Royalty

I am royalty.
I have destiny.
I have been set free.
I'm gunna shape history. 

With an anemic melody, I sang along with the words; just another voice in the hundreds present for the worship night with Jesus Culture, a Spirit-led worship group out of Redding, CA.

That's funny, I thought. I sure don't feel like royalty.  And as of lately, my destiny looked a little bleak, more or less just trying to get by.  And being set free? Well. Yeah.  But i feel more like fake-it-til-ya-make-it right about now.  Shaping history? That's for people with doctorates and lots of money, which I wouldn't mind either of those but don't see them in my near future.

You see, this funk has really been bending the truth.

I know somewhere in my heart these things to be true.  But feeling them, believing them for right now?  I've got some progress to make on that.

The lead vocalist stopped singing and began exhorting.

Do you feel like you don't fit in? Do you feel like you weren't made for this? It's because you're not.  We're not made for this world.  We're made to look different, to sound different, to act different.  Stop singing these words like a church choir.  Sing them like you mean them.  Like you know your Father is the King of Heaven.  Let Him transform your heart, your life.  Go deeper, higher, than ever before. 

As He finished his charge to us, the Lord began to speak to my heart as I sang these words from a new place.

You ARE royalty, Rhiannon.  Your Daddy is the High King of Heaven, the Holy of Holy's.  You are a daughter of mine.  You have inheritance in My Kingdom.  You have not been excluded.  Your destiny, it's what you're doing in this very moment.  To live honestly, open to My Holy Presence.  To worship me,  from exactly where you are.  And my dear, you have indeed been set free,  Consider all the things I have brought you out of, into your full purpose in me.  And don't you worry about shaping History; you already have.  For every person you have loved out of My love. For every word of truth youve spoken to change the tone of someone's day. For every orphan you've hugged and loved and shown that they matter, to this world and to Me.  You are changing history for those I love.  That's better than any History book you'll find in school.

With a fresh dose of His peace, I sang the words, confident in my identity in I'm once again.  It's not always easy.  I forget more often than not that I'm not the person I see in the mirror, that I'm not a sum of my past mistakes any longer.

I am royalty.  I have destiny.  I have been set free.  I'm gunna shape history.

Ephesians 1:7-14

7-10 Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

11-12 It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

13-14 It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.