The time a generation takes to get it together with what God is doing, too often results in the "new thing" already becoming outmoded. However, times of dramatic change bring another dynamic into play. The tempo is accelerated. Cycles become more prominent and erratic. People adapt more quickly.
The rules have changed. Old models are falling short. Challenging times demand something more. The spiritual dynamics that Joseph the patriarch employed to turn crisis into opportunity in the world of his day, represent a parallel for the times at hand.
As the rules change, defining opportunity means operating beyond the ordinary. It means avoiding the status quo, the trendy and a herd-instinct that panics. It means restoring foundations proven to bridge turmoil. The enduring foundations are adrift. Historically, virtue and God-centeredness formed the basis for our liberty. Slippage from these fundamentals has opened the gates to disorder and the unexpected.
Yet despite the disorder, God is not only ahead of the power curve, He is re-establishing age-old foundations. These restored foundations will release a new thing. This "new thing" will be hidden to those whose bearings are outside the basis that God outlined for society. The new thing will reflect the principles Joseph employed to avert disaster. It will employ Kingdom principles Jesus imparted that will navigate a narrow pathway through the reversals and turbulence.
The shift to the new will be at a strategic level. It will not be based on past patterns of "success" defined by the world's standards.
Joseph's role with Pharaoh was not only prophetic in nature. It redefined the way things had been done. For centuries the Church has operated on the premise of the spiritual being the spiritual and the natural being the natural, without the two intersecting. While faith clearly changes things, our operational precepts and alignments have been such that they have yet to bring the level of societal change that we refer to as transformation. The foundation for the new thing must move deeper. It involves influence.
Within the spiritual arena influence is defined by spiritual or God-centered criteria. Within the natural or "secular" arena, influence is defined by success that most generally is based on wealth or extraordinary shrewdness.
This foundation has got to change. It is the deception that subtly decries "we have to be like everyone else to be heard."
God's people, as a people, will no longer be guided by "being like everyone else" or be molded by pathways defined by the world.
The pathway toward the Isaiah 60 shift will embrace the "new thing." The new thing will encompass a shift in dominion and influence. It will move God's people toward "being the head, rather than the tail." The standard that has defined influence and authority for the world will revert to the standard that the Jewish people have so tangibly brought to the world over the centuries.
As advisors to kings and merchants, the Jewish people have redefined civilization and the standards for the legal, moral, economic and governmental systems of the world.
While the premises for the change brought about by the Jews has been based on foundations found in the Jewish Torah, the world including the Church today, largely has failed to recognize the dynamics that have been the catalysts effecting that change. The Jewish people have the model. In practice, they are walking Torahs. Even among those considered as "non-observing" or the non-religious, righteous Jews apply with balance the key dynamics needed for the pathway ahead.
These dynamics are at the core of what Jesus referred to as "the Kingdom." These elements, with the pattern unchanged today, are why the Jewish community has been the brunt of the rage and hate of the world over the ages. The reason is that they not only have the answer, they operate according to the answer. It is an answer that spiritually goes against the grain. Against all odds they have and are achieving a dimension of influence and dominion that is far beyond the ordinary.
Once we as the Church, as God's spliced-in people, grasp this pathway, we too will wield the influence and dominion that have been evident over the centuries in the impact made by this extremely small, yet remarkable segment of the world's population. As we embrace these dynamics in traversing this path toward the Isaiah 60 shift, the Church will experience even more of the brunt of hate that has for so long followed the Jewish people.
One of the first premises to traveling this pathway is that we are not like everyone else. The standard is not being nice people with high moral ethics who can achieve. That might be the by-product. The standard is the identity we embrace and uphold as being God's people.
As God's people then, we need to operate as a people. We need to reflect the unity that has long defined the Jewish community.
That unity will only manifest by fully embracing God's gift of community. Within pop Christian culture today, a strategy tied to influencing culture has been resurrected from the Charismatic renewal of the early 70s. It is a good, yet somewhat flawed strategy. It is now being referred to as the Seven Mountains of Influence. It incorporates believers penetrating and bringing influence to the spheres of religion, government, business, education, media, the arts and family.
A key area in which this paradigm falls short is that it either equates or replaces "community" with family. Community will incorporate family, but community is too pivotal a dynamic to be redefined by one its components. This is in no way to detract from the significance of family. However, family outside the community dimension designed by God will face unnecessary hurdles. Likewise, biblical community is watered down by relabeling it simply as "the social" area.
