John 18:36 My Kingdom is not of this world … my kingdom is from another place

Where is your territory?  What do you fight to protect?  Do we sometimes fight for things that are of THIS world?

Things of this world

• are about me
• will not last
• may not glorify God
• will give temporary returns on investment

So often we are involved in “turf wars” and we want to set up fences and fight.  In the southwest, there were cattle herders and sheep herders.  Cattle were managed by cowboys on horseback and they grazed.  Sheep though would strip a place bald and were fenced in and so territory wars broke out over the sheep and cattle and fences or no fences.  The question for us is what are we fighting for?  Are we battling for territory or treasures, souls or surface things?  Are we fighting for things WE own or things we manage?

Jesus said “My Kingdom is NOT OF this world.”
I think the great challenge for us in ministry is to keep our battles in the right realm and keep our attacks focused on the right enemy.  What does Ephesians 6:12 say? We struggle NOT against FLESH and blood … So if we are fighting an enemy with a human face, we are missing the real enemy.  Why was Jesus able to face Caiaphus, Herod, and Pilate and remain calm, at peace?  It was because his enemy didn’t have a human face.  His enemy was not flesh and blood.  Our enemy is our own selfish desires, and satan’s desires.  My kingdom is not of this world, my battle is not in this realm.  If we have our heels dug in, fighting for earthly territory, we are fighting in the wrong plain.

Strive for Souls … battle the real enemy.

Psalm 42:2-11 NIV84

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

We easily are downcast when we have our heart and focus on earthly things

Put Your hope in God.

David closes out Psalm 17 with the correct perspective.  After talking about the fleshly one who seems to always have enough, though God’s child might seem to be left out … David says

But as for me, I will behold your face in righteousness, and be satisfied when I wake with your likeness