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“Keep watching the nations around you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it.”
– Habakkuk 1:5

What does it look like to disciple nations? And what does a nation look like that’s been discipled properly? Perhaps systemic poverty would be gone. Perhaps people would live peaceful lives and live in abundance, and families would thrive in that culture.

It’s not a dream. It’s not a utopian society. It’s completely possible in a Kingdom culture, and it’s what God desires for the nations.

Often the greed of dictators or other corrupt leaders is predicated upon the lie that there isn’t enough for everyone. If I give you enough, then I won’t be able to live in abundance, and I won’t be happy. It’s one of the great lies of our day. We see it all over the world in politics, among warring tribes… even in the church sometimes.
But what does Kingdom culture look like? It comes from family. We teach others as a family and lead others into encounters with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Whatever your job may be, you live your life and impact your area of influence by bringing Heaven to earth.

Cuba is Changing

One of the greatest examples I’ve seen of discipleship changing culture happened in Cuba. Twenty-one years ago, a group of people in the persecuted church found an old VHS cassette tape of my teachings and reached out. When I first met them, I could feel the darkness of their society. They felt heavy and oppressed, living like orphans in secret under the heavy hand of communism.

Sometimes we feel like we’re living in darkness, and then we go to a truly dark place. It makes us thankful for where we live…

We taught the Cuban church for years about the Kingdom; taught them to adopt a Heavenly vision; see others through the eyes of Christ; and recognize who they are in Jesus. Their entire worldview shifted. It was amazing! Suddenly they’re saying, “Wow, there’s all this darkness; let’s bring in some light!” Suddenly they’re talking about what they’re for rather than what they’re against. Instead of blaming the government because we don’t have this and that, let’s do something about it.
And they did. They cleaned up the streets, gave away basic necessities, and shared the good news of the Gospel. It’s bringing transformation.

Out of their abundance, they even let the communist government borrow their chairs for one of their events. Our worldview used to be us vs. them, but now it’s about loving every area of society. They’re starting to influence the nation rather than being influenced by it. They’re capturing the heart of their good Father. And there’s some of the most extravagant worship in Cuba now. It’s truly amazing.

So How Can You Disciple Nations?

It’s easy to see evil in the world today. From the atrocities of the past in Cuba, Rwanda, and Cambodia, to the current atrocities in Syria, Sudan, and Libya, believers are asking God to do something about it. But He has called US to do something. He said that all authority has been given to you. If that’s true, then how much authority has been given to the devil? He only has what we give him. And if we keep it, then he doesn’t have the authority to destroy nations.

Here’s the key: you only have authority over what you love. If you’re intimate with God and love other people as you love yourself—and as God loves them—then you’re unstoppable. We need a convergence of love, power, and wisdom. This propels us to take action; to do something rather than spending our time protesting and complaining.

We need reformation, because it transforms culture; and you need Kingdom culture to change anything on earth.

Hans Nielsen Hauge is one of Norway’s heroes who created Kingdom culture when it was the poorest country in Europe—such that people would eat tree bark to survive! While many were just surviving under the gospel of salvation, one man had an encounter with the Holy Spirit while plowing his fields. His worldview changed. He started to love his country and the people in it, which brought his authority.
Hans Nielsen Hauge started the concept behind the 7 spheres of influence. Now that his worldview changed, Father God opened his eyes to see solutions in every sphere of society where he only saw problems before. People can’t read and write? No problem, he thought. I can just ski across mountains to start reading plans in remote villages. And sure enough, he did just that, and even started a plan to ensure everyone could receive a Bible.

No marketplace? No problem! The Lord showed him how to start businesses in communities to boost the economy. Hans Nielsen Hauge believed that every Norwegian is valuable, which means you treat them with high value, and it changes them. He even wrote books that influenced the way people were thinking; books about morals, the judicial system, and responding in love. The country was influenced by his actions after he died. A constitution was written, a business school was constructed, and people lived with a new worldview that they mattered and could live in abundance.

Change your Worldview

Everything you’re thinking about comes from an idea, whether good, bad, or neutral. Every idea has a worldview attached to it, which causes you to view things through certain glasses. Worldviews also have spirits attached to them. The killing fields in Cambodia started with a worldview attached to communism. What if we kill all the educated people? Everyone who disagrees with us? So there’s no competition. This led to a horrific genocide.

