God has a plan for each and every one of us, He has not left anyone out. But, there are different roles that we play in His plan. We don't all do the same thing, He has different jobs for each of us. I have no idea what criteria God uses to decide who gets which roles, but I suspect He knows what He is doing. He gives each of us exactly the role we have been created for. We are of equal value and importance in His plan, but we may not be given equivalent-sounding tasks to do.
In our human thinking, we sometimes feel a person's value is directly related to the tasks God has given him to do. In other words, those who have been given "leadership roles" in the Body of Christ are perceived as "more important" than others. That is not the case at all, but it can feel like that to us because we tend to look at things from our human and carnal orientation.
For example, let's look at Fred and Jim. Fred is the pastor of a large church. He influences the lives of the 500 members of his congregation on a weekly basis. He is a good teacher and everyone in the congregation comes to him for godly advice and counsel. Fred has a lot of influence and he uses it to help mature the saints he oversees. He is a good pastor and He ministers to the needs of his congregation. He has helped many believers mature in the faith. Fred's church is an evangelical church, and they usually have one to two decisions for Christ a week, as friends and relatives and local members of the community visit the Sunday morning service.
Jim, on the other hand, is a traveling salesman. He is on the road as much as he is at home, constantly flying here and there, staying in hotels. Jim loves God with all of his heart and would love to teach Sunday school or be on the prayer team at church. But he's not able to contribute much ministry-wise in his local church because he travels so much in his job and misses a lot of Sunday services. Jim may seem insignificant in the Body of Christ; he's just a middle-class Christian businessman doing his best to serve the Lord as well as to perform his secular job well.
However, Jim has the gift of evangelism, and the Lord always seems to work it out so that on the plane, he ends up sitting next to some unsaved person who is hungry to know the Lord. And Jim always seems to run into that hurting waitress or hotel clerk who longs to be loved and who finds the gospel really is good news. On a "slow" week, Jim leads only two or three people to the Lord. On a good week, he gets to lead someone to the Lord every day. On the average, he leads about 250 people to the Lord a year.
Even though Jim's role (a traveling salesman) sounds less significant than pastoring a large church, Jim is of great value to the kingdom! You see, his value is not assigned by the role he was given, but by how he works with God in fulfilling that role. Jim's travels give him the opportunity to meet many people and share the good news with them. Jim would not have all of these "evangelism opportunities" if he were pastoring a church and spending most of his time training, equipping and ministering to believers. Jim needs to be out among the unsaved to be able to share the good news with them. So God gave Jim a secular job type of role that causes him to travel and be exposed to a lot of people in situations where it's natural to "strike up a conversation," such as sitting next to someone on a plane.
God loves each of us equally. His love is not dependent on what we do for Him. He loves us because He is love and because He is our Father. He doesn't love us more if we serve Him well and He doesn't love us less if we are not as good at serving Him as we would like to be. In other words, God's love for us is not dependent on how successfully we complete the God-ordained roles and tasks He has given to us. That part is pretty easy for most people to grasp.
But this part is a bit harder to grasp. The way we fulfill (or don't fulfill) our God-given roles is a factor in how much value we are in God's kingdom plans. The role itself does not determine how valuable we are to God's plan. What determines our value is how well we perform the role He has given us to do. No matter what our role is, we will be effective in it only as we're lead and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The job we are given to do doesn't determine our value. What determines our value in fulfilling God's kingdom plans is how we do whatever it is that He gives us to do. A pastor or international ministry leader can do a mediocre job if they have their own agenda that interferes with God's agenda. On the other hand, someone as insignificant as a traveling salesman can make a major impact for God's kingdom by allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and empower him/her.
At first, Fred's role (pastor) might have sounded more important than Jim's (salesman). This is because we tend to think of an ordained minister as being more important than a Christian businessman. But as I began to describe what each man did, it became clear that both filled their roles well and both were significant in advancing God's kingdom and fulfilling God's plans. They were given vastly different roles to fill, but both were able to have a dramatic impact in advancing God's kingdom. The roles were different, but one was not more important than the other. Both roles were important in God's plans. And God had the right person in each role, but both were of great value to God's plans.
