The Family Plan

Colossians 1:15-20

God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

MUCH OF YOUR DISCIPLESHIP, and therefore your mission as salt and light in this world, will be to learn the royal family’s ways and understand its purposes. You are not given your shares of the inheritance to go off on your own tangent and live apart from God’s ways, though you will certainly benefit from them. You are being nurtured and trained, just as every child in his or her natural family is conditioned to adopt the family’s ways and adapt to its environment. The more you exhibit an understanding of family interests, the more the Father and the Son entrust their resources to you. The gifts they give are already yours, of course; you are simply learning how to use them. You are called to leverage the enormous wealth of this Kingdom, all the resources granted for your use, to reconcile the world to your Father the King and restore people to its blessings.

Kingdom wealth does not look like worldly wealth, of course, though finances certainly fall within the royal estate. The fact that your Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10) and offers good and perfect gifts (James 1:17) tells us that he is King of both the visible and invisible worlds. The most powerful resources you are given come from the invisible realm, which explains why you are in lifelong training. They are not easy gifts to understand. They have the potential to redeem, regenerate, reconcile, and restore. They are supernatural, and only those with eyes of faith can even see them, much less learn how to use them.

Devote yourself to this mission. All the fullness of God dwells in Christ, and Christ dwells in you. The family inheritance is in that relationship, and its wealth is available now. Explore the estate, adopt the character of the royal family, and ask to learn how to use its resources well. Take up its plans and live to fulfill them.

{Jesus, you know the Father’s estate better than anyone; teach me its character, its assets, and its plans. Let me see its gifts with eyes of faith and use them with supernatural wisdom, power, and love. Amen.