Faithbase

It's too long. Hey folks, I hope that by now you are hearing all of this about Genesis 1. Here now we're in part three or four and you're thinking, but what does it mean? What does it mean to rule and to reign? What does it mean to be given stewardship of the world and how the heck do I do it from where I am? There's a lot to consider here. We're gonna be talking about the nuts and bolts more as we go, but it's important for us to take that 30,000 foot view from Genesis 1. Here's a couple quick hits and there's a lot I'm gonna blow through, but I want you to really sit with these things, sit with the Lord and ask the Lord about these things and how they relate to you personally, okay? Quick hits, here we go. What it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that you have to be a general and you're charging off to war, okay? That's not what this means. We're not, now you could be a general. That's fine and God uses generals, okay? But you don't have to be. You don't have to be a politician winning in the polls. That's not what this means. You don't have to be the most popular person. It doesn't mean that you have to be the CEO, the top dog of whatever industry you're in. That's not what this means, okay? What we're talking about is the flourishing, okay? God's first call was to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, okay? Flourishing, okay? Flourishing in a couple different ways. I'm gonna give you two categories, lists, categorical lists to think about this. Heart, soul, mind and strength. Are the groups that we're gonna talk about in a minute, are they flourishing in heart, soul, spiritually, mind, intellectually and strength physically? Okay? Second, and this is coming directly from a book called Futureville. I loved this book. It's by Sky Jathani. It's spelled Jathani if you go looking for it. But it's, he puts it into beauty, order and abundance. And he pulls these straight from Genesis 1. Are the groups that we're talking about flourishing in beauty, in order and abundance? Because this is the kind of world that God created initially before the fall of humanity. Okay, and the three categories that I'm gonna talk about are first gonna be family, okay? How is your family flourishing, both your literal family and your spiritual family? Because both are essential, okay, to your life. Your spiritual church family, okay, and your literal family, how are they flourishing in heart, soul, mind and strength or order, beauty and abundance, okay? Your community, your literal neighbors, next door neighbors, your neighborhood, okay? The people in a similar age and stage, maybe the schools you send your kids to or the schools that you teach at or senior citizens that you are interacting with on a regular basis or pick your poison here, okay? Town, city, maybe even the state, okay? How is your community flourishing? How are you contributing? Now, okay, last category, work. Coworkers, peers, right? Supervisees, the ones you oversee and adjacent people who you might interact with and your supervisors, okay? You actually have a role to play in their flourishing and the good work that you do impacts them. So, so much to think about here. Flourishing in these three categories, family, community and work and heart, soul, mind, strength or order, beauty and abundance. Just take that to the Lord. And God, there are ways that you can give a lot in some of these categories and not in others. And that's gonna be different for each of you. Pray on it, sit with God, peace.