I can't believe God would share with ME!

Kings in the lost and broken kingdom...
Or, the scandal of shared dominion...

Did you know God created all that Creation is for man to rule? It has been such since the beginning of man: "Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26 ESV)

Mankind abdicated that dominion in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve took Satan's word over God's. We've repeated that scenario countless times over and over again. We were made to be kings upon the earth, but we became lost, disoriented and bound in our failure in this broken kingdom.

It's Prince. I was thinking about being princes in the
King's household, and I landed on this pic.
Chalk it up to my humor. 

It was scandalous in the eyes of Satan that God should ever have given man dominion over anything. The angles themselves were never granted such privilege by God, but man was. And, we blew it.

For a while, the Christ was made lower than the angels. Why? It was that God as man would win back dominion for man by holiness, war and blood. He has defeated death, hell and the grave! We do not yet see all things in subjection to Him, but He is already crowned with honor and glory, ruling, and will in the end make all things right and well.

Then, in a renewal of what fallen angels might call scandalous, Jesus will share dominion again with the men and women and boys and girls who have believed on Him as Savior and walked with Him as Lord. Jesus will not be ashamed to call Himself "brother" of the redeemed! He will share His earned inheritance with those who have not earned it. He will share His reward with those who once spurned God, not because we deserve it, but because mercy has held back what we did deserve and because has given us what we do not. To all who have believed in that Name --Jesus-- and received Him, they are given the right to be called sons of God (and daughters too!).

My heart thrills to consider the implications of the reality of Jesus! The writer of Hebrews was given a much shorter summation: "For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, 'What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.' Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, 'I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.'" (Hebrews 2:5-12 ESV)

Thank God for Jesus!