Unbothered in Order to Upset

As a culture healer, it is important to understand that there has to be a degree of focus that you have to operate from. To have the maximum impact in the place where you have been called, you cannot lose the vision for the mission. If you think about the life of Christ, you will notice that Jesus spent his time during that three-and-a-half-year ministry, not establishing a kingdom for himself. He was presenting a Kingdom which needed to be revealed. It was people’s false expectations that were problematic. It was also people’s false expectations that led to their feeling threatened.

The message of the Kingdom that Jesus preached was designed to upset kingdoms because the Kingdom of heaven operates contrary to the kingdoms of this world. Many people love to have control and thought that they aren’t in control or that there is another power that is greater and threatens their sense of security.

Jesus had to be an unbothered person to present the Kingdom. The temptation that was apparent obviously had many believing that Jesus could and should be someone who physically tore down the kingdoms that were oppressing people. That was the plan Satan had in tempting Jesus to submit to him. How many people fail to be unbothered and succumb to the temptation to build their own kingdom rather than present the Kingdom which upsets kingdoms?

The upsetting of kingdoms is not meant to be a mission to destroy the kingdoms. The upsetting is actually a setup so they resemble the Kingdom of heaven. As culture healers, we must understand that we are called to present a Kingdom, not set up our own. If we present His Kingdom, we will upset kingdoms.

We must also be unbothered. We cannot allow ourselves to be so influenced by what the kingdoms have to offer that we fail to present the Kingdom we’ve been called to represent. The kingdoms of this world would love nothing more than our silence or even our acceptance and tolerance of the status quo. If they can have our participation, they are happier still.

Jesus could walk and speak with authority because he was unbothered by what people said, thought, or believed about him and what he came to do. He was not threatened by what they could do to him because he also knew that representing the Kingdom of heaven came with a cost and he was already prepared to pay that price.

As culture healers, the mission to present that Kingdom is one where we must be resolved within ourselves to be unbothered by what others say, think, believe, or do. We must walk and speak with the same authority Jesus walked and spoke with. We have been granted the same authority as Kingdom ambassadors. When we upset kingdoms, we’re not doing it with the mindset of ruling and reigning ourselves. We’re upsetting it to represent the King of kings so that His rule and reign are reaffirmed and the kingdoms rest upon his shoulders.

How Jesus dealt with becoming unbothered was by dealing with the temptations before going full-on into the mission to which he’d been called. If you look back at his life, you see that from age 12 to 30 was spent growing in wisdom and gaining favor with both God and humanity (Luke 2:52). At age 30 he was baptized by John and affirmed by God (Matthew 3:17). Then, Jesus was driven into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and then tested by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11).

We too must likewise grow in wisdom, be affirmed by God, and deal with our temptations so that we might become unbothered. If we do not become unbothered, we will yield to the temptations and fail to upset the kingdoms that God has called us to upset. It’s my prayer that we who recognize the call to be culture healers will become unbothered and upset every kingdom that we have been commissioned to upset. Whatever level on the mountains of cultural influence you have been called, upset those kingdoms at that level and believe that God’s glory is being restored.