Pretty much all us want to be important in advancing His kingdom; we want to be given real kingdom work to do and real power and anointing and authority to do it in. Unfortunately, many of us have been taught to believe we have to have a leadership role to be important in God's plans. So we look to the five-fold office roles as the "most important." And we set our focus and our goals on them.
The simple truth is that most of the members of the Body of Christ will not be called into one of the five-fold offices (apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist). There are a lot more Christians than there are five-fold offices to fill. In any army, there are a lot more troops than there are officers, and there are a lot more officers than there are top officers or "generals." The same holds in the Body of Christ. God holds a lot more kingdom jobs to fill than just the five-fold office ones. That means most of us are not going to be called into the five-fold offices. God has other jobs for us to do. (Other does not mean inferior, it just means different.)
The key to "being successful" and in "feeling fulfilled" is to understand what job God has given you and learn to do it in His power and authority.
I did not always understand that principle. I was not sure what my calling was. I would observe differing callings around me and I would want to imitate the way those were ministering. There was one prophet who I got to know. He was used powerfully to minister to leaders. He helped them get their lives and motivations in order and to encourage them in the original call and vision that God has given each leader. It was rare for God to send him to minister to anyone who was not a leader. So I thought that is what I should do. I should be sent to leaders to strengthen and encourage them, etc. At that point, I did not understand my commission is to teach the Body of Christ to hear God's voice for themselves and to motivate them to commit to obey Him and walk out His Lordship in every area of their lives. I wanted to do what I saw this other person doing instead of understanding and embracing the call God put on my own life. But the two calls were quite different. He was sent to leaders; I am sent to the Body of Christ at large. I was very ineffective when I tried to do someone else's calling instead of my own. I started to become effective for God's kingdom only when I began to understand what He called me to do and I began to walk in it. Then I learned how to let God lead and guide and empower me in doing what He called me to do.
In summary, God has given you a job to do that He considers important for His kingdom. The nature of the job itself (the role you are given to do) is not what makes you important in His plans. As stated earlier, a pastor is not necessarily more important in God's plans than a traveling salesman. The thing that makes you important in God's plans is how well you do what He as given you to do. You can't be successful in your God-given job apart from His leading and empowerment. Jesus said (in John 15:5), "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." Also, you can't be successful in it if you don't understand what God has called you to do and you are off trying to do someone else's job instead of your own. So the key to success is to come to God, let Him define who you are and what you are called to do, and then go do with the Father what you see Him doing, in His power and anointing.
Our next lesson will look at some ways to better understand what role (or kingdom job) God has given to you.
Understanding and Preparing for God's Plan
God has a plan for each and every believer. He makes that clear in Jer. 29:11, where He says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" The specific details of the plan vary from person to person. But the plan includes some common elements.
For instance, God's plan for us will have us seeing what the Father is doing and doing it with Him. John 5:19 puts it this way, "Jesus gave them this answer: 'I tell you tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does'."
Another common element of God's plan is that it will have us moving in God's power and anointing, magnifying the name of Jesus. Jesus talked about this in John 14:12-14, where He said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it."
Another common element of God's plan is that it will have us working in unity and agreement with other believers. Jesus described it this way in Matt. 18:19-20, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them." Unity was also Jesus' prayer for all of His followers in John 17:22-23, "I have given them the glory that you gave Me, that they may be one as We are one: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me." And the apostle Paul prayed for this on multiple occasions, such as Romans 15:5, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus."
God's plan will have us walking in forgiveness, and not easily given to offense. The concept of walking in forgiveness is built into the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. Matt. 6:12 says, "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." Jesus offered an immediate commentary on that part of the prayer two verses later. He said, in Matt. 6:14-15, "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Jesus tied receiving forgiveness from God to extending forgiveness to our fellow man. Therefore, God's plan for us will have us walking in His forgiveness and freely extending forgiveness to those who wrong or hurt or abuse us.
