Working For God

Working For God

2/23/16

Where does the concept of working for God first mentioned in the Bible?  Have we even thought about it before and do we even think about our lives and how does this concept become incorporated into our work day?  And I can guarantee that not many people comprehend that working for God is actually a Kingdom stance and since one has heard that word they can imagine where this truth actually is first portrayed in the Bible.  Working for God is the utmost principle that God set before us for when Kingdom is involved yours, mine, and someone else’s eternity is at stake.

I have been in my current profession for over thirty years now, with my current employer being almost twenty-five years straight.  I absolutely love my job and until God tells me to change my profession I shall remain in this profession and being the best example of His servant as possible; He continually blesses my life and my family’s every day and to this I cannot deny.  I cannot say that I have enjoyed every day that I step foot into this small hospital for when one deals with humans as a profession, especially sick ones, things can become quite grim on certain days.  Even with these potential devastation days of my profession, I continue to love my work and through my work, I have also continued to have the opportunity to learn about people and their everyday existences.

I have mentioned a couple of times in past articles that my specific job is located in an Oncology clinic within our hospital and that each day I learn something more about the word courage from the patients that come in and out of these doors.  While not much “unusual” activity occurs within these small confines of my job, there is always a possibility of some excitement being provided by my patients.  It is through this work of mine that I can provide a basic foundation of support that has the ability to sustain these devastated people another day, all the while providing me a chance to watch and learn from these same people that may not live for very much longer.  But it is through my continual learning and providing of an accurate service to these people that sets the example of a dominion completed and an example that should be followed according to the original setting of mankind.

Up until a few years ago I had never really looked at my job as being a portrayal of God’s Kingdom and how through my actions in my job provided such a benefit or detriment to His Kingdom.  For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be in the medical field and this desire is still present within my heart today.  I was told and have felt that my place was going to be in the medical field and even though some days I have wanted to walk away from it, my love for the people and the services that I can provide them have continuously trumped all my negative thoughts.  As I look back on my career the things that God was trying to show me about my job and how it related to the advancement of His Kingdom, I missed.  He did not chastise me nor did He punish me, but He continued to show me things until my heart opened up enough to allow His wisdom into my life; then the real fun began.

For the umpteenth time, God has given us a perfect example of how our lives are divinely placed into positions that have the specific purpose of teaching us things about His Kingdom.  And for the umpteenth and 1 more time God has brought me back to the book of Genesis to illustrate what He has provided us and what He expects from us when we are placed into these positions. As the Word of God has repeatedly stated, each one of our lives has a direct purpose for the dying world and through this purpose we must recognize that God’s Kingdom has the potential to be advanced and we have here the first example of this in Genesis 2:15.  This verse is well known and it has been used countless times before and it has been in some of the previous articles that God has shared with us as well.  But just as God likes to do, He compounds the previous information that He has given us and adds to the information already given so that we may further understand the true meaning of our existence and His Word combined.

Genesis 2:15 states as follows: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The following verses of Chapter 2 continue with the command that God gave to Adam concerning the Garden and what would occur if the rule was broken.  But it is this specific verse “15” that God wants us to focus on for this topic and up until a short while ago, I had no idea of the depth and meaning of this verse and how it represents our life existence today, through the words of Jesus when He was walking on this earth.  This verse not only represents our lives but directly refers to the work we are supposed to be doing as either pushing God’s Kingdom forward or allowing our enemy’s kingdom to make its advancement.

This verse states that God took Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden.  The previous verses of Genesis Chapter 1 state that God created the Garden of Eden and all of the plants, animals, seas, light, etc. which means that everything that we know today was created by God and therefore, His in its origin.  This portion of verse 15 states that God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden where he was supposed to dress it and to keep it.  This sounds like a pretty direct explanation of what was to occur in Adam’s life and since God is a consistent God, He expected Adam to keep the Garden in perfect working condition and in order at all times.

One of the more frequently asked questions from those people who do not believe in God or have serious doubts about His existence deals with the issue of what gives God the authority to require this from Adam or anyone else that has ever lived.  The answer to this question is one of the cornerstones of God and the belief in what Jews and Christians hold dear since God created everything around Adam including the Garden of Eden He had complete authority to present the “chores” to Adam to complete.  Adam knew that God was the creator of everything including his home so that meant that Adam had the responsibility of keeping the property instilled to him from God.  

