A life of subduing and ruling over
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April 7, 2013 |
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God created the first man Adam and then Eve and He blessed Adam to subdue and rule over all things. By delving into the spiritual meaning of the blessing, we hope you will be blessed to subdue and rule over your heart.
Subdue the earth and rule over everything on it
God the Creator formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed and blessed him to enjoy the authority as God's child. God taught everything to the man and allowed him to subdue and rule over everything on the Earth as well as to cultivate and keep the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 1:28 records how much blessing God gave to Adam the first man He created. The first blessing that God gave to Adam was to 'be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.' Along with Eve, whom God gave to Adam as his wife, Adam became fruitful, multiplied, and filled the 'earth' with his children in the Garden of Eden.
The second blessing that God gave to Adam was to 'subdue the earth.' God gave Adam the Garden of Eden and the Earth as an inheritance and told him to 'rule over and keep' them. The third blessing that God gave to Adam was to 'rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' God gave Adam wisdom and understanding to make it possible, and blessed him to be able to rule over the animals by being in communion with them.
By the way, there was another reason why God allowed Adam to subdue the earth and to rule over everything. This is because in the second heaven, to which the Garden of Eden belongs, there is an area where the spirits of the darkness dwell as well.
In the second heaven, there is the Garden of Eden which belongs to the domain of light and there is also the domain of darkness. They are adjacent to each other. God separated the light from the darkness after saying, "Let there be light" on the first day of the six-day creation for human cultivation. Then, as it was the first night, God released evil spirits from the Abyss. And on the second day, God gave them a place where they could dwell in the east of the Garden of Eden.
On the sixth day, God formed man and gave him the authority to subdue and rule over the earth and all things in it. God wanted him to protect the Garden of Eden and the Earth from evil spirits and blessed him to live the life worthy to be deemed God's child.
With the truth, subdue your heart which is the spiritual field
As recorded in Genesis 2:16-17, God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." That is, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death because the tree symbolizes God's sovereignty.
When the first man Adam obeyed the Word of God, he could subdue the earth and rule over all things on it. But everything changed after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was sent out from the Garden of Eden because he failed to watch over his heart and disobeyed. In the end, he came to eat from the ground only in toil because the ground of the earth was cursed due to his sin. He also eventually was faced with death just as it had been spoken that 'the wages of sin is death.'
Just as written in Matthew chapter13, the ground and the field here stand for the heart of men who are formed of the dust from the ground. In other words, it indicates that whoever conquers his heart, which is spiritual land, and rules over it in accordance with the Word of God can recover the authority and power which Adam once possessed. Thus, when you cultivate the heart field into fertile land, it is the same as subduing spiritual land.
To the same extent that you don't cultivate the heart-field into fertile land, you can't subdue your own heart. As long as you have fleshly attributes left in your heart, you cannot be said to have conquered your heart completely. This is because your heart is changeable if fleshly attributes still remain in you.
When we subdue our hearts completely, we can overcome the world that is full of sin and evil and keep our hearts from the worldly things. But if you don't you will be rather subdued by the worldly things when temptations or hardship come to you. Here, you can check how much you conquer your heart by seeing if you practice what you plan to do. To conquer it perfectly, you need to throw away 'rocks' in your heart and also root out the 'thorns' in it. Then, God's blessing will follow you.
Subdue your heart by filling it with love
After subduing our heart, what should we control and rule over, and how? For example, if you have hatred in your heart, it is subduing your heart to pull it out. And when you put love in your heart, it is to control your heart. If you completely fill your heart with love it is to rule over your heart. If you reach this level, you will have no fleshly thought, hear the voice of the Spirit, and receive His guidance.
As read in Philippians 2:13, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure," God is at work in us and leads us to achieve His will. The Spirit who searches all things, even the depths of God, lets us hear His voice, and guides us to the prosperous way.
If anyone can subdue his heart, it means he has cast away all untruthful things, so he can watch over his heart. In addition, if you control and rule over your heart with generous virtue and love, the evil one cannot touch you and people will obey you from the bottom of their hearts. People around you will praise you. We hope you will subdue, control, and rule over your heart and enjoy authority and blessing of God's child.
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