Seeking first the Kingdom

Seeking first the Kingdom An interview with Dan Lobhendahn By Elia vesikula Let us talk about the Kingdom. I read an email that came to me on face book that said we Fijians are so good in playing rugby, playing 7s, because of the skills that we have. We are so good in 7s that and people said that 7s is played in heaven. But why do Fijians do not have the same desire and passion to be successful in business, to be successful in finance to be successful in every other career but just in rugby. I read some of those responses from the people and it was intriguing to hear but we are also passionate about our love for God and I think we should understand that in as much as we love rugby our priority is more important to win our gold, our heart of our Lord, to put that first in everything that we do. I say it, because I have experienced and lived that life of being a loser or a winner. Or to feel so successful and your heart is so empty that one does not find the satisfaction of achieving once happiness, because everything in the world is not permanent and is temporary. Unless you know your identity of who you are created in his image, and that is the image of our God. You are created in the image of God, Jehovah Jireh, Yeshua, the King of all Kings and Lords of all Lords. You will continue to look for success and you will never find it. Because for everything we need in this life is to love him, to know him, to worship him to serve him and to love one another and until we do that, you know that gates of heaven and the treasures within us will not be seen because we have not been obedient to the word of God. God says seek first the Kingdom and all shall be added. We seek all success of the material world but we never seek what God has for us. We have to know him and as he created us. He says I know the plans I have for you so why do you go seeking other earthly treasures, you just seek me and love me and know me serve me and I shall open the heavens for you. I for one have had the journey. In my journey you know I have travelled through many valleys and many gorgeous mountain tops and to the darkest places on this earth and I could not find my peace until I surrender my heart to the Lord. Today I can only thank those that went before me, my parents my mum and my journey with my wife for supporting me and being there for me and praying for me. One of the greatest gift we have is an open heaven to our created maker by having a prayer relationship with him. Putting God first and challenging him. We keep asking but God has promised us all these things. He says you can have these blessings and you only need to ask but before you ask, you must seek me first. Do what I told you to do. I guess for me coming from a religious background and upbringing, there is a lot of truth we could never understand who God is. It was as if God lived in a different sphere or domain where we also live in and some kind of area that we call earth but it looks like hell to us. But yet in different times in our lives or the different things we experience in life, the good and the bad and the ugly, sometimes gives us a picture of what heaven is like and what heaven is going to be like. So for me the greatest justice I would have done is to invite the Lord Jesus in to my life. Because I deny the world and everything. I thought wow. You know God says try me and I said ok. I am going to challenge you and I am going to surrender my heart but I want you to show me and walk with me. Yes I have to deny a lot of things, although I love my friends in the world I just have to separate myself for a couple of years three or four or five because his word is yes and amen like everyone says, He never fails, he is always there to prove that his word will always return accomplishing what he has set out to do. As it says you just need to ask. So for me I invited the Lord to my life back in 1997. I tell you what my journey was one of searching and seeking and yes disappointments of the things of my past. I thought I was very successful until one day I went to a conference and heard the Kingdom message and said wow what is this Kingdom message. I thought we were doing church well, we read our bibles and all of that stuff but I did not know the Kingdom message was about being a servant you know in the Kingdom. Taking dominion of the Kingdom I finally realise that is what Jesus came to do. He became servant, a servant King at the end of it. Because he served the father and accomplished and completed what he came to do, what the Father set him out to do. He gave us the mandate at the end of it for us to go and take dominion of everything over this earth and also to take the gospel to the end of the world. For me I think being a servant in the church or in the community and being a faithful servant with everything that you know. God opened my path really opened the door to where I am today. And Who I am today is not because of What I have done it is because of the love of Christ for what God has purpose for me is much greater and bigger and greater than what I can dream of . Because the Kingdom mandate is about his Kingdom and his people. We are kings and queens and priests and servants of the Lord but our mandate is to lead the lost to seek and find the love of Christ. The bigger your vision the bigger your responsibility. So if you are faithful with the little things as the bible says be faithful with little things. Because without those little things God can not give you more than what you can be entrusted with. There is so much about the Kingdom that we of this earth need to know that our life is about living our kingdom life. Looking around I have noticed not to discriminate things, I believe the apostolic move of God. The Church and the Kingdom The church today is to be ready and be prepared and equipped to advance and take the church and the Kingdom to a higher level. If we are to describe the church we refer to the building. You know God came not for the building or the earth but he came for his people.Many times we describe the church as the temple but you know the temple is really you and I. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple of God. And it seems that the church is living in the times where it looks as if the notion of its position is in darkness because it does not seem to be the light to the earth. It seems to be a place where people just come in and go out and it seem there is no connection, no joy, there is no sharing of love, as far as looking at the needs of the people but more concerned about the worldly approach of living. Because there is spiritual blindness is that it develops pain or judgement all the time because of our denial or misunderstanding of Gods word. Many of us and have had our disappointments in life and many of us today still carry some of those resentments and that hinders us from entering in to a higher level of Kingdom authority because we think we are not good enough or we think it costs too much. Just know this, God knows the plan he has for you and I.Believe in the WORD because every word of God is a rhema word of Kingdom authority. Kingdom purpose. He says, Seek me first, seek me and all these things will be added to you. We are counting our own success through our own strength of all our own education, intellectual understanding and think that wow, I want to do this, I want to be successful but we don’t know what we want to be successful in and we look so important. Yet we come home so disappointed, emotionally and physically that you know it is so unbelievable in a nation like ours, Fiji, in the islands we call it the way the world should be. We have a very high rate of suicide, we have a very high rate of drug abuse, a high rate of child abuse, molesting and rape and you know that there is so much crime that you have never heard of drugs and you name it. It is right here. And yet the church instead of being the light they have tried to compromise with a distorted future by being nice in everything they say and instead of speaking the truth with love. They keep quiet and they say nothing. It’s creating a Babylonian spirit to destroy the representation of our Lord in this nation. You know I love my people, I love my culture, I love everything about this nation and I have nothing against or I have no disagreement that God created these islands for the Fijians and you know people should be proud of their culture of their language and to be a Fijian first you need to understand that there is a language to learn. If you have to learn the language you will find you will be better accepted. It is like reading the bible, when you know the bible you get connected to the King. You know many of us today we think you we can just be associated to some organization, just given a tag as a citizen of this nation but you come with your own language, your own culture and your own religion and make your stand as I have a right because that is my human right. I believe as a Christian that we all have our right and the right is to love our God and to love one another. There is no discrimination but yet we need to live in accordance to how our King how our God purposed us to leave and that is to live a life that is in line with his kingdom mandate that we were born as rulers but not as users of the land but as Kings of the land. Having said that you know the term King is an authoritarian name, is to be a ruler you know not a beggar in your nation, so I believe culture and religion and culture and politics can never be separated but yet man choose to define what God has mandated for us to follow. Man has changed it because they have distorted the truth of why Jesus came. And that is why today there is so much confusion in the land. We find that you know spiritual blindness becomes expected everywhere and we have also accepted that we are not good enough as I said earlier in the statement why Fijian are only good enough in playing rugby and playing sports and not good in business or other areas of professionalism. We can believe in a lie that has been spoken down through the generation that says hey man you are not good enough. Your culture does not allow it. I suppose they pre-determined the destiny of many of us pacific islanders. END OF PART 1. TO BE CONTINUED.