“And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.”
Luke 2:49-50 (NKJV)
Jesus at the tender age of 12 had gone missing and His parents were angry when they found him in the temple. Jesus’ response was ‘‘why are you looking for me? I need to be about my Father’s business!’ Jesus had been drawn to go to the temple, not just listening and learning but also teaching and applying His Father’s business rules. Jesus knew what the mission accomplished looked like for Him. He knew that He had been born to die, but knew that He would need to apply The Father’s principles for the process.
Having worked in the tech industry for nearly 7 years, one thing I have learnt is that a client's business rules must not be overlooked. When I gather requirements and scope from a client it means nothing without the business rules and logic. These are the directives that define an organisation’s business activities. They are important because they clarify an organisation’s objectives and detail how processes will be performed. If we ignore the business rules, we are never able to accurately build a functional product. In fact it would be deemed useless to the client as the outputs would be wrong. In the same way, we cannot ignore our Father’s business rules, we can call these Kingdom Principles.
Adopting the same attitude of 12 year old Jesus, who was humble enough to sit, listen and learn so that he could apply Kingdom Principles to His ministry ahead (which with hindsight was a rollercoaster ride). In the same way, in the good and the bad seasons we need to know these Kingdom Principles; generosity, forgiveness, prayer, love, faith to name a few. The next level is now to stretch ourselves to apply them to the decisions, processes and plans for our lives. We are quality products and cannot waste time producing useless outputs for our Father. Kingdom principles fuel kingdom life. Stretch yourself to live a kingdom life this year!
Further Study: Colossians 1:13-14, 1 Corinthians 16:9-10, John 3:3, Ephesians 2:19-20, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 16:19