Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Morris Ruddick - THE MODEL IN MOTION

Morris Ruddick

SIGN

THE MODEL IN MOTION
(c) Morris E. Ruddick

"For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you 
no greater burden than these necessary things." Acts 15:28

The world's system is being shaken. Tenets of leadership, once accepted 
as the standard, are in question. The response of God's chosen to this 
shaking; the response needed to impact nations requires more than 
what can be done in the natural. It demands a community-level response 
and a higher level of leadership. 

The response needed is to foundationally restore God's order. The response
will flow from the ancient model of God-centered entrepreneurial 
community being fully set in motion by a people mobilized in God.

Within Christendom today are remarkable models to mobilize churches. 
Likewise, the last generation has seen incredible models that have 
mobilized missionaries. Now, we have entered the time of mobilizing 
the marketplace. All this has been good.

However, in each of these cases there's been a serious blind-spot. That 
blind-spot is created from the premise that if you are successful in one area, 
then success will follow in other areas. The blind-spot has also held that 
if you just employ a successful Western church model, then by doing it 
enough it will transform society. Not so.

Church growth should be the by-product rather than the goal. Mobilizing 
missionaries should be the by-product rather than the goal. Spiritual 
success first pivots on changing the spiritual climate to the level that it 
impacts a culture. It is a process. It is a process that emanates from 
God's order. At its crux is the restoration of the biblical model that fully 
embraces the interactive dynamic of the spiritual, the economic and 
community, all operating in concert.

Getting the Model Right

The greatest heroes of faith were catalysts for change; they countered 
worldly standards with God's wisdom to bring strategic-level change. In 
each case, they heard from God, and harnessed strategies from the 
Spirit of the Lord that shifted the spiritual climate and impacted the 
culture. In the cases of Joseph and Daniel, against all odds, this shift 
was done from within the world's system.

In the cases of Moses and David, the standard of God's order was 
elevated and the shift began as the community was mobilized to 
respond. In all of these cases, the catalyst was a unique brand of 
leadership; leadership by anointing.

Getting the Priorities Right

Let's tell it like it is. The marketplace movement is attracting many 
who operate on the unspoken premise that if you just throw enough 
money at something, then the result will have God's blessing and bring 
the needed restoration. Some assert that if we just plant Western 
churchianity around the world, it will solve all the problems.

Yet, despite all the mobilization of recent years, both the West and 
the world seem to have more problems now than ever. America's 
leadership is divided and the nation is teetering economically. 
Haiti has had a lot of money thrown at it; ten times more in aid than 
it has had investment. Still it remains for the most part under the 
bondage of corruption. Nigeria, considered one of the most evangelized 
nations in the world remains one of the most lawless and impoverished. 
Churches there are escape-hatches from the moral degradation that 
reigns around them. There indeed needs to be something more that 
brings genuine change.

Discerning God's Big-Picture

As a whole, worldly success and power has blinded us to the urgent 
need for God's ancient model. It is a spiritual shortsightedness that 
tends to result in our majoring in minors and getting the priorities wrong. 
Jesus told the Pharisees that they strained gnats and swallowed camels. 
In all their religious priorities, they missed the forest for the trees.

Jesus warned that in the latter days, indeed the days we have entered, 
that we should be wary of false prophets and false messiahs who misguide. 
We should beware of modern-day Pharisees with myopic mind-sets, whose 
leadership causes us to miss the big-picture and the model drawn from 
the ancient paths.

There is a need to restore and a need to revive things spiritually. It involves 
more than mobilizing people and organizations; it involves the release of a 
people who, as a community, will demonstrate the reality of God. That's at
the foundation of revival, when it is the Spirit of the Lord truly orchestrating 
things, rather than man.

It goes back to the opening scripture and the words of the Apostle James 
as he set in order the priority of the "necessary things" for the early church. 
Over the centuries, God's ways through His people has had a pattern. It's 
been the simple things that have confounded the wise, as the Lord has 
used ordinary people to do extraordinary things to break the mold; the mold 
of the bondage of corruption. That takes God being at the helm of decisions. 
That means leaders and a community who truly hear His voice.

The Model in Motion

Something very significant happens when a community begins operating 
in the way that God intended. King David's leadership exemplified this. 
When Israel and Judah came together it brought about the dynamic of 
dominion. That is God's original mandate. The rest of the world stood in 
awe, because it was recognized that God was with them. That wasn't all. 
With dominion established, it led them into a time of great peace and 
prosperity reflective of God's order restored.

