Genesis, very early on, spells out God's intention for man: Man is to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, exercising dominion. (
Gen 1.27,28)
After the flood, this same principle was
reiterated. God blessed Noah and his sons, saying "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."
Fast forward
two chapters. Their descendants became numerous. They forgot the commandment to spread out and fill the earth. Worse, they did the inverse. They centralized. They looked inward. They concerned themselves with glorifying their own name, not His. They abandoned their role in the world around them. They built monuments to their own supposed greatness.
In short, they were content where they were.
Why pioneer? That sounds like work. Why leave friends and family? Why leave the familiar behind, and push into the great unknown? Life's pretty good here, just the way it is.
Just enough would have been enough, if we had no one and nothing greater than ourselves to live for. But the ones who wanted to 'settle down' had been commanded to fill the earth, to the glory of God.
God needed to get their attention by disrupting the comforts of life which chained them. True, they would not seem to be chains by those who enjoyed them. Such comforts, however, tend to
dull the heart and
blind the mind. So, He intervened and scattered them.
What happened in the New Testament?
After Pentecost, people were being added to the Church daily. Like before, they had been sent out. (
Here and
here.) It was in no way unclear that they were to go.
Read a little further to
Acts 8. What happened? Persecution arose. The Church, except for the apostles, were scattered. Net result? Christians were scattered, bringing their faith with them, as they had originally been commanded to do.
How does this help us? We are in exactly the same situation. We, too, have our large buildings. We, too, have our comfortable lives, so clean and orderly. We're
busy with paying off renovations on our houses, or the general busyness of life.
We will be forced to choose. We will pursue the plan of God. We will value, and declare His glory. We will spend and be spent in the purpose of God. Or we will face the alternative.
If we push God to second (or less) place in life, if we dedicate ourselves to lesser endeavours. If we make ourselves the center of our worlds, God's pattern will continue.
God has a way of making rebellion unbearable. If we trust in riches, we lose them. If we are proud, He humbles us. If we refuse to associate with "those" people, "those" people may come to us. If we refuse to take dominion, to live out "Thy Kingdom Come ON EARTH as it is in Heaven", in His strength and by His grace, He may give dominion to some tyrant until we fix our priorities. If we start complaining that the world is more worldly than it was, we have only ourselves to blame.
Contrast these to what happened where God saw
faithfulness. The Church in Philadelphia was
spared the persecution that other Churches faced. They had the right priorities, and God, in turn, honored them. This also showed God's final control over who faces (and is spared) persecution.
Is it uncomfortable enough yet that we are willing to pray with passion? To declare Jesus? To live and model love, and forgiveness, and courage, and selflessness? Are we willing to direct some of our hard-earned-money to a cause greater than ourselves?
I really hope so. That would be so much better than waiting for God to ratchet up the persecution level.
