The Economy, Culture and Opportunity
Those familiar with the on-the-ground thrust of our efforts recognize the long-time focus we have given to assisting
believers in lands of persecution. Our customized economic community development program has helped start scores of businesses big enough to feed a family in difficult economic environs. Our first steps gave focus to a group of persecuted Jewish believers in Ethiopia. Not long afterward, our efforts extended to a group of Jewish believers in Belarus, followed by the opportunity to impart to a range of believers in Israel.
As I found myself reaching for the wisdom from Scripture that defied the odds; we began unlocking long-held secrets that have enabled God’s people over the generations in challenging economic environments to not just succeed, but to thrive. Our program then extended into areas of sub-Saharan Africa where centuries of dark spiritual dynamics defined the realities faced with entrepreneurship and economics. These combined efforts set the stage for the extensive work we then began in Vietnam where, in the sixties, I had spent over two years of my life, deeply embedded in Vietnamese culture.
In all this, we were unfolding models and strategies that for God’s people began in the days of Abraham. (outlined in my book “Righteous Power in a Corrupt World” at Amazon.com)
Initially referring to our program as the God’s economy program, it reflected a model and strategy that was the basis of operating as a culture within a culture. That being the principle overlay of how God has generally primed His people to operate with the societies around them. Within that context, the model comprised key aspects that blended the dynamics of the spiritual, economics and community.
While addressing the realities that poverty, persecution and corruption have had on God’s people, I recognized the overshadowing intent God had for His chosen ones, the Jews, beyond their destiny of being blessed to be a blessing. The impact entails their interactions with the societies around them …. to be leaders, people of influence, in reality serving as a society of leaders.
The recognition of this role of influence and leadership began bleeding into the God’s economy program as we then began piecing together biblical truths seen in what I came to describe as Jewish Business Secrets …. along with accompanying leadership principles for those called to positions of influence in cultures within cultures …. with the Joseph-Daniel calling.
It was during a venue in Vietnam, being asked to give an overview of the God’s economy program to a group of secular Vietnamese university students, that I recognized the hunger of these non-believers to understand the spiritual side of this model …. keenly so in grasping the dynamics of what has made Jews to historically be known as the people of business …. in defining their own emerging identities, purpose and destiny …. despite distinctly having had their worldviews shaped by a godless, communistic culture.
The result thrust the program beyond what I had originally developed to enable believers to succeed and prosper …. into imparting spiritual principles that could draw an audience to God and be grasped by spiritually-hungry non-believers …. in reaching to make God their Senior Partner and Planner in their quest to identify and manage the economic opportunities that would enable them as entrepreneurs …. together with God …. to employ their gifts in managing opportunity.
The Creative Advantage and Managing Change
Regardless of the audience, the defining quest has been to draw from on High in creating, building and bringing increase …. economically in serving their communities. So, with the caveat of God-at-the-helm, one of the foundations of God’s economy is the premise that business is the art of managing change.
This premise becomes the essential dynamic to defining opportunity while facing the realities during times of challenge and change. Indeed, we have entered unusual times …. times of converging in which the dynamics at work all around us draw deeply from the meshing of these very vital interacting factors of the spiritual, economic and community in defining the practical and the opportunity resident in economies and culture.
Unwrapping the Secret Things
As we better glean the spiritual-side of this dynamic, it’s important to recognize what is unfolding in this season …. which includes a keen focus God gave me years ago in the priority He has long given to Israel and His chosen. Moses revealed to his people that “the secret things belong to the Lord, but those that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” It involves the recognition and embracing of the trickle-down destiny and mantle the Lord has for His chosen: to be blessed to be a blessing. Jesus referred to the employment of this mantle as servant leadership.
Serving customers and serving the community starts with recognizing that entrepreneurship begins with the wisdom needed to be able to spot opportunity and know what to do about it. More specifically, entrepreneurship employs the ability to create, build and bring increase. This ability to create, build and bring increase just happens to be God’s DNA …. an apt resource of strategy and wisdom for those who learn to draw from the Holy Spirit in their planning. All of which bleeds into and reshapes the way we think and process reality.
