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-- © GodSpeak International 2004 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <prophetic-school-owner@godspeak.cc> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Rodney Hogue RodHogue@aol.com
http://www.restorationdepot.org
Editor: Teresa Seputis
Transcribed by: Diane Wilson

Vision For Your Life And Ministry

By Rodney Hogue

Lesson 14
Recap

We began this series by looking at Jeremiah 29:11, which says.

"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11 NASB).

We developed that God has a call and a destiny and a plan for each of our lives. We are not an accident and we are not here by accident. God has created each of us with a destiny and it is up to each of us whether or not we will cooperate with God to fulfill that destiny. The plan that we are talking about is an ingenious plan. It is a divine, thought out, invented, intentional plan. It means that when God thought of you and God designed you, He had all the purpose and intention of your call and destiny in mind when He did that. He carefully designed you with purpose and intention.

God will not manipulate you into following His plan. Instead, He says, "Here's my will. If you want to know My will. You can know My will. You can find out My will and you can do it. Or you can say 'No'."

We know from Jeremiah 29:1 that God's plan is not for calamity, but it is a plan for a future and a hope. We know this about God's plan: regardless of the things that you go through God's plans are not to destroy you or to take you out. Instead, they are for your best interests.

God has a future for us. The root word of this word "future" comes from the word which means "from the high back or away from". You see the future is essentially saying as one looks back; as one looks into the past. It is the culmination of the events of the past. God uses you past to shape your future. If you can't see it in your past, it probably isn't in your future. Your past has shaped you to who you are. Your past has shaped you to where you are going. Both your successes and your failures are things that God has used to shape you, to use you and to mold you into who you are and you can understand a lot the call upon your life or where God is leading you by looking where He has brought you from.

God wants us to remember what we've already experienced because He has taken the effort in our past experiences to shape us into who He wants us to be. He wants to remind us where we have been and to show us that He will be with us as we go into the lands He has for us to conquer it. These "remembrances" help to keep on on track. We remember in order to build confidence in the future for the future. We do not build a memorial to be worshipped. God wants us to remember in order that we will have the confidence and we will have the faith to move on into the will of God. We don't worship the things that we have experienced in the past. We are not to memorialize to the point that we would lift those things up. We don't remember to honor man. We remember to honor God, so that the nations would know the power of God and so that you would fear the LORD, your God, forever. That's what they are there for, to remind you of that. We are not to worship the past -- we are to worship the God who was with us in our past and who worked His glory in it. Our faith is God is built and increased by our experiences with God. As we trust Him and step out in faith and obedience, He meets us and that helps us to trust Him even more next time.

God has an inheritance for us. That's a part of God's plan. And we know that we can obtain that inheritance. We know when we know God is with us and we know we can have it whenever we are on the right course that God would bless and part of determining that course is looking in the past.

And we learn from what we remember. Remembering the hardships of the past can be a teacher to us, so we don't repeat it! Some things are bad. And it's those experiences that we learn from, but know this. The past is the past. The past is not the present and the past is not the future. God doesn't want you to stay in the past and that is one of the problems. One of the reasons people can't move on to the future is because they are hung up in the past. God wants them free of the things of the past. And sometimes that is a process. Sometimes God will do that very quickly and sometimes God may take a little time about that in order to secure the things that he is doing in you. God helps us learn from our mistakes and move on in Him. Just about every person has some sort of painful growth period in their own lives. God allowed us to go through these for a reason. We are to remember the things God has done in the past. We are to remember the painful lessons that God has allowed us go to through to shape us into who we are today in Him.

God also burns our values into us by the experiences that we have in our past. And you look at the past to look at the values that God has burned in you, so that you can move on to the future. God doesn't want you to live in the past. He just wants you to remember it. He doesn't want the past to have any power over you either. Some people can't move on to the future because the power of the past is so overwhelming. But I want you to know that it is God's will that the past not rule you or dominate you. You don't have to stay there and you don't have to live there anymore. You can be free.

