Identity in Christ - 41 (Owner of All)

Or as one version puts it: "Everything belongs to you."
 

Now, does this mean I own the Eiffel Tower? Or Harvard University? I don't think so. So, what does it mean? Maybe we  need to look at the story.
 

This was written to a group of God's people who were experiencing some issues. One of the issues was disunity based on a popularity contest. That is, people in this group were divided, and quarreled, because they admired different leaders.

Because unity is one of God's foremost values for his people. this needed to be taken seriously. So, the writer addresses the issue. He points out that:
 

They were not living as they were designed.

1. The men they admired were all servants of God, and each has their part of God's mission.
2. Their parts are all important, though each one is different, but God has the most important part. It is he who causes the growth and the spiritual transformation.
3. The objective of God's work, and the work of each of these men, is the increase and growth of God's family in Christ. Christ is the core, the end and the foundation.

So, Christ must be seen in every weave, every fiber and every filament of God's family. If Christ is not seen, then no matter how eloquent or brilliant they may seem, their work is dust and ashes. Everything these men do should further God's mission, which is the growth of God's family.

Then, the writer says "Everything belongs to you."
 

Again, the writer is not referring to Harvard, the Washington Monument, or other man-made property or object. He is referring to God's kingdom. All of God's kingdom belongs to all of God's family.

• God's Perspective 

God's kingdom works in an upside down manner. In the world, leaders are first in position, first in privilege. In God's kingdom, leaders are servants.
 

In God's kingdom, leaders become leaders, because they have:

• grown in their relationship to the Father.
• gone further in being restored to their original design.
• consistently serve others by helping others grow in their relationship to the Father, and make progress in reclaiming their original design. 

In God's kingdom, leaders are leaders because they pend time and energy showing others how to be leaders in God's kingdom, pushing others ahead of them, and seeking to have no job or position. (If leaders have pushed everyone ahead of themselves -- everyone else knows the Father better than they do, everyone else has been restored more fully than they have -- then they have given themselves a promotion to follower.)

And God demonstrates that he is a leader, because he gives 100% of his time, 100% of his energy, 100% of his attention, and 100% of his resources to each one of us, to foster his relationship with each one of us, and to rebuild our original design.

God does not consider leaders more than others. He had put his kingdom at everyone's disposal.

• Living My Life

God's intention is that everyone becomes a leader. Everyone takes the resources of God's kingdom and uses them to promote everyone else's relationship with the Father, and everyone else's restoration. (And if someone does not have a relationship with the Father, God's children use God's resources to help that someone begin a relationship with the Father.)

Ultimately, nothing can stop god's plan. The only thing that might slow it down, is God's children not rising to their destiny, not living out their identities, not using their resources and not obeying Jesus' commands.

There have been movements of God in the past, and God will begin movements in the future, because men have put impediments to God's Spirit flowing through people. Such as, only certain men have the resources to do certain things. God has given us all things. There should be no check to the move of God's Spirit. If there is a check to God's Spirit, God did not put it there.