Charles Capps of - Kenneth Copeland Ministries Australia

God didn’t create Adam to be a servant of the earth.HE MADE HIM TO BE A LORD OVER IT.was already finished when Adam and Eve were created. Ithought God had done everything that needed to be done.”That’s what I thought, too, until I studied whatthe Bible actually says about it. Like most believers,I assumed for years that God had so thoroughlycompleted the planet that all Adam and Eve had to dowas pluck ripe fruit from the trees and enjoy themselves.I figured that because the Garden of Eden was aperfect place, there must not have been much work forthem to do.That would have been true if the Garden had coveredthe whole earth. But it didn’t. Although it was a goodsizedpiece of property, according to the descriptiongiven in Genesis, it was only about the size and in thegeneral location of modern-day Iraq. The Bible tells usthat God Himself planted it:Eastward in Eden; and there he put the manwhom he had formed. And out of the groundmade the LORD God to grow every tree that ispleasant to the sight, and good for food; the treeof life also in the midst of the garden, and thetree of knowledge of good and evil. And a riverwent out of Eden to water the garden; and fromthence it was parted, and became into four heads.The name of the first is Pison: that is it whichcompasseth the whole land of Havilah, wherethere is gold; and the gold of that land is good:there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And thename of the second river is Gihon: the same is itthat compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. Andthe name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is itwhich goeth toward the east of Assyria. And thefourth river is Euphrates. And the LORD Godtook the man, and put him into the garden ofEden to dress it and to keep it (Genesis 2:8-15).By anyone’s standards, the Garden of Eden wasmassive, and it was, without a doubt, an exquisite placeto live. Filled with gorgeous trees that provided food fitfor a king, it had a river running through it to keep itlush and green, plenty of gold (good gold, the Bible says)and other precious stones. It was, indeed, a BLESSEDplace—full of everything good and nothing bad.The rest of the earth, however, was not in the samecondition. God had created it with plenty of potential,but it had not yet been cultivated. It still needed to bedeveloped and brought into line with God’s perfectwill. That’s why He included in THE BLESSING, thepower to subdue the earth and have dominion over it.The untamed earth needed supervision and direction. Itwasn’t yet finished.God could have done the job Himself. He couldhave turned the whole planet into a Garden of Edenin an hour, but He had something else in mind. Hewanted it to be a “family project”—to watch His sonsand daughters become His co-creators and finish out theplanet. So He gave them the Garden of Eden as a pilotproject to get them started. God’s plan was for themto expand it until the earth became the garden spot ofthe universe. Once earth was finished, they could go towork on the rest of the planets.I’m convinced that’s why there are so many barren,empty planets out there. God made them to be futuresites for His family to develop. No wonder human beingsdream of exploring the galaxy! No wonder we figured outa way to go to the moon and send spaceships to Mars! Wewere created to take dominion over the universe and fillevery square inch of it with the glory of God.Not Just Weed-PullersBecause God created mankind in His image, by HisWORD of dominion, Adam sensed within himselfthe desire for dominion the moment he took his firstbreath. From the beginning, ruling and reigning waspart of his DNA. He wasn’t “just a weed-puller in theGarden of Eden.” (Someone once said those very wordsto me, referring to Adam as “God’s weed-puller”! Ihad to exercise great restraint to keep from telling himwhat an ignorant statement that was.) In the first place,there were no weeds in the Garden of Eden. If therehad been, God would have pulled them Himself beforeHe put Adam there. In the second place—and this ismuch more important—God didn’t create Adam to bea servant of the earth. He made him to be a lord over it.I realize that idea makes religious people nervous, but6 | BVOV | SEPTEMBER '11