished work! Stop doing what’s already DONE! Stop doing and start receiving what Jesus has DONE!

The Work Is Finished, Sit Down

I was fellowshipping recently with my dear friend, Brian Houston, and he shared with me that his pet peeve when it comes to worship songs are songs which try to plead for what Jesus has already accomplished for us on the cross. I agree with Brian completely, and I think we all agree that Brian is someone who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to worship songs. Brian is the senior pastor of Hillsong Church, and God has truly anointed his church to write beautiful praise and worship songs that have impacted a whole new generation of worshippers in these last days. In fact, some of my favorite worship songs are from Hillsong. In my own quiet moments before the Lord, as I give thanks to Him for paying the full price on the cross for all my sins, sicknesses and poverty, my heart overflows with gratitude and I worship Him:

You are magnificent, eternally

Wonderful, glorious

Jesus

No one ever will compare to You

Jesus
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Oh, how I love it when the Lord responds by filling my whole study with His tangible presence, and my heart begins to burn in the presence of my lover! I remind my church that we don’t always have to feel His tangible presence, for that’s not what we live by today. But when you
do
feel His presence, especially during times of deep intimate worship, enjoy Him, savor His love and allow His embrace to wash over you! Relish the times in His presence when He refreshes, restores and heals you. You don’t have to wait till Sunday to worship the Lord. You don’t need a five-piece band and a worship leader to worship your Savior. Right where you are, without instruments, you can lift up your hands, your voice and your heart, and worship Him and give thanks for His finished work and His grace in your life.

Hallelujah! He is so beautiful!

I love worship songs that are full of the person of Jesus and His finished work. In my church, I have commissioned my music director to ensure that the songs we use in our church services are songs that testify of the finished work of Jesus. For example, under the new covenant, we don’t have to keep on asking the Lord in our songs for forgiveness because
He has already forgiven us
5
. I want you to say this out loud with me:

“I am already forgiven!”

Jesus’ blood has cleansed us once and for all!

The Word of God declares this about the finished work of Jesus on the cross:

Hebrews 10:12–14

12
But this Man, after He had offered
one sacrifice
for sins
forever
,
sat down
at the right hand of God…
14
For by one offering He has
perfected forever
those who are being sanctified.

His finished work on the cross was offered as one sacrifice FOREVER, and when you received Jesus Christ into your life, you were PERFECTED FOREVER! And how long is forever? I checked the original Greek word for “forever” in this verse and guess what? “Forever” means forever! You have been perfected forever by Jesus’ cleansing blood, not by the blood of animal sacrifices which can
never
take away sins!

You may be surprised to find out that there are many believers today who do not believe that they have been perfected forever by the finished work of Jesus Christ. They are still depending on their self-efforts to qualify themselves. Perhaps you yourself are wondering, “How can I be fully assured that all my sins have already been forgiven?” Good question! Notice that after Jesus offered His life as a sacrifice and payment for all our sins, He “sat down”!

He sat down at the Father’s right hand. Do you realize that under the old covenant, “every priest
stands ministering daily
and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins
”
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? But the Bible goes on to say that Jesus, “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down
”.

Jesus sat down to demonstrate to us that the work is indeed finished. Under the old covenant, the priest who served in the tabernacle of Moses never sat down, but “stands ministering daily” because his work could never be finished. The blood of bulls and goats could “never take away sins”. In fact, have you noticed that in the holy place of the tabernacle of Moses, there is not a single piece of furniture prepared for the priest to sit on? You will not find a single chair in the holy place. You will find the altar of incense, the menorah and even a table of showbread, but interestingly, there are no chairs. This is because the work of the priest was
never finished
. Only Jesus’ work is a
finished work
. And not only did He sit down at the Father’s right hand, He made us SIT WITH HIM!

Ephesians 2:4–6

4
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5
even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… and made us
sit together
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Maybe you are wondering, “What is all this business about ‘chairs’ and ‘sitting down’?” Well, my friend, “sitting down” in the Bible is a picture of the believer resting in the finished and completed work of Jesus. He has finished all the work on the cross on your behalf and is now seated at the right hand of God. As it has all been accomplished on your behalf, this means that you can stop depending on your self-efforts to earn and qualify for God’s blessings in your life. You can sit down with Jesus at the Father’s right hand!

Stop depending on your self-efforts to earn and qualify for God’s blessings in your life.

Now, listen carefully to what I am saying. I am not advocating a life of passiveness and laziness. You can take up courses, read books, do your work diligently and so on, but your trust must not be in these things. It must be in what Jesus has done for you. So if you are a student, for example, by all means, study hard. Score straight As for the glory of God! But don’t trust in your intelligence or qualifications to bring you the blessings of God.

God’s grace does not make you lazy and unproductive. On the contrary, it makes you labor more abundantly for His glory. Apostle Paul, a preacher of God’s grace and the finished work of Jesus, said that he “labored more abundantly than they all”
7
. In the new covenant, God’s way is to bless you first, and the knowledge of His blessing gives you the power to labor more abundantly. In other words, we do not labor to be blessed, but rather we have the power to labor because
we are already blessed
. Can you see the different premise for laboring in the new covenant?

Many believers are defeated today because they are struggling to qualify themselves for God’s blessings by their own works.

Self-effort will rob you of reigning in life by His grace. You cannot earn your salvation, your healing or your financial breakthrough by your own efforts. If the greatest miracle — being saved from hell — comes by grace through faith, and not by your works, how much more the lesser miracles, such as healing, prosperity and restored marriages.