This meant that Adam and soon with Eve had the responsibility to maintain everything within the Garden to the standard that God wished for His creation, the same standard that God required of His ultimate creation, mankind.  With God being a complete being, including all areas of His existence, even though our finite minds cannot truly comprehend this state, therefore, cannot accept anything less from 100% in His plans and requires His perfect creations to participate accordingly.  But as we have been previously shown by God gift of choice and free will was included in our capacity as humans, and thus, we have the contingency to not do according to what God desires of our lives when we represent ourselves in a specific time down the road.

It is this process of procrastination, laziness, lack of will, or just do not wish to do it the way necessary that begins the process of decay that when left unchecked becomes a deviance from God’s holy order and results in an ugly destiny.  This work ethic was established by God in the Garden of Eden and was changed and deviated by Adam and Eve, not God.  If God would have lowered His standards in ANY way, then our enemy would have pounced on God’s authority and holy status and would have a legal right to reclaim his position in heaven, not to mention the fact of a bit of history to hold over God’s head as proof that He was not all powerful, all knowing and complete in every way.  Since this true, there is no way possible that God could have any “do overs” when it came to His life establishment of mankind.

Since God could not change His standards and cannot change His standards today either, it places all blame upon the human for selfishly interpreting God’s laws for their own likeness.  It was the responsibility given to Adam first to dress and to keep the Garden of Eden according to God’s standards, not mankind’s ideas.  Here is something that we need to remember and it is very important that we keep this in mind at all times, it was this deviation of standards that Lucifer wished God would allow him to achieve long before the events occurred in the Garden of Eden.  If God could not allow this to occur from a spiritual, created being why would God allow it to occur in another physical and spiritual created being?  The answer is simple, the standards would be the same and the choices of both created beings would depend upon themselves alone and it is through this standard that God expected Adam and Eve to keep and to dress the Garden for Him.

To fully understand the expectations that God wanted from Adam and Eve concerning the upkeep of the Garden of Eden we must further explore the words “dress” and “keep” that are used in this verse for they are just as important as the initial phrase of placement within the Garden that is stated beforehand.  The word “dress” used here is strictly a word that describes the equivalent of work.  Ever wonder why so many people have issues with work, here is the origin of these problems and it stems from the lack of adequate (God) ethics and standards.  God’s Word clearly states that the only job that Adam and Eve had to do was to keep the standard of the creative edge that God had established for them.  They saw this standard and walked around it continually, so they understood what needed to be done in order to keep this standard.  See the direction in which we are headed?

It is through this word that our “jobs” in God’s Kingdom are defined.  We are to work to advance His Kingdom at all times, to go and to identify the issues that need to be attended to and properly take of the issue according to God’s standard, nowhere does God’s Word state for us to control the issue but to recognize the issues and to fix them according to what God requires of us.  In the Garden, it was Adam and Eve’s job to go around and to ensure that all order within the Garden was kept in the order in which it was created.  How hard was this job?  I have no idea but it must have been large enough for Adam and Eve at some point to wane from their responsibilities enough to eventually be beguiled by the serpent.  In other words, it is obvious that they had been completing the job of dressing and keeping God’s order long enough that they believed that they could skip a few corners and still “fool” God into believing that the complete job was done, again, God’s allowance of choice being presented here.  God would not be complete if He did not notice all of the details of His workmanship, thus, He did notice what was ongoing within the Garden and must have dropped hints to Adam and Eve of what they were doing and not doing, just as any parent would hint towards their children when they do not properly complete the chores set before them.

The dynamics of the second word in this portion of the verse is just as significant as the word “dress” for its usage means to be in charge of something and in the case of Adam and Eve their job was to serve God by keeping watch over or to be in charge of His Garden of Eden.  The word “keep” here is a fascinating word because no matter how it is used throughout the Bible, it always means the following: to keep, to be in charge over or of, maintain, keep watch over, to secure, to take care of, to protect, observe, watch or watchmen to regard and to heed to or guard.  It does not matter what type of situation this word describes it reverts back to the fact that the person involved is placed over an issue and is responsible for a specific task.  If one wishes to place it into context today, many police departments have this phrase or one similar to it as their logo as their motto: “To Protect and to Serve”.  In the terms used in this verse, it is simply stating that it was Adam and Eve’s job to understand, know and protect while watching the holy growth of God’s Kingdom at work.

