[Christian sovereign citizens. Joy.]

What helped us begin living in the Kingdom here and now? Well, I would say persecutions contribute considerably to looking for an alternative. We started challenging the existing authorities, the authorities of the world. They called themselves the "State" or the "County" or the "City." They were declaring that we needed to acquire permission from them.

And so we started wondering, "Why do we go to men to get authorization to do things?" Hasn't God already given us duties and responsibilities? Are we not commanded to labor, to build, to travel, to marry? And when we tried to do these activities without permission from the secular forces, we were persecuted. We had property confiscated and we were thrown in jail.

As we progressed through our study, trying to understand our relationship to our fellow man, and to God, all of a sudden it just fell out for us. The Holy Bible, the Good News, the Gospel, is talking about government. And when we were being persecuted, it was by those entities that also call themselves "government."

But it was not God's government. It was governments of men. They would say, "You have to do this" or "You can't do that." And I kept wondering, "How did these men get into a position where they can tell another man what to do?"

As we continued reading the Scripture, we began to see an alarming parallel between the governments of the world and the government of God. We had lost our way in trying to understand the Scriptures because we had been trained up under the governments of the world.

When we read the Holy Scriptures in light of the government of God, we began to realize that our Commander and Leader, the Governor who dictates how we are to behave is right there in the Scripture. When the Bible talks about the Kingdom, especially in the New Testament, it is talking about being obedient to a particular government, the State of Heaven.

We thought, "What if the Scriptures are truly telling us we are a people set apart? What if we are a people of a new realm?" And we found confirmation in the New Testament that we are a peculiar people, a holy nation, born of God. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Earth is not our home. (Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 2:9; John 1:13; Philippians 3:20)

At last we were taking the New Testament as a present reality, instead of just some hocus-pocus set of rituals where people get together, but they know not what they worship. They worship in massive brick buildings with stained glass windows, but one vital element is missing. They don't perceive that we are the government of God.