But there’s nothing God can’t redeem. When people step in to disciple nations, with a love for Cambodia and its people… the environment changes.
God loves both the victims and the victimizers. The people responsible for the world’s greatest atrocities are victims themselves, bound by the devil and brainwashed by his lies. They, too, need to know the truth. If we don’t disciple them, the devil will do it.

I’ve been blessed to witness what happens when victimizers receive forgiveness from their Father and step into their identity. During my last visit to Cambodia, the victims and victimizers came together in worship, miracles broke out, and people were healed!

Step up and get out!

God wants nations to experience how loved they are by Him. Every nation exists for a reason, and has a redemptive gift—one that’s supposed to reflect Heaven on earth. We want nations to look how God intended from the beginning. So what needs to take place to change the future?

What does Kingdom culture look like in arts and media? When we’re dealing with addictions and poverty? It impacts and changes every issue we face today. When you love and disciple others, they start to love their country, and it starts a chain reaction. Do you hate your leaders? Or your country? Practice love so you will have the authority to influence the influencers. Practice love, power, and wisdom and change the nations.

Leif Hetland
www.leifhetland.com

From the time of His baptism to the time of His ascension, Jesus spoke of one thing–the good news of the Kingdom (Matt. 4:23). That, He tells us, is what He was sent to do (Luke 4:43). And He sent out His disciples to do the same.

Jesus was obsessed with the Kingdom. And rightly so. He had just come from Heaven where the Kingdom stood in all its splendor, everything radiant in its beauty, everything in harmony with the love of God, everything at peace, everything bursting with life, brimming with joy. For Him, that was the real world. Earth, even at its best, was merely a dim and distorted reflection of all that existed in Heaven.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave His first recorded teaching on the Kingdom of God. When He finished, Matthew says the crowd that heard it was amazed. G.K. Chesterton, the British essayist who was a contemporary of C.S. Lewis, described the sermon like this:

“On the first reading of the Sermon on the Mount you feel it turns everything upside down, but the second time you read it, you discover that it turns everything right side up. The first time you read it you feel that it is impossible, but the second time, you feel that nothing else is possible.”

Chesterton’s words are particularly applicable to the upside-down way that Jesus tells us to treat our enemies. In Luke 6:27-31, we are challenged to love our enemies and do good to those who hate or curse us.

God so loved—not Americans, not Muslims, not Jews, not Christians, not Republicans or Democrats—the world. He doesn’t want anyone to perish but wants everyone to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). Everyone. The Father’s heart is for the Jew and the Gentile, for the slave as well as the free, for the woman along with the man. And that includes Muslims, whom many believe are our enemies. Muslims are not a problem but a promise.

The God of the Bible is a searching God, seeking to find us, regardless of how alone or afflicted we feel. It doesn’t seem to matter where we have ended up or how we have gotten there. It doesn’t matter into what physical wilderness we sought refuge. All that matters is that we are found and that we are brought home. The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son all tell the same story—the story of how greatly we are loved, how greatly we are missed, and how happy Heaven is when we are found and brought home (see Luke 15).

That includes our enemies.

Take Saul of Tarsus, for example—a terrorist in the eyes of the early church, a jihadist against this emerging threat to his Jewish faith. He was a murderer, and he took pride in the fact that he did his murderous duty with such religious zeal (Acts 9:1-12). From the perspective of the early church, Saul was seen as an enemy. But that is not the way heaven saw him. Heaven saw him as a friend in the making.

There are a lot of ways an enemy can be dealt with. He can be threatened into silence. He can be tortured into compliance. He can be imprisoned or exiled, even murdered. Jesus does none of those things. Instead, Jesus seeks him out—not to censure him, not to intimidate him, not to harm him, but to love him. And in loving him, Jesus turned this most feared of enemies into the most faithful of friends. Look in Acts 9. Put yourself onto the scene, looking with Kingdom eyes and hearing with Kingdom ears. What do you see? What do you hear?

Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:3-5, ESV).

What do you see? You see a light—not fire, not brimstone—but a heavenly light, dispelling hellish darkness that had blackened Saul’s heart. And what do you hear? You hear a voice. There is no anger in it, no animosity, no antagonism. But there is tenderness in it, tenderness tinged with sadness. “Saul, Saul…” The repetition of the name is reminiscent of His words to Martha when she came out of the kitchen, angry at her sister and at Jesus, accusing Him of not caring that she had left her to do the serving alone. “Martha, Martha,” He begins. And you can hear the tenderness in His voice, mingled with sadness. He doesn’t return her anger with anger. He corrects her, but in the gentlest of ways, without a critical spirit or a condescending tone (Luke 10:38-42). Then there is His final entry into Jerusalem the week before He weeps not for His destruction but for hers. And the words He speaks have the same tender but grieving tone. “Jeruslame, Jerusalem…” (Matt. 23:37).