One foundational strategy used by the Jewish community for centuries to tap this hidden wisdom is the use of the minyan. In Jewish tradition, whenever ten Jews live within walking distance of one another, they form a minyan. Meeting weekly, this gathering serves two primary purposes: first, to pray and seek God and secondly to help one another become successful. We employ this strategy with our God’s economy program.
Employing this dynamic from the God-perspective begins with the recognition that it requires getting outside the box and operating as a culture within surrounding cultures. A premise foundational for not only facing the future, but expecting to discern emerging opportunity …. as God’s game-changers. Again, the art of managing change. Doing so requires a serious grasp of operating ….. as a people of God …. in community ….. in the pursuit of business opportunity.
These key factors …. the spiritual, economic and community ….. when rightly operationally aligned will define the identity, purpose and destiny of those employing them …. while uncovering and building opportunity. It also feeds each of these foundational factors, giving Life to the community.
Averting Destruction as Ambassadors of Life and Opportunity
These are the very dimensions that defined what set Joseph and Daniel apart in their roles as people of influence. Both Joseph and Daniel viewed opportunity with their thinking focused “outside the box” as entrepreneurs. It made them more than just God’s ambassadors, as they served their masters as ambassadors of Life. Each operated strongly in the prophetic with a grasp of what I refer to as the Issachar context: an understanding of the times to know what to do.
At the heart of the assignments for both Joseph and Daniel was the authority in serving as “interventionalists” in
times of encroaching darkness. Yet, in understanding the role of modern-day Josephs and Daniels requires a pause to consider the intention of God in both the preparation and the execution of the strategies employed by the ancient Joseph and Daniel. In short, it was in avoiding destruction …. specifically of God’s people …. not to be confused with the strategy of disruption required to do so.
So, this factor of being ambassadors of Life …. in the role they played on behalf of God’s people is the other-side of the coin that Joseph and Daniel brought to the plate in their “culture within a culture” role in serving Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar.
With the authority they wielded they restored God’s order, holding the keys that averted destruction. Averting destruction again being a hidden, but very key facet in the process of embracing Kingdom secrets and strategies.
So, the degree to which this applies to the realities of our day is uniquely tied to the authority resident within the leaders and the community. The mantle then for modern-day Josephs and Daniels is one whose leadership thwarts darkness as it extends the influence to change the game.
Those at the bottom-up community-entrepreneurial tier, who we label as community builders, together with the top-down Joseph-Daniel leaders …. work in concert as forerunners who impart Light in a world grappling with the deepening of darkness described prophetically by Isaiah.
The Preparation Needed as People of Change
Historically, the spiritual challenge has been that of dominion. There have come times with God’s people, when everything has been aligned and poised for change. Change that impacts God’s people. That change extends from the spiritual alignment required within to the outward manifestation economically and culturally …. which eventually bleeds into what we deem to be opportunity.
It represents times for the community passively or actively to begin operating in unity to embrace the long-awaited promises and intentions from on High. In one apt Biblical scenario it is illustrated with the time that God told Joshua to instruct the people to consecrate themselves …. for the steps that were before them ….. because as they went forward to embrace the promises, God was about to demonstrate His power and do wonders.
I have long sensed parallels between the church John describes in Revelation as the Church of Philadelphia and the Messianic movement of today …. describing them as those with a unique authority, “who hold the keys of the house of David” with the admonition that “I have opened doors for you that no one can shut.”
It suggests the Lord’s age-old covenant with Israel, while embracing the larger segment of the extension of God’s covenant people, the Church …. and the change required to avoid destruction.
It is very insightful that for this key segment described by John, that the assignment is within the context of “Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will keep you from the time of great testing that will come upon all the earth to test those who belong to this world.”
Prepared, consecrated and poised with the authority needed to cooperate with God when He begins to demonstrate His power and do wonders.
The Mantle and Authority to Push Back Against Evil
These glimmers give hint to the wisdom and alignment of coming alongside the brethren who bear this mantle. While it involves Jew and Gentile working together, it also recognizes and aligns with the significant move of God underway since the birth of Israel of those Jews who have come to know Jesus, Yeshua as their Messiah.
Doing so taps what I call a unique combined anointing that releases an unusually potent authority ….. one of geater wisdom and influence, not unlike what transpired in the days of Joseph and Daniel.