Historically, when Jews have been a part of another culture, the dynamic
of community has proven to make them stand out and shine as 
disproportionate achievers and contributors. Only one other ethnic 
group prospers so well when operating as a culture within a culture 
and that is the Chinese.

Yet, the strategy is not just community, but business-based community. 
When God is at the helm, it flourishes even more. In a handful of Asian 
nations, the Chinese also represent the foundation of Christians. Their 
employment of Christian community far excels anything even approached 
by Christians in the West.

Years ago in the West, an attempt was made to replicate community 
parameters in corporate settings. A book was written about it in the 1
950s titled "The Organization Man." It fell short as a culture driven by 
conformity and blind-obedience.

God's Strategy of Community

However, God's dynamic of community is very different. It is one of service 
and cooperation. It is one of nurturing and fostering opportunity for others. 
It is a safe-place with God at the center with His people sharing a common 
purpose as they apply their diversity of gifts for the common good. It is a 
light shining in the darkness because God is there. It is God's people 
operating beyond that place of human effort turning the ordinary into the 
extraordinary; an assembly of those known by His name operating in the 
exponential in making a difference by enabling others. It is the group 
setting through which God's Kingdom rule is established.

God's strategy of community pivots on being a trust society; with influence 
extended to those around them. It ignites a God-centered middle class 
bearing the potential for growth and increase. Since God has had a people,
in civilizations without a middle class, God has sent the Jewish people in 
to serve this function as merchants and bankers and people of business. 
In these roles, they have become a people of influence and change, as 
they have served as advisors to kings, rulers and leaders in governments 
and businesses with the wisdom of God's standards.

When God's people begin truly operating in community; when the model 
is set in motion, it is then that God's full strategies begin to be released. 
This has quite often been in conjunction with the pressures of operating 
against impossible odds. Yet, under pressure, this has been how God's 
strategy operates at its best: Light against darkness. Again and again, 
the pressures have galvanized and melded the role of community and the 
role of community leaders.

The model that began with Abraham, of God-centered, entrepreneurial 
community works. It works against the odds.

Alignment for the Strategy

When priorities became confused in the first century church, the 
Apostle James decreed the need to give focus to the "necessary things."
 So it is today, that many with good intentions have been majoring in 
minor things. Priorities have been approached in reverse. There is a
need for the alignment of God's strategy.

We've entered a time when the roots to the faith that were expunged by 
Constantine in the fourth century are being restored and released, with 
great impact. It's through the simple things that God is confounding the 
"wise." The results are breaking the mold; and building a path into the 
restoration of God's order and the fulfillment of His purposes for His creation.

Biblical community is the necessary ingredient to embrace the strategies 
needed for the times we have entered: to prepare and to be prepared as 
the world hits the disconnects of its paradigms.

Disruptive Strategies and Anointings

That means preparing for change that will challenge the old order of things. 
It is change that pivots not on heightened religious activity that marked the 
Pharisees, but rather on God's order for a society, with the foundational 
truths outlined in the Torah. It is change that disrupts the counterfeits 
and establishes God's Kingdom dynamic. 

Within business terms, a disruptive technology or innovation creates a 
new market or value structure. It eventually goes on to disrupt an existing 
market or value structure, often displacing what may have been a technology 
standard. It typically happens unexpectedly, first by innovations designed 
for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering 
prices in an existing market.

Not unlike the way that personal computers established a whole new order 
of how business is conducted, God's people historically have employed 
disruptive strategies in the process of restoring God's order. Leadership-wise, 
the heroes of faith operated with disruptive anointings. They were change 
artists establishing a new standard and order of things; God's order.

God's disruptive strategies and anointings are explosive. There are three 
age-old, big-picture targets for God's disruptive strategies within the 
marketplace today: economic, cultural and power. These are the 
"necessary things."

Economic. Economically, God has had the original economy. It is based 
on the Lord, both individually and community-wise being the Senior Partner 
and leading the way.

Cultural. Culturally, we have the examples of both Joseph and Daniel, who 
despite the extreme adversity and culture of sorcery, changed the spiritual 
climate of pagan nations and established God's order to harness their 
resources for God's purposes.

Power. Power-wise, Jesus spent His earthly ministry raising the bar and 
endowing a small group of followers with the keys to employ righteous 
power in a corrupt world.

We've entered a new season. It is a time to be prepared. It is a time to 
prepare and be poised to put the model in motion.

