PROPHETIC STEWARDSHIP
(c) Morris E. Ruddick
"Then the king said, 'Bring me a sword. Divide the living child
in two, and give half to one, and half to the other.' Then the
woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned
with compassion for her son; and she said, 'O my lord, give her
the living child, and by no means kill him!' But the other said,
'Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him.'"
1 Kings 3:24-26
Solomon's wisdom in discerning the true mother is also a key to
discerning true leaders. True leaders have the compassion that
is willing to face personal sacrifice. It's the mark of stewardship.
The perspective of the wannabees and unseasoned will tend
toward being inwardly focused and driven by personal,
wrong reasons.
True biblical stewardship is just the opposite. Prophetic
stewardship bears an even higher standard. Kingdom
leadership pivots on stewardship that seeks the community
good. That may require a decisiveness that is neither
popular nor comfortable. It demands a basis that
understands the true heart of God and the long-term
prophetic implications.
Joseph's service to Pharaoh began with a time of preparation.
Scripture indicates that these years of preparation were
a fruitful time, a time of abundance. Yet, what was
required to gather and store the grain demanded discipline.
It no doubt involved some belt-tightening for everyone.
The tough standards and decisions required were not for
the feint of heart or those with the need to be accepted.
Yet, when the years of abundance were over and famine
came, then both the decisions and the discipline became
even harder. Joseph's stewardship involved a balance
between maintaining order, adjusting to the widespread
famine, while establishing Egypt as solution-provider.
It required a level of administration that not only
was gifted, but drew from God's wisdom for the decisions
being made.
Egypt, under Joseph, became the safe-place, the place of God's
order when everything else was falling into disorder. That took
tough-minded decision-making to set up and no doubt even tougher
decisions to maintain and administrate. Genesis 45 reveals that as
the famine proceeded, that the money failed. Prophetically God had
shown Joseph the need to gather and store the grain. Because the
staple with value was grain, Joseph was in the driver's seat. Clearly
Joseph heard from God.
With the abundance of grain, Joseph cornered the livestock market.
The people of Egypt remained fed, as Egypt's influence with those
around them increased as a prepared-provider and a refuge during
the turbulence. As things deteriorated, the people sold their land to
Joseph for the food needed to feed their families. The famine was
severe. No doubt the value of land had also dropped. Yet, Joseph
the good steward, the prophetic steward, brought the people into
the cities to live.
"When the money failed, Joseph bought the livestock;
then the land; then brought the people into the cities."
Gen 47:15-25
The suggestion is that there was safety and community order,
again a refuge, within the boundaries of the cities. Joseph maintained
the order needed during a severely difficult time, kept the people fed
and kept them safe. Following the famine, Joseph restored the people
to their lands requiring only a fifth on their produce in return.
The Prophetic Dimension
Operating in the prophetic means there are often times when we
"see" or perceive things that we want to act on. However, the
prophetic calling requires a lot more by way of self-control than
the ordinary. It's too important. The mature prophetic response
is from those who rule their own spirits.
The prophetic is first hearing from God. However, when we hear
from God another key required layer is the issue of alignment and
seeing things from the stance of what God is doing. It's becoming
a participator in His destiny-shaping purposes and agendas. It's
entering a dimension of God's big-picture beyond ourselves.
Yet, we can sometimes get the big-picture without seeing how God
is getting us there. So, operating in the prophetic requires a continual
checking-in with Him for the "interims." That's because none of us are
at the place to where we nail it at each step, despite our best and
most valiant efforts to do so.
One of the hardest things to learn is to NOT force issues.
The flip side of that is holding steady when you don't yet
see the change in the natural. Yet, faith and faithfulness
are determined by those who grasp what is underway
in the unseen world.
When we are in a place where there is something that
God is doing that we haven't fully or even partially
discerned, it represents a place of vulnerability.
Well intentioned people unwittingly walk into cross-fires
of judgment by yielding to the soulish in these interims.
Judgment can also be triggered because of ones who,
being convinced of their "rightness" regarding something,
don't have the big-picture quite right. They lack a full
discernment of what God is doing or their place in it.
What results is creating a short-circuiting or backlash by
which they and others are hurt. Prophetic stewardship
requires keeping one's spiritual antennas high and at
the times one is provoked over something, to back
off until they hear specifically what the Lord has to
say about it.
Cost of the Mantle
The dreams Joseph received from God as a young man
came at a high cost. They cost Joseph everything that
had been dear to him, including his freedom. Yet, Joseph r
ose to the standard that God had set for him. THAT took
decisions that refused to give in to the soulish. It took serious
discipline, humility and maturity.
Not only did Joseph demonstrate a right spirit; but as a
good steward, he took it a step further in assuming
the mantle of his great-grandfather Abraham: to be
blessed to be a blessing. Long before his promotion to sit
alongside of Pharaoh, with nothing to go on in terms of
position, Joseph distinguished himself with Potiphar and
then the jailer with both his influence and the stewardship
of the mantle he bore.
The result came from a right spirit that stewarded the
blessings of God in such a way that everyone around
Joseph saw that God was real, through the demonstration
of that reality through Joseph. Yet, it came at a cost;
a very high cost. In the face of losing everything; in the face
of slavery; in the face of unrighteous spiritual backlash; Joseph
maintained his faithfulness as God's servant-steward.
