Welcome to the PMF Workshop for April 2022. I’m your host, T. M. Moore. Each month we provide teaching, encouragement, activities, and resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field, so that you can become more consistent and effective in realizing the presence, promise, and power of God’s Kingdom in your daily life.

This month’s Workshop is entitled, “Whose Rules?” Two texts will guide our thinking today. The first is Psalm 8.6-8:

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

The second text is Hebrews 2.8, 9:

“You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”

For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

Made to matter
I have been reading over the late Dallas Willard’s excellent book, The Divine Conspiracy. Willard’s burden was to teach us to think and live like people who have been translated into a new realm of life and living – the Kingdom of God – so that, by our Christ-honoring lifestyles we might subvert the kingdom of darkness and see the Kingdom of the Lord come on earth as it is in heaven.

But that won’t happen unless we believe – first in the Lord and second in ourselves. Willard explains that we – you and I and all believers and everyone else as well – we matter. We matter so much that God has entrusted to each of us a sector of His Kingdom, that we might exercise dominion there, as David and the writer of Hebrews taught. Here’s how Dallas Willard puts it:

…we are made to “have dominion” within an appropriate domain of reality. This is the core of the likeness or image of God in us and is the basis of the destiny for which we were formed. We are, all of us, never-ceasing spiritual beings with a unique eternal calling to count for good in God’s great universe. Our “kingdom” is simply the range of our effective will. Whatever we genuinely have the say over is in our kingdom. And our having the say over something is precisely what places it within our kingdom. In creating human beings God made them to rule, to reign, to have dominion in a limited sphere. Only so can they be persons.

That sounds like Personal Mission Field talk to me. God has assigned us a “domain of reality” – a portion of His field in which to know, love, and serve Him. In that Personal Mission Field we must strive to “count for good in God’s great universe.” Every day we have opportunities to exercise and extend “the range of our effective will” so that the goodness, grace, and truth of God come to light in our words and deeds. God is calling us “to rule, to reign, and to have dominion in a limited sphere”, and this is where and how we realize our reason for being.

So whose rules are shaping the content, character, conditions, and culture of your Personal Mission Field? Those of the Lord Jesus, or those of the secular world? Are you looking to Jesus that you might learn more of what true beauty, goodness, and truth entail? And are you translating what you see in Jesus into your daily realities “on the ground” in your home, workplace, and all your relationships, roles, and responsibilities?

It’s true, we do “not yet” see all things in this world ordered and ruled over for the love and goodness of God. We’ll need to see much more of beauty, goodness, truth, and love in this sad world before that’s true. But we’re not responsible for the whole world, only our part of it. Working your Personal Mission Field is a full-time job, fraught with opportunities to bring what you’re daily learning from the Lord into practical reality wherever your reach and influence extend.

You matter
You matter, your Personal Mission Field matters, and it matters to God how devoted we are in understanding and carrying out this calling for His Kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2.12). The more working our Personal Mission Field matters to us, the more we will see the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit coming into reality wherever we live, move, and have our being. Righteousness will be on display; peace and beauty will abound; hope will fill the air; and the people we serve will be open to hearing the Good News of Jesus as the only Explanation for why all this is so.

Your life matters and the work you do each day in your Personal Mission Field matters as well. So prepare well, remember that you’re always on call, and do your work as unto the Lord Jesus Christ and for His glory.
…

Here are some activities you can practice to help you improve your disciplines for working your Personal Mission Field.

1. First make sure your Personal Mission Field is updated, and you have included in your Personal Mission Field worksheet any new people God has brought into your sphere. Keep your map with you, so you can take it out and pray for the people you’ll be seeing throughout the day.
2. Challenge the believers in your Personal Mission Field to map out their own. Give them a copy of the Personal Mission Field worksheet (available by clicking here) and explain how it works. Help them fill it out, and urge them to start praying daily for the work God has given them in their Personal Mission Field.
3. Begin praying about how the Kingdom of Jesus – the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, joy, beauty, goodness, and truth might look as it increases in your Personal Mission Field. Write to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I’ll send you our free study of Psalm 72 to help clarify your vision for what God is calling you to seek.
4. Begin daily meditating on the Law of God – the Ten Commandments. Jesus said that Kingdom greatness depended on learning, living, and teaching others to keep God’s Law. This is a sure way to bring more of the reality of the Kingdom into your Personal Mission Field.
5. Order a copy of our book, Christians on the Front Lines of the Culture Wars, to learn about the role of everyday culture in bringing the Kingdom to light. You can order a free copy by clicking here.

Your time in the Word of God each day is indispensable for working your Personal Mission Field. Our book, The Joy and Rejoicing of My Heart, can show you how to get more out of that time so that the Word increases in you, and you increase in Him. A free copy of this book available at our bookstore (click here).

That’s it for this month’s Personal Mission Field Workshop. Share your stories and ideas, or send your questions to the website, www.ailbe.org. Until next month, for the Fellowship of Ailbe, and for the Personal Mission Field Workshop, this has been T. M. Moore.

We ask the Lord to move and enable many more of our readers to provide for the needs of our ministry. Please seek Him in prayer concerning your part in supporting our work. You can contribute online by using the Contribute button at the website; or you can send a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 360 Zephyr Road, Williston, VT 05495.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.