Every believer must know and carry out God's mandate in their life.
As Christians, we must use this God-given mandate to deal with what is happening in this sin-filled world, to reach out to the many lives that are dying without God.
3 Mandates God has given:
A. God's Mandate for Creation
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at god’s command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)
1. The Animal Kingdom Speaks of God's Creative Power
“Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7-10)
2. The Heavens Declare the Glory of God
“The heavens declares the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; Night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalms 19:1-4)
“Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights above. Praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His heavenly host. Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you shining stars. Praise Him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created. He set them in place forever and ever; He gave a decree that will never pass away”. (Psalms 148:1-6)
“Ever since the creation of the world His eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. So, they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
According to UN assessment of the Earth condition, a 708-page compendium of the planet’s ailments that was released at a U.N. environmental conference recently held this year, the Earth’s condition has continued to deteriorate since the first global outlook was prepared in 1997 and “urgent action at an unprecedented scale necessary to arrest and reverse this situation,” the team warned. “The science is clear,” Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of U.N. Environment, said in a briefing. “The health and prosperity of humanity is directly tied with the state of our environment.”
B. God's Mandate for Mankind / Humanity
1. Be Fruitful, Multiply, Fill the Earth, Subdue It, Have Dominion
“Then God blessed them. And said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
2. Obey the Creator
“And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.” (Genesis 1:29-30)
“Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die [not physically but spiritually]. (Gen 2:16-17)
“But men, in freely choosing to violate His law, we forfeited the consummate fulfilment of our spiritual longing. By playing God, and redefining good and evil according to our own discretion, we introduced into the human spirit disobedience, absence, severance, distrust, evil and restlessness. We use our freedom to try to free ourselves from God who gives us our freedom. The symptom of evil remains – SUFFERING – and we have completely removed the cause of evil – our own responsibility. We simply do not like the word SIN and would rather call it anything else.” ~ Dr Ravi Zacharias
C. God's Mandate for the Church
1. Personal Mandate - Recipients of God's Love
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment… And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 23:37-39)
2. Corporate Mandate - Share the Love
a. Bringing Glory and Praise to God
"For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples, Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come into His courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth." (Psalms 96:4-9)
"but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:15-16)
b. Witnessing to a Dying World
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
“His intent was that now through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known.” (Ephesians 3:10)