And God's plan will have us in a place where we are empowered to love our brethren. Jesus commanded this in Matt. 22:37-39: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." 1 John 2:10-11 puts it this way, "Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." And Paul instructed, in Colossians 3:14, "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
God's plan is that we will be emotionally healthy, secure in our relationship with God and in good relationship with each other. We will be able to hear and recognize His voice. We will be committed to obeying Him because we love Him (John 14:15). We will move with the Father to advance His Kingdom in His power and authority and anointing and we will see the power of God released through us as we do the same type of works that Jesus did. That is a pretty good plan, don't you think?
That plan is not for just a few anointed leaders. It is not only for those who have been given leadership roles in the Body of Christ. That is God's plan for each one of us. Joel 2:28-29 shows us how inclusive God's plan is. It is for the old, the young (and for those in-between). It is for men and it is for women. The only qualification is that we be His servants.
This will be one of the most exiting times to live, seeing "everyday believers" fulfil that plan and call of God on their lives. Many respected prophetic voices are declaring that soon it will be normal for the average Christian to perform miracles, to lay hands on the sick and see them recover. They are proclaiming that God is going to raise up a mighty army, a "nameless faceless" generation where everyone participates instead of just a few "big names." This move of God is almost upon us. It is a move where He will be glorified instead of individuals. It is a move of God where all of those (from the greatest to the least) will do the things Jesus did in His power and anointing because we are called by His name. These are pretty awesome plans that God has.
How will we walk this walk out? It will walk out differently in different lives. Those who are called primarily to raise up godly children will model the power and authority of God in day-to-day life situations, such as praying for Jimmy's knee when he has skinned it and watching the cut and scab disappear as God miraculously heals him. This lifestyle will cause Jimmy and his siblings to grow up full of faith and knowing the power of God, prepared and ready to fulfill God's destiny for their lives. The sales clerk at the local fast-food restaurant will find that he distributes spiritual food as well as physical food, bringing the hope of the gospel to many. The young businessman will find that he is able to pray for sick coworkers in the name of Jesus and see them recover. The dog trainer at the local pet store will find that she is training up her customers in righteousness and helping them make decisions of personal holiness. The administrator at the local hospital will pray for those she is admitting, and half of them don't have to stay in the hospital after all because they are instantly healed. Christian psychologists will find that they "loose" many of their clients because they are rapidly healed. They will cast out demons and see God restore people's minds in relatively few sessions. The local mortician will find that he is raising some of his "clients" from the dead. The switchboard operator will find herself giving personal prophecies with detailed words of knowledge to some of those she is waiting on, demonstrating the reality of God's hope and power to these people.
It goes on and on. God wants to plant His people in every walk and aspect of life, so that they can be living demonstrations of His power and love, and so that they can effectively share the good news of the gospel. He wants to move through each one in His glory and power to break down Satan's strongholds and set the captives free and advance God's Kingdom. This is God's plan for us. It is a good plan.
I know some of you are saying, "Ok, Teresa, you convinced me. Where do I sign up?" Well, I have good news for you. The "Power Of God 101" Class is being offered and you can register for it right away. If you have received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you have already met all of the prerequisites. The Holy Spirit is the course instructor, and He already told me that He wants you to become the teacher's pet in this class.
The syllabus has multiple segments, all carefully designed to make you excel in moving with God in His power and authority. One segment is where God personally works with you to remove past hurts, wrong thinking patterns, wrong motivations, fears and other obstacles, so you can move with God in His power and authority. There is another module where God experientially teaches each student how faithful and dependable He is, fostering the faith that can move mountains. One module is titled the "school of love and unity," where you learn to overcome differences and be in one accord with your fellow workers. There is another module where you learn practical ministry skills as the Holy Spirit trains and equips the students. And, of course, there is the "practicum" where you begin to understand your scope of ministry or field of influence, and to move in it. The practicum is designed to make you become effective in your current scope before He increases it. It is based on the premise of "Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in very little, have authority over [much more]" (Luke 19:17).
In short, God has a wonderful plan for you and He wants to train, equip and prepare you to walk in the fullness of it. I encourage you to take Him up on His offer and to begin to move into the destiny He has prepared for you since before the beginning of time.
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