Discover Your Call To InnovationSample

We innovate to bring reconciliation

Knowing we’re created to reflect the image of God, the Creator, our mandate is to innovate, stewarding our thoughts and skills for Him. But since Adam and Eve’s exit from the Garden of Eden, the circumstances of our mission have changed.

Since humanity’s rebellion, rather than working to bring glory to God, we level our powers of innovation back on ourselves, building monuments instead to our own glory. But full of compassion for His prodigal creation, God made a way to bridge our sin and shame, reconciling us back to Him through His Son’s perfect sacrifice at Calvary.

In 2 Corinthians 5:15, the Apostle Paul writes, “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” This changes everything, says Paul, because as God is reconciling all of creation to Himself through Christ, we are once again invited to join in His good work. This time, we’re helping restore all of creation back to the Creator.

This is good news! Where our ideas were once self-serving and pointed inward, the Gospel now frees us to apply our gifts and talents in light of Christ’s heart for the world.

Referencing our first work mandate in Genesis 1, Tim Keller writes in Every Good Endeavor that, as believers, “… we are continuing God’s work of forming, filling, and subduing. Whenever we bring order out of chaos, whenever we draw out creative potential, whenever we elaborate and ‘unfold’ creation beyond where it was when we found it, we are following God’s pattern of creative cultural development.”

As we draw our gaze up from ourselves to Christ, the purpose of our time, talents, and abilities changes. God is reconciling each of us—and the whole world—to Him, forgiving our sins and reminding us of who we are as His children, lost but now found! And now, as the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” So whatever thought or action you take, you are called to consider it in light of this ministry of reconciliation God has entrusted to us.

“Innovation is Christian when it is ultimately aligned with God’s purposes and methods.” - Gary W. Oster, Christian Innovation Descending into the Abyss of Light

Thank you for completing this plan! For more devotionals by HOPE International, visit www.hopeinternational.org/youversion.