The Dominion Mandate
by Bill Winston
We are equipped with what it takes to be victorious in every situation!
First John 5:4 says, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” By faith we overcome the world and fulfill what I call the “Dominion Mandate.” It’s the mandate God gave to Adam. We read about it in Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
I want you to notice one thing: God expected Adam and mankind to have dominion over this earth. To have dominion means “to rule, to govern, to subdue or to manage.” God expected Adam and those of us who came after him to exercise stewardship and ownership. We were meant to be in charge here. That was, and is, God’s plan.
Man’s Reconnection to God
Before Adam sinned, he had a direct line of communication to God. He was able to name all the animals because the Lord was constantly giving him revelation. Adam perceived what God thought—he was vitally connected to God.
Once he sinned, however, that connection was broken. Adam went from receiving revelation to operating on information—the things he knew through his five senses. Since the Fall of Man, sinful mankind has been sowing to the flesh and the earth has been reaping corruption. As a result, judgment is coming on the land. In fact, I believe we are living in the last days—the days Paul called “perilous times” in his second letter to Timothy. But you and I have been chosen by God to live in this day and hour. Like Queen Esther, we have been born “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
And thanks to Jesus, that God connection has been restored to us. After we are born again we become reconnected to God. We learn from God’s Word how to walk by faith and we begin receiving revelation knowledge. We begin seeing through the eye of faith instead of only seeing things in the natural. We are made in the image and likeness of God. That means we are made to act just like God. We are to walk just like God—by faith and not by sight. We’re to talk just like God, “calling things that be not as though they were.” We’re to see just like God, “looking not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.”
22 : BVOV
