Humanity has an basic aversion to responsibility.
We live for retirement and long for ease . . . .

But God created us for the adventure of responsibility
and gives us the Divine Aim of ruling with Christ -
literally ruling!
Not figurative but real.

        "Know you not that you will judge angels?" I Cor. 6:3

The ambition to rule is hidden even in the most reticent heart.
The drive is valid because it is our Destiny . . .
but it is perverted by the Fall of Eden
into the lust for control,
overbearing and ruthless.

Today's little sphere of duty is weighed on a heavenly scale,
measured by its increase.  

Luke 19 . . .
Zacchaeus, small of stature, climbed a tree to see Jesus.
Jesus, responding always to passionate need
invited himself to Zacchaeus' home.

Zacchaeus "received Him joyfully" but the critics complained, saying,
        "He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner."

This little man's first response to Jesus had to do with money.
        "Look, Lord, I give half my goods to the poor; and if I have taken
anything from anyone . . . I restore fourfold."
Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable.

And it had to do with money.

A certain nobleman (obviously, Jesus) went into a far country (Heaven)
to receive for himself a kingdom and to return (the World).
So he called ten of his servants (believers) delivered to them ten minas
and said to them, "Do business till I come."

But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying,
'We will not have this man to reign over us.'

What we have, has been given us by the Son of God.
A trust and a test.

It is His, be it money, ability, gifts, revelation.
And He is to be king of that investment,
to "reign," to rule over it all.

Ours is to "let Him reign" over His possessions
and increase them, by His will and His wisdom.

There is a inevitable accounting for those gifts and riches,
a sure day of reckoning.

And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom,
he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money,
to be called to him, that he might know how much
every man had gained by trading.
Verse 15
 
Our king has received His kingdom, and we stand in
that time between
His throne in Heaven and His Second Coming.

We are in the era of doing "business till I come."
Right now, we are investing in eternity.

Humanity considers reward to be a life free of work,
The highest fulfillment - an unencumbered existence.
To the sinful nature, the ideal is to have no responsibility.

But God's gift to the "well done, good servant" is
greater responsibility,
by the increase of Authority.
 
God considers Authority to be
the privilege of the Kingdom,
promotion into His highest purpose.

And he said to him, Well done, good slave,
because you have been faithful in a very little thing,
be in authority over ten cities.

The reason we were created is in God's original design.
He has never deviated from it.

"fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule . . . ." Gen. 1:28

We were made to rule.

For Him. By Him. With Him.
God the Father will have His plan.

By the tarnish of Eden we want to rule without
the responsibility that goes with it!
We see responsibility as a burdensome curse.

The responsibility to learn to rule
is the great human adventure,
a school of learning who God is and
how HE rules.
and
"his commands are not burdensome." 1 John 5:3

Learning to live as servant-ruler
That is our destiny: to serve and to rule.
To rule by serving . . . and serve by ruling.
To be "under" and to be "over."

For this Father sent His Son to brilliantly demonstrate how
and be then to do it within and through us.

Copyright © 1999 Martha Kilpatrick