While the word dress refers to serving the word keep refers to maintain and to keep watch.  It is purposeful that these two words are placed into this one portion of the verse because if they were not it would mean that both would not have to be present in order for them to work together.  But with the addition of the word “and” into the phrase it is recognized that both must be present in order for things to work together and to function appropriately.  It is this concept of Adam and Eve’s recognition of God and His authority as the creator of the Garden of Eden and the willingness to work for Him in order to maintain His creation both of these words must be included in structure for His holy order to be complete.  In short, if you do not believe is the One and only Creator of the world and of yourself, that His Word is accurate according to His divine completeness, there is absolutely no way that one can fulfill the second portion of this verse by keeping an adequate and complete watch over what He has established, including your own life (dominion).

We must also acknowledge that the word dress that is used here is an action word and it is not referred to any type of past tense.  It is used as a current or continual process of recognition of who actually owns the property and in this case we are referring to the Garden of Eden.  It automatically places God as the rightful owner of the Garden and since He created a perfect state, the growth and maintenance of this perfect state was to be represented by Adam and Eve’s keeping of such tasks.  It is impossible for us to fully understand this type of living conditions, for all our minds can grasp is a state of flawed existence.  In conjunction with the word dress, “keep” completes status of mankind and the work that was required first of Adam and then of Eve was set into motion according to God’s standards of existence. 

For some reason, Adam and Eve decided to start doing things on their own and not fulfilling their obligations to the Garden of Eden as directed.  There is also a question as to why God would even have to allow for such a directive in the first place, and that question can be answered with the presence of the serpent.  God walked with Adam and Eve every day and had numerous discussions amongst the parties involved.  One can also comprehend that the enemy of God and our enemy as well being present and listening to the conversations that were had.  This is part of the beguiling process since it takes talent to have a continual presence in all matters and not be alarmed while motions are being conducted, such craftiness must have been determined during this time while our enemy was waiting to gain enough access to steal, kill and destroy humanity’s eternal and perfect state of living.

This setting also provides us with a picture of an owner walking amongst their property and making sure all is going well with the workers as well.  Business owners continually monitor their workers’ progress to see if their level of productivity is meeting the owner’s conditions.  So, why would God not be concerned in the same setting?  If He was not, then He would lose His all complete status and be deemed a liar.  From the passages that we are studying here it becomes clear that it was not God’s fault that things had to change from its origins, and since in an earlier verse it says that Adam and Eve walked and talked with God daily, this would tell us that God was doing His job to perfection.

The situation between God and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden presents an important question: why did God have to give Adam and Eve “jobs”?  it is at this point where we have to re-introduce the word dominion here and what it means to God and His Kingdom and the kingdom of our enemy Satan, for both are involved.  It really seems to the uninformed heart that God was a little bit unfair when He created humanity and then gave them work to be completed in a perfect state, but there is a reason for this and it provides us with one of the first examples of God’s Kingdom being advanced and the kingdom of Satan being pushed back.  If God created us for a specific purpose then that means His creation of the Garden of Eden and everything that went on in that area was created for a specific purpose as well.  God never does anything without Him promoting His creative expertise for eternity’s sake.

With God setting the standard for Adam and Eve to work in the Garden means that He expected them to keep up and to watch out for His creation at every turn; not that God could not have completed this event alone for He could easily have protected this event without any hesitation or problems at all.  But as we see throughout the bible God does not set into motion many things without the choice of humanity coming first and when this occurs God must act accordingly.  This is witnessed in the Garden of Eden, the rape and pillage of Israel and Judah, during the temptation of Jesus, When Jesus was hanging on the cross, When God resurrected Jesus from the dead, the end times, and countless other times mentioned.  It is an important concept that must be kept in mind when trying to understand the ways and consistencies of God.

We also must consider that once God initiates something His enemy, and ours, shall always do his best in counteracting the perfect plan of God; this is what enemies do.  When wars are fought they are fought over territory and whoever gains the most territory over that day is declared the victor.  In humanity’s case, the territory does concern physical land sometimes but it is NOT the ultimate goal of God’s Kingdom or Satan’s kingdom, that eternal objective is you!  God understands the human capacity of the human and the need for their perfect fitting so that they can maintain their existence, which is why the setting of the Garden of Eden was set into motion, not only to promote the human satisfaction and security of living but mainly to promote God’s advancement of His Kingdom to His enemy and to ours also.  This setting also explains the importance of your life and allows one to understand exactly what kind of fight is ongoing for our lives.