It is a time for leaders to see beyond the blind-spots and counterfeits; 
and get God's big-picture perspective right. It is a time to reach beyond 
our false illusions and start applying this age-old, three-fold model of the 
spiritual, community and the economic working together.

It is a time to be alert for where believers, communities large enough to 
be a culture within a culture, control the resources with the model in motion. 
It is a time to be alert for alliances with modern-day pharaohs who seek 
the prophetic wisdom and model that modern-day Josephs can apply to 
their resources. Of the top 100 world economies, 53 are corporations. 
There's a world whose hopeless condition is looking for the REALITY of 
God operating, within a people, who can truly demonstrate it.

Before us is the change, the paradigm shift of all ages. The need is 
for those who will hear God's voice and obey; mobilized communities 
who will apply their disruptive anointings and set the model in motion. 
The need is for prophetic stewards, who like Joseph, are blessed to 
be a blessing; who wield the authority of the anointing to lead the 
displacement of the bondages economically, culturally and power-wise; 
and with a focus on the necessary things, to restore God's order.

"And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish 
the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands." 
Psalm 90:17
___________________________________________________

Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner and spokesman for the call of 
God in the marketplace since the mid-90s. As founder of Global Initiatives 
Foundation and designer of the God's Economy Entrepreneurial Equippers 
Program, Mr. Ruddick imparts hope and equips economic community 
builders where God's light is dim in both the Western and non-Western world.



He is author of "The Joseph-Daniel Calling;" "Gods Economy, Israel 
and the Nations;" "The Heart of a King;" "Something More;" and 
"Righteous Power in a Corrupt World," which address the mobilization
of business and governmental leaders called to impact their communities 
with God's blessings. They are available in print and e-versions from 
Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and other popular outlets. 

Global Initiatives Foundation (www.strategic-initiatives.org) is a tax-exempt 
501 (c) 3 non-profit whose efforts are enabled by the generosity of a 
remnant of faithful friends and contributors whose vision aligns with 
God's heart to mobilize the persecuted church to be the head and not 
the tail. 

Checks on US banks should be made out to Global Initiatives 
and mailed to PO Box 370291, Denver CO 80237 or email us at
sign@strategicintercession.org for access information on our secure web-site.

Likewise, email us to schedule a briefing for your congregation on the
state of the persecuted church and how you can more effectively pray for them.

2013 Copyright Morris Ruddick - sign@strategicintercession.org

Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a SIGN advisor. 
Since 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized 
prophetic intercessors and leaders committed to targeting strategic-level 
issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For previous posts or more 
information on SIGN, check: http://www.strategicintercession.org

Morris Ruddick
Global Initiatives Foundation











Global Initiatives Foundation is a pioneering organization, paving new ground for God's people who are blessed to be a blessing, serving as catalysts for change in a time of growing discontinuities.

Global Initiatives Foundation was established by Morris and Carol Ruddick to serve, encourage and train community builders and those at the forefront of God's marketplace agendas and faith-based initiatives programs, as well as serving as ambassadors of God's light and truth where God's light is dim.

We invite you to explore our site to discover more about our impact around the globe.


SOMETHING MORE
BY MORRIS E. RUDDICK


Spiritually, the times demand "something more." For those called 
as Joseph-Daniels, this book outlines a pathway of stewarding 
your calling. It begins with going beyond absorbing information 
to entering a vibrant process leading to a path described by 
Jesus as having its entrance at the narrow gate. 

Find out more HERE...

THE HEART OF A KING
BY MORRIS E. RUDDICK


These are times that cry out for true leadership. Those paying 
the cost are a remnant with a heart and identity inexorably 
tied to God. They will receive the keys to release His 
Kingdom in their domains. These are the ones with the 
heart of a king. 

Find out more HERE...


GOD'S ECONOMY, ISRAEL 
AND THE NATIONS
BY MORRIS E. RUDDICK


God's economy operates against all odds - not an option 
in lands of distress or in today's post-9/11 environment. 
The faith-based roots that undergird God's purposes for 
business are releasing community-building initiatives. 

Find out more HERE...

THE JOSEPH-DANIEL CALLING
BY MORRIS E. RUDDICK


Modern-day Josephs and Daniels will serve strategically 
as instruments of God's purpose in secular positions of influence 
within seats of power of this world. This timely book 
addresses the dynamics of this calling, God's economy, and 
the preparation, character, and challenges of these uniquely 
called Josephs and Daniels. 

Find out more HERE...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for sharing. Blessings on your head from the Lord Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach.

Steve Martin
Founder
Love For His People
Charlotte, NC USA