Parenthetically, globally there are globally over a million Jewish believers, the majority resident in the US, but with roughly 30,000 Israelis. In 1967, Messianic synagogues in the US were probably less than a 100; today some estimates total them at over a 1000. The groundswell of these dynamics exponentially is tapping the momentum of change underway …..as God prepares His people, Jew and Gentile for the greatest outpouring of the Spirit since the days of the early Church, when non-believers were questioning “who are these who are turning the world upside down?”
The Response When the Dark Gets Darker
That’s the context. It is the focus of the response we must embrace in facing the reality of the manifestation of evil released globally since the October 7th Massacre. The response has evolved and is separating into two distinct camps ….. that Jesus described as sheep and goat nations …. those who stand with Israel and those against them. Anti-Semitism and this divide has blossomed into a global movement that defies reason.
So it is as those who hold the keys of the house of David ….. opening “doors [of opportunity] that no one can shut” that God is prompting ones who are listening to prepare ….. establishing harbor sites ….. Joseph alliances with Pharaoh’s …. Daniel alliances with Nebuchadnezzar’s ….. economically self-supporting safe places being established …. around the globe that fit the paradigm described in Revelation 3 of “Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will keep you from the time of great testing that will come upon all the earth, to test those who belong to this world.”
The Joseph-Daniel calling has transcended beyond an individual response into much larger assignments, movements that embrace the insight into the dynamic sequence reflected in Psalm 107 of “those who wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way finding no community to abide in…” being established in towns and cities. The need for safe places.
The sequence in this Psalm captures the spiritual adjustments reflected in today’s spiritual environment of those who “sat in darkness and the shadow of death,” and “fools consumed and afflicted due to their transgressions” ….. eventually tapping the spiritual dimension of dominion by those whose economic exploits face the overwhelming forces of creation itself with “those who go down to the sea in ships doing business on great waters.”
The amassing of these efforts all being linked with the presence of mind and preparation to “cry out to the Lord in their troubles.”
The sequence of this Psalm concludes with the response from these adjustments …. affirmed by a long line of the prophets …. with the difference that the Almighty will then make between the wicked and the righteous.
“He turns rivers into a wilderness, and watersprings into dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of those who dwell therein. Yet He turns wilderness into pools of water, and dry land into watersprings. There He makes the hungry to dwell, that they may establish a city for a dwelling place, and sow fields and plant vineyards, that they may yield a fruitful harvest. He blesses them also, and they multiply greatly; and their cattle do not decrease. But when they are diminished and brought low through oppression, affliction and sorrow, He pours contempt on princes, and causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way; yet He sets the poor on high, far from affliction, and makes their families like a flock. The righteous see it and rejoice, and all iniquity stops its mouth. Whoever is wise will observe these things, and they will understand the lovingkindness of the LORD.” Ps 107: 33-43
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Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner of the Joseph-calling and God’s economy message, being an international voice for the higher dimensions of spiritual game-changers and intercessors since the mid-90s. As founder of Global Initiatives Foundation, the Strategic Intercession Global Network [SIGN] and designer of the God’s Economy Entrepreneurial Equippers Program and the Jewish Business Secrets YouTube series, Mr. Ruddick’s messages equip leaders and economic community builders with strategy where God’s light is dim in diverse regions around the globe.
He is author of “The Joseph-Daniel Calling;” “Gods Economy, Israel and the Nations;” “The Heart of a King;” “Something More;” “Righteous Power in a Corrupt World;” “Leadership by Anointing;” and “Mantle of Fire,” which address the mobilization of business and governmental leaders with destinies to impact their communities. They are available in print and e-versions from www.Amazon.com, www.apple.com/ibooks and www.BarnesandNoble.com.
Global Initiatives Foundation (www.strategic-initiatives.org) is a tax-exempt 501 (c) 3 non-profit whose efforts mobilize economic community builders imparting influence and the blessings of God. Checks on US banks should be made out to Global Initiatives and mailed to 3838 South Wabash Street, Denver CO 80237 or by credit card at https://strategic-initiatives.org/donate/
2025 Copyright Morris Ruddick — info@strategic-initiatives.org
Since early 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors and leaders committed to targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For more information go to https://strategic-initiatives.org
