He didn't want him to be a poor person, and He doesn't necessarily say to give away everything anyway. What He said to this man is you've got an issue in your life and you think you're right, and you haven't recognised the power this thing has to affect all your life, all your relationships. If you'll just let the money go which is managing everyday you think about your [unclear 00.16.36], you're worried about all these things that control so much of your life and relationships, if you just let it go completely what you would receive would actually fulfil what you need in your life. And we understand that when you sow you reap, so He's not wanting him to become a poor person so he can serve God. He's wanting him to be a free person to serve God. Can you get the idea on that, a free person? If you're in bondage to money and debt and caught up with the whole thing, you're not a free person. All you do is think about it all the time.
We had people on the ship that couldn't even - when we were doing our cruise they couldn't even rest and have a holiday. The reason they couldn't rest and have a holiday, they've got to look up the internet and find how their shares are doing all the time. They actually just worried all the time. I spoke to a multi-millionaire; he's worried all the time, doesn't sleep at night. I think have you got the money or has the money got you? [Laughter] Can you understand what Jesus is saying, get the heart of it? He's saying in the kingdom of heaven you become a generous person and a giver and you have a free life. You're not in bondage to things. It doesn't say give away everything. He wanted this man to face the issue in his life and position himself to be free and to prosper, see? So the kingdom of heaven, it's a great thing - so you're an ambassador. Of course man is God's ambassador. Now here's the thing. God only chooses family members to represent Him.
See, God only chooses family members to represent Him, so you can't be an ambassador for God - you can call yourself that. You can call yourself anything you like, but you can't be unless you're born again and you've actually become a member of the family of God. So when every one of us makes the decision to receive Christ, get born again, the Spirit of God enters us and we're positioned as part of the family of God, name written in heaven, now to grow to the point we can represent Him well in the earth and advance His interests. Hence you need to be trained and discipled to grow, so you understand the word of God, the ways of God, how to move with God. Why? So you can fulfil your calling. He wants you as a son to represent Him. He wants you as a son to take over the earthly business. You'll find as we look in the scripture the mandate at the beginning was global, and at the end it's global, and at the very end it actually succeeds.
But God's intent always is that we be global people and everyone is an ambassador. Now I've used the word ambassador because if I said evangelist you'd all shrink and point to Danny or someone else see. If I used the word missionary you'd all point to [Graham and Jess 00.19.00] or someone else or [Bryden 00.19.02] and say that's not my thing. But actually it's everyone's thing because that's why you're here. We're an ambassador, part of God's royal family, here to advance His interests in the earth - so we've got to learn how to do it. It's the learning how to do it is the important thing; how can I live the life and be victorious over my issues, and actually influence and affect and impact the people around me? I won't touch it today but I'll do it perhaps the week after next, how religion always has exactly the opposite impact. It causes people to withdraw, isolate and just shut down, rather than actually having a kingdom mindset of advancement. See, it's totally different.
So Jesus never came to give us religion; He came to restore to us a kingdom we'd lost and to get things back on track again, so let's have a look at the original mandate found in verse 27. So God created man in His image and likeness. He created them and then He blessed them and said to them be fruitful, multiply; fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves on the earth - not to dominate people, not to rule over people, but to actually rule over creation, make it productive. Now notice what it says here, it says He blessed them. He blessed them. That word bless means literally to speak or proclaim success over someone, so when Adam was launched the first thing God did was create him, then He actually gave him a mandate, a purpose. The first part of that was to bless him, to speak over his life something he was called to be successful at, and that was being fruitful, multiplying, filling the whole earth, subduing - that means there's something to bring under, there's something going to resist - and to have dominion. That means there's an order to be established.