After Jesus calls Saul by name, He doesn’t threaten him, rebuke him, or lecture him. There is no ridicule, no payback, no evening of the score. Just a tender, sorrowful questions. “Why?” And it sounds as if Jesus is confused, at a loss to understand all Saul’s animosity toward Him. “What are you persecuting Me?”

That was the beginning of their friendship—Jesus seeking out an enemy, and loving him instead of hating him, forgiving him instead of punishing him, blessing him instead of cursing him. Before then, Saul was filled with hate for Jesus and for anyone who followed Him. His hate was an obsession. Blaise Pascal once said “men never commit evil so fully and so joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” The bloody history of the world’s religions backs up Pascal’s claim. The three great Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are stained with the blood of their enemies.

When will it ever end? And if it doesn’t, where will it all lead?

Martin Luther King Jr. was right: “The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

How can that chain reaction be broken?

By the radical principles that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount—loving , forgiving band lessing our enemy.

However difficult it was to treat His enemies like that, Jesus practiced what he preached. He lived by those principles; He died by those principles. And in doing so, He showed the world how to step back from the abyss.

Leif Hetland
www.leifhetland.com

The Son of God became one of us so that the people who love Him could become like Him. I want to share a few examples with you of how I have seen that play out in my own life. I think they will be helpful pictures of the power of supernatural love.

Once, while visiting an Islamic university in the Middle East, I met a brilliant Muslim scholar who is very well-known in that world. I was excited when I found out I could meet with him, but I realized I did not have a gift to give him. I wanted to honor him with something tangible.

I think that is very important, not only because it is appropriate within that culture, but because honor is what love looks like. I had not known ahead of time that I was going to meet with him and had not prepared. I did not have a way to show my affection toward him. I asked my coordinator if he had a copy of one of my books, Seeing Through Heaven’s Eyes. Fortunately, he did. I wrapped it up and gave it to this scholar when we met, and he expressed great appreciation for it.

About two days later, I was getting ready to leave that country when my coordinator got a call from this man.

“I don’t know what has happened,” he said. “I started to read the book last night, and then something that feels like waves has been coming over me. I do not normally cry, but I have not been able to stop crying. Every time I open the book, this occurs. What is happening to me?”

I got to meet this scholar again about a year later. He still could not describe what had happened to him over the last year, but I understood. He was being changed from the inside out. This was just a private transformation in his own life. Other imams and clergy around him could see the change that had taken place and were being affected too. I could see a shift in the environment. The spiritual temperature changed. He had accidentally bumped into the baptism of love.

I had another experience with another influential Muslim leader back in my office in the United States. I had recently returned from a trip to England and then went to Washington, DC, for an event related to the Freedom Act near the end of former President Barack Obama’s second term. This leader was also at the event, and when it ended, he said he wanted to visit my home.

So, we returned to Atlanta together. We went to a mosque together, and then we met in my office. I had done a little preparation before he came by putting the Quran and the Bible on the highest shelf in my office. While we were seated in my office, he stood up, took the Quran off the shelf, then sat back down in a chair and began reading it in Arabic. I was still jet-lagged and about to fall asleep, but I tried to straighten up and keep my eyes open.

The next moment, I could feel the presence of Jesus coming into the room. I have to admit that I was thinking, This is not a good time, God. But it got heavier, and I was feeling a little under the influence of the Spirit. I am sure that I must have looked drunk when I was looking at him. And the presence just kept getting thicker and thicker.

“What are you doing to me?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What is this tingling? It is going from my head all the way down to my feet, up and down like waves. What is this?”

“Oh,” I said, “That’s just the presence of Jesus. He is pouring His love over you. Can I pray for you?”

I had enough favor to pray for him but not to actually touch him, so I went over to him, put my hand a few inches over his head, and prayed. To me, it felt like heat was going down into his stomach area and making circles like fire and then disappearing.

The next morning, I went to his hotel to pick him up. I was going to open my car door for him, but he said very firmly, “No, I want you to come in here–up in my room.” He had a beautiful, long beard and warm, brown eyes, but his voice was a little bit strict. This was very unusual. Whenever I have been in the Middle East, I would not go to an imam’s or scholar’s room. Was I in trouble? I did not know what he had in mind. It felt very awkward.

