“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:26-27 KJV
We humans, often with bullseye precision, could be focused on what we ought to and desire to have. A bigger house, a better career, more money, more power, more influence, better relationships etc. We want to have this, we want to have that, the list is almost endless, that’s why the Economists say, ”human needs are unlimited.”
In creation of man though, God’s end point from the start was for man to have something, which was dominion to administer the earth he just created.However, he didn’t start at that. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion” God’s approach was to first clearly state what he wants man to be, ‘the making’. Then, ‘the having’, the dominion. For men to have and wield his God bequeathed dominion, they must first be of a certain kind of being, a Godlike being.
We could describe this as the ‘first be’, then ‘have’ rule. That rule would almost always make for the best outcome. The being must always precede the having. A lion roars because it is a lion, it is not the roar that makes it a lion.
Apostle Paul re-echoed this principle in Acts 20:32 KJV ‘And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified’ The word first builds you up making you into who God wants you to be, then give you an inheritance.
Luke 15:17 KJV stated that the prodigal son’s turnabout breakthrough started “when he came to himself”. Jesus’ sermon on the mount is called the be-attitudes (beatitudes) for a reason.
The breakthrough indeed starts at who you are.
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