“The church in this nation has refused to step into her rightful authority and rule with Christ,” a spiritual mentor of mine replied when I asked him recently for his take on why this country is spiraling so quickly into chaos. In the weeks that followed, I chewed on this statement, wondering what exactly that meant.  What does it look like for the church here on earth to reign with Christ now?

While pondering this, I went to a prayer meeting and the leader was teaching out of Revelation and what John says about the glorified Christ.  “From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood–” (Rev. 1:5, NASB). Christ is the ruler of the leaders of this earth! He is head over Barack Obama and David Cameron and Hassan Rouhani and every other ruler, be they despots or godly. They are subject to Him (see 1 Corinthians 15:24-25). We have a right therefore to hold Jesus to His dominion over these leaders. We have a right to proclaim the lordship of Jesus Christ, declaring it in our prayers and speaking it out into the heavenly realm until we see these leaders coming into agreement with Heaven!

The next verse is equally exciting: “He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father— to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 1:6). We are kings and we are priests, and in this way we both reign and serve God the Father. Peter stated, too: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9, NASB).

Co-heirs with Christ

We are co-heirs with Christ of God’s inheritance according to Romans 8:17, and “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” says Ephesians 2:6 ( NIV). If you need further confirmation of our right to rule with Christ now, look at Hebrews 2: “You have made [man] for a little while lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of Your hands; You have put all things in subjection under his feet.“ For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him (Heb. 2:7-8, NASB).

Look at this Psalm of David: “The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet. The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of Your enemies'” (Ps. 110:1-2). That is a Messianic Psalm, meaning it speaks of Christ ruling in the midst of His enemies until all things are brought under His subjection.

Let us not wring our hands in helplessness and despair over the destruction that is on our land. Let’s take action, in light of the knowledge that we are kings – royalty – and our King of kings reigns right now over everything, even that which scoffs at Him and mocks His followers. We are above it. We have Christ’s authority to do so.

How then do we pray?

After God answered my question in various ways about what it looks like to reign with Christ, He confirmed it when I stumbled across this commentary on Facebook by Derek Prince on 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Derek says, “Notice, the healing of our land is not hindered by the sin of the unbelievers. It’s hindered by the sin of the believers. That’s what stands in the way of God doing what needs to be done for our land and for our nation. The church is the barrier. See, God works by divine order. The church is the body of Christ, Christ is His Son whom He honors. He will not bypass the church because it would be dishonoring His Son. So if God does anything in the earth of grace, it must be done through the church. If the church will submit and yield to God, then God can visit the world through the church, but if the church resists God, God cannot reach the world” (Derek Prince, “Reigning Now With Christ.”)

That same weekend that I asked my friend and mentor about the church in America, he also said this while leading our church service: “This is what national revival looks like” and he got down on his knees in the aisle.

With humility we must repent on behalf of our rulers, their sins, their faithless hearts, and their self-absorption and self-promotion (which all of us ourselves have struggled with and so we can relate to and with sincerity ask for forgiveness). Let us refuse to accept the destruction around us, and instead worship and declare God’s name as hallowed in our land, His kingdom come, His will be done. Let us ourselves come into repentance and in doing so, we can confidently expect the hand of God to move on behalf of the lost around us!