In other words, your creation was solely out of love for the advancement of God’s Kingdom and has a divine purpose that was produced in order for us to actively pursue His kingdom.  Our enemy, who rebelled some time further back before we were created established the war that is still in motion today and this war has one objective, your eternity.  God wants so much for us to choose His ways and to push back the kingdom of darkness which engulfs the world and prove to our enemy that God’s ways are the best for every life on earth.  The goal of our enemy is to prove his standard of cheating, lies, murder and separation from God for that is the fruits of his choices and all he can offer as the leader of this world; even our enemy has work for you to do in his kingdom and on the other side it is the mission of the Church to spread the eternal gospel of salvation and restoration in opposition to this world.

Why is this topic so important today?  It is important because God is now allowing certain events to occur in our world on a daily basis that needs to be understood, not only as to why they are occurring but also as to what has been allowed to transpire to occur.  From the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden up until this very day, humanity has incessantly demanded that our way be formed instead of God’s and with this concept laid out, God is about to allow such devastation on this earth like never witnessed before.  As of this moment, we still have time to change our work methods and once again truly begin to keep the dominion that God has given us.  The restoration of this world shall not occur in the manner in which Mr. Al Gore wishes, nor shall it comes from saving all of the trees from being cut down in the forests.  The promised restoration shall ONLY come upon our land when we turn our hearts back to God and begin to work for Him again.  ALL human selfishness has to be voluntarily wiped out before God can come back into our lives, for God cannot play second violin to anything.

Working for God is a continual process and we have plenty examples of what occurs when we do accomplish His work and when we do not.  Why is it so difficult for humans to understand this truth about our existence?  It is because we listen to the convenience of our world and apply the world to our existence first.  Over time this placement will catch up with us and the consequences shall appear in our lives.  The outlook for our country has been spoken in great detail if we do not begin wholeheartedly working for God again.  It is time that we open our eyes, both the physical and spiritual, and see the fields that Jesus was talking about when He was on this earth.  Feeding the people is on the physical aspect is a great idea and should be engaged fully, but we cannot afford to stop our efforts there, we must see the fields for who and what they are, people that shall die in their sins and spend eternity away from God if we do not tell them about God and what His Son did for us.

Working in the fields cannot be ½ way completed, it needs to be fully compiled each and every second.  When we work for God and our hearts are truly focused on His Kingdom, He shall show us how to manifest His love and support through our lives but if we have any worldly ambitions that are placed in front of this concept, our mission is rendered useless and will show it quickly.  Adam and Eve demonstrated this type of work habits because it would make sense that these types of events would occur if one is not fulfilling their job as instructed: dare I say the first example of a lukewarm Church, thus being the reason for something going awry both then and now.

Israel who was created and defined by God was given the task to share with their people of how to follow and to work for God, through His covenant.  With time passed, Israel sought other directions and eventually demanded their own king to represent them instead of their own individual lives.  Study the Bible and read the history books and one will see that the idea of Israel having their national king was the perfect example of a bad idea.  Their land was totally destroying including their temple, multiple times!  Even after God allowed them the opportunity to restore the temple, they continued to use it for their own services, Not God’s.  This is not working for God, it is working for our own manipulations.

Here is something to think about concerning our nation.  There have been many debates whether or not this country was founded on biblical principles or not.  The nation of Israel had the same ideas concerning their land and many of the Israelites still do today.  It is a choice to believe this or not and from the looks of the current situation of this country, something is about to occur that shall change our existence as a nation forever.  God has allowed it to occur to His own people so what makes you think that God shall not do the same to our land?  Get back to work, people!  Not just the physical work but our spiritual work for God as well.  Our focus is off and from all indications, we have refused to remove the cataracts from our spiritual eyes so that we can see the true fields that are right in front of our eyes.

As the newest prophecy for this country addresses, it is a sad state when beautifully dressed people are standing in long bread and soup lines, but in true spiritual terms we already represent this type of appearance, so why wouldn’t be logical for the physical to follow.  This means something very extraordinary is about to occur in our nation and to our lives, and since we as Americans and the leaders of western societies demand that we be in the limelight for everything, well, I guess that is what we shall behold.  

This setting also places into order the working relationship between God and mankind, we work for God and God does not work for us and means that our lives will change during our work of Him and His statues shall never be changed.  God asks us to turn our hearts back towards Him, NOW!  Allow Him to restore our hearts to the way they were created to be and for, His work.  This is exactly what Jesus was trying to explain to His disciples and to those who really wanted to understand His presence in our lives, not just to walk amongst the people.  It is called a relationship and it is through a personal relationship that God desires with us.

DLB