Are God's World Issues Revealing Ours as Opportunities

          Are God’s world issues revealing ours as opportunities for service? The question must receive examination from what the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels have to say. Is it possible for humans to assume responsibility for God level world issues?

This is the whole story: Honor God with your living. Follow the direction and directives God leads: This is the task of the whole human family on Earth.

Ecclesiastes 12 vs 13

(Paraphrased)

I recently asked spiritual friends this question. Are God's Issues Our Issues? Incidentally, we are all Christians and ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I believe the Number One issue that God has with the world is people not accepting him as their Lord and Savior. So, our mission is to be a vessel to aide in planting seeds so the Holy Spirit can draw (others to relationship with Christ). His “issue” is people not having reverence for Him. So we are the tools to fix his root issue.

~Derrick Shawn Farris

My answer is simple, kind of. God’s issues are always our issues, ours just may not be God’s……

~William JC Wallace

On some level, yes. We struggle to grasp what God’s issues are. In or limited understanding, some try to address them, but I think when we get to the other side we will be shocked what He had a problem with.

~Keenan Actkins

Thematically consistent with the responses of my spiritual friends, these texts emerge for consideration.

          In the beginning, God created all things that we observe, all we cannot observe, and said it was good. ~The opening lines of the Hebrew Bible Genesis Scroll, known as the Book of Beginnings.

Genesis 1 vs 1

          The Creator God from within the Godself, family, community, and nation of the US (God) responding to an inner prompt divested self into the creation of the Cosmos and the human focal point, the Earth. Living directives follow in Hebrew Language as living commandments, imperatives, must do’s.

1.     Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2.     Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I theLord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

3.      Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lordwill not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

4.     Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

5.      Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

6.      Thou shalt not kill.

7.      Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8.     Thou shalt not steal.

9.      Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

   10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy                  

        neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,    

        nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Exodus 20

Beyond the Hebrew Bible, words from the Gospel of John Chapter 3 vs 16 says For God so loved all God created, God elected to become human to model for humans God’s model for living.

The pinnacle texts of Mark 12:28-31 (KJV) encompassing the whole of God’s issues also ours reveal themselves in the commandment superseding all commandments.

28. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?

29. And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 

31. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

The capstone of the dramatic presence of God on Earth as a human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is the marketing message given to all he influenced in the 1st Century through the present 21^st Century. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28 vss 18b – 20, Jesus says,

18. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  

19. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. 

Are God’s world issues revealing ours as opportunities for service? Yes, they are according to the record of the biblical texts.

Is it possible for humans to assume responsibility for God level world issues? Yes, they are according to the record of the biblical texts.

Clearly, from the perspective of the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, all who follow the model of Jesus, God’s issues are our issues. Living out the directives of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are imperatives for human service. They are not optional. None is exempt.