Born into Favor: Accessing the Benefits of God’s Kingdom & Transforming Your Situation

“No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the Lord (Isaiah 54:17 NIV).

By definition, a “citizen” is someone who owes allegiance to a government and who is therefore entitled to receive protection from mistreatment and also to enjoy special rights and privileges that come with citizenship.

A citizen is automatically connected with the seat of power of his government. That is why people want to become citizens of successful and wealthy nations; once you are a citizen you can expect your life to improve. Why else would you want to go to all that trouble?

Citizenship is the most valuable asset of a nation. Because of its power, it is not easily given or obtained, and the current citizens of a nation do not readily want to share citizenship with outsiders. We are seeing this play out in many Western European countries at the present time because of the continuing influx of immigrants from Muslim countries. Such a large population shift has the potential to transform the entire religious, social, and cultural complexion of Europe. Weekly, we hear of sectarian riots and legal power struggles. The Muslim immigrants would not be moving into those countries if they did not offer the prospect of a higher standard of living.

The benefits of citizenship in a country with a kingdom system of government can far outweigh the benefits of citizenship in even wealthy nations that have non-kingdom forms of government.

From the United States, we hear reports of Mexican immigration challenges. In spite of checkpoints and an actual fence on the US-Mexican border, illegal immigrants pour into the southwestern states and move northward. Some legislators want to place all illegal aliens on a fast track to American citizenship. Others want to detain and deport them.

The benefits of being a citizen of God’s Kingdom far outweigh citizenship in any earthly country.

Seeking Citizenship

Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.” “But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied (Acts 22:28 NIV).

Citizenship is such a valuable status that people are willing to do wicked things to obtain it. They falsify documents or marry people they do not even know simply to get the advantages of citizenship. All immigrants, legal or otherwise, are seeking the privileges and benefits of the host country. They want jobs, higher pay, better health care, greater educational opportunities, and an overall better quality of life than they can obtain as citizens of their home countries. The best way to obtain improved benefits and rights is to become full citizens of a successful and well-to-do nation.

A citizen is part of an elite, privileged group, and people who were born into their citizenship do not appreciate their status as much as they could. Citizenship is easy to come by if you are born into it, but if you must seek naturalized citizenship you soon find out that it can be an arduous process. Citizenship status is too precious for governments to hand out indiscriminately like handbills.

You need to know that the benefits of citizenship in a country with a kingdom system of government can far outweigh the benefits of citizenship in even wealthy nations that have non-kingdom forms of government. This is because, ideally, the king’s wealth will be distributed broadly to the citizens.

Only in God’s Kingdom will wealth be distributed broadly and justly to the citizens.

The Commonwealth Principle

That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12 NKJV).

The word commonwealth exists only in kingdoms. When the Bahamas was part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, the British built our roads and provided us with clean water. They brought us electricity and other upgraded services. They had their warships anchored in Nassau harbor so they could protect us poor little Bahamians.

A citizen of a kingdom who is in good standing with a king has more than enough of everything.

When we decided to declare our independence, all those types of assistance ceased. Independence means you have to manage your own affairs, pay your own bills, provide your own clean water, and maintain your own highway system. (Thus, our roads today are famous for being bumpy. We are no longer part of a commonwealth that pays for improvements.)

Because of the commonwealth principle, the citizenry in a kingdom begins to reflect their king’s qualities, including his wealth. In extreme examples, you see something like the Palace of Versailles, which is so big that it would take three days to walk through all the rooms, with gold everywhere. It is the largest king’s palace in the world. And that’s just the house. King Louis XIV also had stables for his horses that were so extensive they would cover half of the Bahamas. Even today, those stables look better than the house I live in.

Three thousand people lived in the Palace of Versailles at any given time. They wanted to live there, of course, because everything was provided for them. Free housing. Free food. Free clothes. Free everything. Citizenship matters greatly. An individual’s welfare depends on it.

Citizenship empowers and provides access to a country’s rights and privileges.