When I walked into his room, he went over to his laptop where his whole family was on Skype–two wives, children of all ages. “I want you to give them what I received yesterday.”

So I prayed over Skype, and the presence of Jesus filled that room in the Middle East where his family was gathered. They had encounters with divine love, and those encounters have transformed their lives.

When the man returned to his home country, he began to notice things he never had before: people living in poverty, beggars, people in pain, women who could not get pregnant. These people had been there all along–he had grown up with this pain all around him–but the common attitude is that Allah is going to do whatever Allah is going to do. He had not noticed these things before he was filled with a heart of love.

But now, with the heart and the eyes of love, he saw brokenness. I don’t know if he had prayed a salvation prayer yet, but he was being changed by this love from the inside out. He had new lenses on his eyes. He was beginning to see what Jesus sees, feel what Jesus feels, and say what Jesus says without realizing that a seed of love had been planted in him. He had begun to feel love that he had never known before.

This experience eventually led to a healing meeting in a mosque. He wanted to address the brokenness. But he did not know what to do, so he called me. “Can you help me? I do not know how to pray that way.” So I offered to help. I have actually been to that mosque now to do a healing meeting. It has been amazing to see what has happened in this man’s life.

The seed of love that brings encounters with love created people who love. We receive love, give love, become love, and release love. If we are going to bring the love of Heaven into this earthly realm, we need to be immersed in that love ourselves. We need to know we have an A-plus on our report card before we go out and complete our assignments.

We need to look into the darkest places of this world and see them with the eyes of love. Jesus became the incarnation of love so we could become an incarnation of love. The new identity first appears in our homes, families, neighborhoods, and workplaces. But we can live it out anywhere.

Interested in resources that develop you as an Ambassador of Love? Sign up for the Blueprint for the Kingdom Identity Masterclass here.

Leif Hetland
www.leifhetland.com

Paul said to the Romans, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (Rom. 8:19). If you listen closely, you can almost hear the strain from exertion. The longing is so great that his words are about to burst at the seams. The whole world waits in eager anticipation for the revelation that can only come through the exploits of the Father’s children. We are confounded by how the Lord values our contribution. Let me clarify Paul’s message one more time: God’s creation waits in eager expectation. The whole earth groans in pain. The whole of mankind eagerly waits for deliverance.

In anticipation of a forthcoming query, the apostle wrote down the logic behind his statement. He said, “Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay, and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). As if on cue, the eyes of our understanding begin to open. All of a sudden we see why there is a cry that echoes from the bowels of the earth. Creation longs to be restored to its former state! And there is only one way to satisfy that deep-seated long- ing of all living things: through the intervention of Father’s children. As we imitate Christ, we will show the way (see 1 Cor. 11:1).

It is God’s will to heal and liberate mankind. Just as creation was subjected to the curse through the fall of man, its redemption and total restoration are realized with the manifestation of the glory of the sons of God. It is the Father’s will to restore order and fruitfulness to this planet. If we are children of God, we need to participate in this kingdom mandate.

This mission is framed through the Lord’s decree, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession” (Ps. 2:7-8). By revelation, David spoke of the depths of Father God’s heart, that is, the nations are the Father’s inheritance to His beloved Son, Jesus. As co-heirs with Christ, the nations are our inheritance and the ends of the earth our possession as well.

This global mission of inheriting the nations can only be accomplished through the love of the Father. This loving mission is manifested in affection and working relationship where children learn to serve their Papa God in love. Jesus Christ laid down the blueprint for this master plan. We know that the Old Testament is a foreshadowing of the Lord’s coming. Therefore, it is the Son of God who will fulfill this particular prophecy.

But take heed! Christ is in us. Since He is in us, then we also partake of the same inheritance. Our inheritance is not merely limited to future events in the divine realms. Our inheritance is not merely limited to heavenly mansions. We can live thankful that someday we will inherit a jeweled city with pearly gates. However, a major part of our inheritance is far better than streets paved with gold. It is more precious than walls encrusted with rubies and diamonds.

If you are a child of God, you are destined to inherit nations. Christ is in you! Thus, these words form part of your reality and commission. It may all seem like mission impossible at first glance, but take heart; the risen Lord that is in you is greater than the devil that roams the earth. Everything is possible through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Leif Hetland
www.leifhetland.com