Gravity of the Mantle
Leaders, who truly understand the times and know
what to do, demonstrate a maturity that is above the
soulish. They don't quibble or second guess when tough
decisions are required. They guard their own hearts
diligently and do not give in to soulish machinations.
Yielding to the soulish is what opens the door
for the demonic.
The contrast is demonstrated in Isaiah 22 with the
story of two leaders, one whose decisions were
short-sighted and driven by personal, soulish
matters and another whose stewardship embraced
the long-term opportunity resident in the heart of God.
"Go to Shebna, who is over the house, and say:
Indeed, the LORD will throw you away violently;
there you shall die. Then it shall be in that day,
that I will call My servant Eliakim; I will clothe
him with your robe and strengthen him with
your belt; I will commit your responsibility
into his hand. He shall be a father to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of
Judah. The key of the house of David I will lay
on his shoulder; so he shall open, and no one
shall shut; and he shall shut, and no one shall open.
I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place, and
he will become a glorious throne to
his father's house." Isaiah 22:15-23
Authority of the Prophetic
The authority of God for change is released through
the prophetic. The story of Joseph reflects a progression
of episodes in his life tied to how he heard and obeyed
the voice of the Lord. This simple foundation in many
untenable situations became the catalyst for a owner
and an authority that was recognized as being from God
by a whole range of non-believers, including those in
authority.
That prophetic authority was the means by which God
used Joseph to shift the spiritual climate within Egypt's
power infrastructure. It set the stage for the prophetic
alignment needed for Joseph's apostolic gifts to harness,
redirect and then steward the resources of Egypt to
accomplish God's purposes for the future of His people.
Discernment and Prophetic Alignment
Joseph's tenure in Egypt is laced with examples of
Joseph's significant prophetic gifts. Prophetic stewardship
will unmask the intentions of the hearts of those who
serve a role, whether for good or for evil, in the initiatives
being stewarded.
The story of the baker and the wine-taster exemplifies how,
during Joseph's weakest hour in the natural, that God
used him prophetically to judge and establish the removal
of one key man from Pharaoh's court; and to restore and
set up another, who became instrumental at the right
time in aligning things for Joseph's promotion.
Similarly, Joseph's scrutiny of his brothers was not retribution,
but the need to see the repentance that was needed for
Joseph to establish parameters with those who once
betrayed him. By the time his brothers came back on the
scene, Joseph was in the full flow of his very considerable
calling. He did not need the old issues and patterns of behavior
demonstrated by his betrayers to manifest and disrupt in any
way his role as God's servant-steward.
Still, the discernment of Joseph was not an end in itself,
but the means of aligning things first spiritually and then
in the natural, for God's purposes. Stewarding the will of
God begins with resetting the spiritual climate. When the
spiritual climate is properly aligned, it allows God's order
to be established. Only then, will the stable flow come
needed to counteract the forces of judgment and the
tentacles of evil.
The Prophetic Steward
The prophetic steward is the one who maps out, builds
up and brings increase in the face of the enemy's schemes
to divide, confuse and destroy.
I have previously noted an organization I was a part of
many years ago. The standard for entry was high.
The standard to be maintained was even higher.
Members of this organization became known by the axiom
of "when the going gets tough, the tough get going."
It is unfortunate within the Body that many confuse
soft standards of the world with the level in which,
we as a Body are expected to operate. Our standard, like
that of Joseph's is higher. It's much, much higher.
I have had the joy of working with two men of God who
operate with this higher standard. They each are very
different in their leadership styles, yet very similar in anointing.
Each reaches hard for God's heart and God's will on the
issues before them. Both are unusual in their roles as
prophetic stewards.
One is incredibly gifted in discerning the gifts and will of
God operating in people, with the ability to draw forth
and put those gifts into operation. The other is a very
high-level administrator, whose ability to discern the
big-picture and then mobilize leaders to address it, is
timely and strategic. One is a model for the Body locally;
the other globally.
Both are incredible peacemakers, a very high standard in
the progressive maturity unveiled by Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
They each have a gift for tapping and aligning things spiritually
to establish God's order and to release the supernatural for change.
We need more of that standard.
We've entered a time that Jesus spoke of as when even the
very elect would be deceived. It is a time when the
convergence of good and evil will trigger both judgment
and change. Prophetic stewardship sees the alignments
and change in the spirit from God's perspective. It then
navigates and anticipates the responses needed to shape
and release God's purposes.
The Lord Jesus also told us that many are called, but
few are chosen. The criterion for leadership, established by
Solomon's wisdom, begins with sacrifice and compassion.
It is evidenced by those who not only face, but traverse and
emerge whole from the fires. It pivots on an unpolluted
prophetic stewardship that pays the cost to unswervingly
maintain the steps needed to change the spiritual climate
and to establish God's order.
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may
see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."
Matthew 5:16
___________________________________________________
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;" "God's 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.
Mr. Ruddick is also a contributor in the just released five-volume
"Aligning with the Apostolic," edited by Bruce Cook with Forwards
by Peter Wagner and Bill Hamon. It is available through
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 least of
these our brethren. Checks on US banks should be made out
to Global Initiatives and mailed to PO Box 370291, Denver CO 80237
information on our secure web-site.
Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a
SIGN advisor. Since 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network
(SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors committed to targeting
strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For
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