Community is one of the three keys to understanding the dynamic that has operated so uniquely through the Jewish people. The primary key is being God-centered. The final key is operating according to the "entrepreneurial" principle of increase that bleeds into business, technology, government, education, arts and the media. All three are meant to operate together, in balance.
So it is that God-centered community that brings increase is the foundation for influence and dominion. It is God-centered community that brings increase that is the pathway for the "new thing."
Joseph, as God's chosen, understood God-centered community that brought increase. Joseph was described by the non-believers around him as being successful in all that he did because God was with him. So it will be for the new generation of Josephs who are embedded in the infrastructures of the world's system. They will redefine and employ opportunity according to this "new," yet very old standard.
Jesus' central message was one of restoring this three-fold dynamic to God's original intentions. He went to everyday Jewish people and demonstrated how the principles of God's Kingdom rule operated. He explained in parables the people could understand, about the basic principles that incorporated the "God-centered community model that brought increase." This is the model established by Abraham.
Today, when we define success by the worldly standards of wealth, power and cleverness, we short-circuit the model established by Abraham. When all we strive for is excellence according to the world's standards, whether in business, government, education, the arts, the media or family; we fail in bringing the societal change that Jesus' Kingdom message intended.
The model is God-centered community that brings increase. The foundation of "increase" is the entrepreneurial. God's DNA is to create, innovate, build and bring increase. Those elements are at the heart of entrepreneurship which, when God is at the center, brings purpose and balance to community.
Community. The world doesn't understand community in the unique way that the Jewish people do. The Church as a rule has only grasped community in part. God-centered community takes care of its own. Those who wield the greatest influence are the community's greatest benefactors. Community is the pathway, the overflow of which spills blessing and positive change into the realm of society around it. God-defined community will attract rather than have to convince. Community will also create discord and backlash from those aligned to the status quo.
God-Centered. Jesus defined the operating principles according to the paradoxes that drive God's Kingdom rule. We live by dying. We lead by serving. We gain by giving. Order comes from change. Wisdom comes from simplicity. In short, success is defined by humility and service. These are the practical mind-sets required as the community standard for God's rule and authority to prevail. They define and are the source of the incredible societal impact the Jewish people have had across the years.
Increase. Increase as God intended is to benefit the community. When the modern free-enterprise system began in America, it was God-centered and community-oriented. It had its foundations in the Jewish model. Yet over time, it has become increasingly perverted. God is no longer at the center; and community no longer reflects God's rule; but rather a watered-down hijacking based on what was at issue with the Tower of Babel. So it is that we have entered a time of cyclic turbulence. Yet, there is a pathway defined by God that will result in societal transformation. It is a pathway that will yield opportunity and increase, despite impossible odds of adversity.
The new Joseph generation will know what to do in order to bring purposeful change. They will challenge rather than maintain the status quo as they turn adversity into opportunity. They will apply the new model that brings forth an alignment that releases the supernatural; and does not equate the supernatural with magic or the weird. AND they will penetrate the arenas that wield the authority and resources needed through the modern-day Pharaohs they collaborate with.
Copyright Morris Ruddick - response@strategic-initiatives.org Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a SIGN advisor. Since 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors committed to targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis.
Genesis 26 describes the dynamic of God's economy. It says: "there was famine in the land and the Lord appeared to Isaac and said, 'Dwell in this land and I will be with you and will bless you and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.'" God's economy operates against all odds, which is not an option for those living in lands of persecution and distress and it is emerging as a chief strategy for operating a business or ministry in this post-9/11 environment.
God's economy is based on God's Kingdom rule and embraces not only the realities of God's spiritual riches, but the community (social) and economic riches outlined throughout the Word of God. It is the reemergence of the ancient biblical principles of entrepreneurship, business and Kingdom wealth.
MORRIS E. RUDDICK is a business executive, consultant, entrepreneur, missionary, intercessor, conference speaker, board member, and writer. He is at the forefront of mobilizing a unique group of anointed marketplace leaders, referred to as modern-day Josephs and Daniels. As head of a market planning consulting firm serving an array of clients from Fortune 500 firms to respected ministries, his expertise includes business planning, forecasting emerging markets, developing business strategies, funding initiatives, modeling entrepreneurial bypass strategies, and applying principles of biblically based businesses. He was chief architect in two successful corporate turnarounds. His ministry activities target strengthening the brethren in locales ranging from Afghanistan to Israel. But the foundation of both his business and ministry activities is his role in leading a global intercession ministry known as SIGN (Strategic Intercession Global Network), which has as its purpose targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis.