8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 1 8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community God announced two objectives when He engaged with the Hebrews in Egypt. The first was to teach them how to worship and the second was to give them land – not just any land, but a land flowing with milk and honey. In the modern world, we do not default to connecting Givers and land in our national stereotypes. When we think of Japan, we think of technology. Switzerland, banking. Nigeria, business. Indonesia, oil. South Africa, a formidable rugby team that just demolished the US 64 to 0 in the Rugby World Cup. However, the connection to land AND community still exists and can be seen easily in light of the issue of premature death. When broken, the Giver community defaults to a stronghold of premature death. However, the Servant community has the highest potential authority over premature death. God has designed the Servant to hold the key to the Giver’s greatness. Most of the time neither the Giver nor the Servant know that or would believe it if told them, but it is true nonetheless. That is why God often places Servant land near the Giver land so that if they ever wake up and smell the coffee, the resources are already in place. So the Giver state of Florida has the Servant state of Georgia next to it. New York state, the Giver, has Delaware the Servant near it. Switzerland has the Servant principality of Lichtenstein next to it, but more to the point, the capital city of Bern and Canton Bern are both Servant. Next to Israel is the Servant nation of Jordan. It was because of God’s clear understanding of synergy between the redemptive gifts that He sorted the tribes out in Numbers 1 and had them spend 40 years living in their proper tribal groups so that they could exchange life (if they would) through the juxtaposing of their gifts. And that is also why God tightly controlled the division of the land of Canaan. The surveyors sorted out the sections but God micromanaged which tribe went into which section because He knew that the land and the people had to match.
Transcript
8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 1
8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community
God announced two objectives when He engaged with the Hebrews in Egypt. The first was to teach them how to worship and the second was to give them land – not just any land, but a land flowing with milk and honey.
In the modern world, we do not default to connecting Givers and land in our national stereotypes. When we think of Japan, we think of technology. Switzerland, banking. Nigeria, business. Indonesia, oil. South Africa, a formidable rugby team that just demolished the US 64 to 0 in the Rugby World Cup.
However, the connection to land AND community still exists and can be seen easily in light of the issue of premature death. When broken, the Giver community defaults to a stronghold of premature death. However, the Servant community has the highest potential authority over premature death.
God has designed the Servant to hold the key to the Giver’s greatness. Most of the time neither the Giver nor the Servant know that or would believe it if told them, but it is true nonetheless.
That is why God often places Servant land near the Giver land so that if they ever wake up and smell the coffee, the resources are already in place.
So the Giver state of Florida has the Servant state of Georgia next to it. New York state, the Giver, has Delaware the Servant near it.
Switzerland has the Servant principality of Lichtenstein next to it, but more to the point, the capital city of Bern and Canton Bern are both Servant. Next to Israel is the Servant nation of Jordan.
It was because of God’s clear understanding of synergy between the redemptive gifts that He sorted the tribes out in Numbers 1 and had them spend 40 years living in their proper tribal groups so that they could exchange life (if they would) through the juxtaposing of their gifts.
And that is also why God tightly controlled the division of the land of Canaan. The surveyors sorted out the sections but God micromanaged which tribe went into which section because He knew that the land and the people had to match.
8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 2
Now a Giver does not have to be on Giver land to thrive. Each of the different pairs of gifts provides different dynamics. If you have a Giver business on Giver land, both the strengths and weaknesses of the Giver will be doubled. On the other hand, if you have a Giver business on the land of any other gift, there can be a synergy between the two gifts.
Each pair of seven creates a different synergy.
The issue is not God’s provision, however. It is the Giver’s propensity to be insular. Take Bavaria. It has had a checkered history, being independent sporadically and being part of sundry different political constructs in the ever morphing world we call Europe.
Currently they are officially part of Germany. Bavaria is Giver. Germany as a whole is Prophet. And the synergy between those two gifts provides the greatest potential for wealth. How is it working there?
For the fifteen years from 1995 to 2010, Bavaria had an extraordinary growth rate – above 33%. And their GDP per capita was 17% higher than the rest of Germany. 27% of all the patent requests for the nation come from this state.
From an outsider’s perspective, the synergy between Germany and Bavaria is strong and Bavaria is profiting immensely. Do you find any gratitude in Bavaria for the gift that Germany is to them?
Not so much.
Many Bavarians would still rather be independent.
Now in the south of Bavaria is a region called Rupertiwinkel. This is the Servant community that God has positioned to have a significant life giving influence on Bavaria as a whole. There is a higher per-centage of Christians there than elsewhere in Germany.
Only a few people there know the gift of the land. Hardly anyone understands that they are significant to the work in the marketplace and the work of God in Bavaria. Bavarians generally treat them with benign neglect. They are the classic invisible Servant region. Not rejected, but neither do they figure into the calculations of the captains of industry in Bavaria.
But, whether they understand or not, the gifts are working the way God designed them to work.
From this picture we can draw two conclusions.
First is that the synergy between the gifts matters. God has designed each redemptive gift to be po-sitioned next to another tribe on land that is releasing its strength to them. When the right tribes are on the right land, good stuff happens.
8. Giver Prayer: Land in Community • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 3
Second, and far more critical, God does this even when the Giver tribe doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Bavarians are not praising God or Germany for their wealth. They broadly believe it comes from their own ingenuity.
But God takes such pleasure in the redemptive gifts and the principles work so clearly and consis-tently that Bavaria is blessed by Germany and blessed by Rupertiwinkel whether they know it or not.
This is the basis of our prayer today. It is not about whether the Givers in our lives deserve anything or not. We are simply blessing God’s design and asking that the land and the community that the Giver is in would release its strength to the Givers for the glory of God.
Secondarily, if there is a better community and better land for this season of the Giver’s walk, that God would move them in spite of themselves. Bavaria did not ask to be part of Germany. God just did a fatherly thing and blessed them with what they needed for this season without consulting with them.
Join me in blessing our Givers with the best God has for them from land.
