Tag: business

Not yet, but Already

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 17 – Finding our place

Not Yet, But Already

[Bible references: Matthew 6; John 15:1-17; 1 Corinthians 3; Revelation 21-22]

Sincere prayer has a habit of changing us. When we commune with God as a friend, we learn his business and desire to join in His work; the work of God calling people to Himself in love and bringing them healing. We also know His desire to restore the earth so that is rejoined to heaven, making the whole earth a temple, a place where he will be with all His people. When He came the first time, He began that work of restoration and when He comes again, He will complete it. In the meantime, He has left us here as His stewards. There are some things that only He can do, but that does not mean there is nothing for us to do. In this time where He has not yet returned, He has already begun a work that He invites us to join with Him, calling people to Him and restoring the earth, bringing healing, wholeness, and hope to the world.

The gifts He has given us can not only be used to serve and build up those already within the church community, but as Christ’s ambassadors, we can bring tangible signs of love and hope into the world around us, to show God’s love and care that He has for not only the smallest things in our lives but for all of creation. As we live in the world as it now is, we can bring the love of God into our relationships, our vocations, our hobbies, etc. Our efforts will be incomplete because Christ has not yet returned. But the work that we do now can demonstrate the hope and confidence that we have because Christ has already come.

There is a call for those who can carry a prophetic message, going and preaching the gospel to those outside the church. For those who do that work, they need to remember that when Jesus called us to go the fields that are “white unto harvest,” he implied that some preparation had been done beforehand, the crops were already planted, fertilized, weeded, and supplied with sun and water. Much work had been done and therefore the crops were ready for harvesting. While not all of us have the gift of evangelism or prophecy, we should be open to what we are called to do.

Observe

Read Matthew 6. How are giving, prayer and generosity linked?

Our Mandate

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 14 – Remembering our creation

Our Mandate

[Bible references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25; 3:6; 39:22-23; Matthew 17:10-13; Acts 3:19-42; 1 Peter 5:10]

We have seen how our journey, the journey of God’s people, creatures made in God’s own image, began with our ordination in the Garden of Eden and we have seen what God has intended for our future. We have seen how that intention has not changed despite our rebellion which continues to this day, and how God has not ceased to work with us, His people, despite our persistent rebellion. We have seen God’s patience and tenderness in not totally abandoning us despite our rebellion and how He has called us generation after generation – from the patriarchs and prophets to the apostles and all who are called Christian – to join Him in His ongoing restoration of His Kingdom on earth.

As image-bearers, we still are charged with the work of stewarding His creation, However, we must be restored ourselves before we can fully join Him in His work. That work of restoration begins when the Holy Spirit comes within us to unite us to God and His community. That is the work God must do within us.

In the previous chapters, we have followed how God called his image-bearers to join in the work that he began and then how, through the years, his image-bearers have joined that work, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In this chapter, as we prepare to consider how to move forward, we will revisit that multi-faceted call to rule over the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it” and to cultivate[1] and keep it, to create beauty. This call to act as God’s stewards of His creation is a call to use our gifts of intelligence and creativity, to cultivate the resources of the earth to establish a godly culture and civilization. This call is sometimes called the “cultural mandate,” where our culture includes all the things we discover and make and pass on from one generation to the next: our food, language, sports, arts, businesses and their products, civic organizations, and governments, etc.

The charge to “have dominion over” and “subdue” the earth and all its creatures includes physical, cultural, and intellectual activities such as farming, mining, manufacturing, government, arts, civic organizations, education, sciences, technology, and many other activities. But the primary place of God’s kingdom is to restore the souls of men. All would be well if all souls were in right relation to God, everything else would fall into place. Evangelization of the souls of all men is the ultimate goal. But if we think of the ways in which God, out of his overflowing abundance, finally managed to touch our hearts, there were many steps and many different ways in which we were individually touched by the hand of God.

As God’s image-bearers we are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover what kind of possibilities can be made of the overflowing abundance of  God, the physical resources He has provided for us: turning grain to bread, grapes to wine, oil to energy and plastics, iron ore to steel, limestone and shale and clay to cement, and many other things we have made from many types of resources. We are uniquely equipped to imagine and discover out of God’s overflowing abundance what kinds of ways we can organize ourselves to fulfill our responsibility to subdue and cultivate the earth by creating organizations such as businesses, civic and social organizations, political parties and non-profit organizations, governments and educational and religious institutions.[2] In all of these activities we can reflect God’s knowledge and wisdom by engaging in intellectual pursuits such as reading, writing, mathematics, sciences, philosophies, language arts, history, engineering, forensics, medicine, law, etc.  

[1] Huber, Dave. “Avodah Word Study” EFCA Today Summer 2012 www.efcatoday.org/story/avodah-word-study

[2] Manahan, Ronald E. “A Re-Examination of the Cultural Mandate: An Analysis and Evaluation of the Dominion Materials” Docsbay Grace Theological Seminary dissertation May 1982 docsbay.net/A-Re-Examination-Of-The-Cultural-Mandate

Reflect

We were assigned priestly duties in the Garden of Eden. As believers, we are to be kingdom of priests. As God’s care for His Creation continues, so does our mandate. What things can you do (and are equipped to do), with God, to fulfill His mandate?

Observe

Read Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15; 39:22-23. How would the world be different if we fulfilled our duties towards creation in the same way the Joseph fulfilled his duties?