God wants to give you a proper perspective of the past. He wants to give you that so that you will remember. Some of you say, "I don't want to go there. I am doing the best I can to forget the past. Why do I want to remember anything?" You say that because the past still has power over you. But God wants to bring you through the process of being free from the past.

God wants to give each of us His vision and His destiny for our lives. Vision becomes the roadmap by which can plot the course in our lives. We need to know what our destination is, where God is bringing us. God desires to show this clearly to each of us.

God gives you a vision so that you can keep your life focused. He also gives you a vision in order to motivate you by creating within you a passion because vision creates passion and passion motivates you and it's very motivating. It is something that you will be very passionate about cause you will be passionate about something. We can be passionate about God. We can be passionate about His will. We can be passionate about what He wants you to do and what happens whenever the Lord gives you a vision, that passion rises up and there is excitement with that. It is exciting. It is stimulating. It is motivating.

Your vision will include certain things.. because the specific vision that God has for you will fall within the context of the big picture that God has for His church. First, your vision will include your family. A vision from "God" that neglects your family is not a vision from God. Also, you will see your vision come about in light of the church. Your vision will include how you fit into the corporate vision of the church in God's kingdom. See we are a member of the body of Christ. We have relationships within the body of Christ. The church is the body of Christ. The church is the manifest presence of Christ, not just the kingdom. You need to understand about the kingdom -- the rule and the reign of the Lord -- and the "church" or the "universal church" is manifested in the local church. This is where it is manifested.

So I had to begin to realize that whenever God begins to speak to me about my vision, there's going to be a connection and there is going to be a relationship with the will of God in the church. This is because my personal vision, my personal calling, will fit what God is doing in the local church that He has placed me into.

Here are some characteristics of that vision when God gives it to you; when God gives you your vision for your life.

  1. It will be spiritually discerned.
  2. It is not humanly possible, but only divinely attained.
  3. It will be stretching.
  4. It requires sacrifice to self.
  5. It will be progressive in nature.

Let me tell you how we develop the understanding of God's vision for our lives. First you need to see what God is up to ultimately. You need to have an understanding of God's overall plan, because God's plan for you it will fit into His overall plan.

Here are two important characteristics of His overall plan:

  1. You can find it in the Bible. God is not up to anything today that He has not already placed in His written word the Bible.
  2. It needs to fit in with the church. God established the church as the avenue for the expression of God's kingdom. And it is through the church that God fulfills His plan. Christ died for the church. He loves the church and the universal church is expressed through the local Church body. God will fulfill His plan through the body of Christ.

Now there are two tools that help you to catch a vision of your life. There are two things I think that are very important to gain our vision for our life. Those two things are a listening ear and an obedient heart. In lesson 8, we looked at Abraham's life as an example of how these play out in a person's life. We found that God does not give us the complete picture up front, but progressively gives us more as we listen to Him and as we act on what He has already told us.

In other words, to be able to hear God clearly, we must be prepared to obey Him when He speaks to us. We must be faithful to obey Him when He directs. If you are not faithful in the small things, you will not be faithful in the big things and God's not going to give you bigger things until you learn to be faithful with the small ones. Your obedience will open the door to further understanding. In other words, when you are faithful with what you have, then God will give you more.

If God gives you a vision, God may require to have you sacrifice that vision for Him, as He did with Abraham and Issac. Let me assure you that God will test you. You will always experience a testing of God. There will be seasons where you seem to move from crisis to crisis, because God is seeing if you will hang in there with the vision He has given you. God tests us it for three reasons:

  1. God wants to affirm your calling. When you pass the test it confirms the calling in your heart and it brings affirmation that you are on the right track.
  2. God wants to burn that calling way down deep into your spirit. Sometimes the only way we learn is a "branding iron." God burns it down into our spirit. It becomes a part of us and that testing burns it and makes it cohesive with us through fire.
  3. God wants to reveal your heart. God tests you to see does your heart really belong to Him.

We have seen that God reveals things progressively and that obedience is key to getting a greater understanding of God's call on your life, of catching His vision for you. I looked at the early church and found five things that I call a "Checklist for Obedience." There are five very basic, simple things that the early Church did. I put them to you in the form of a question:

  1. Are you committed to the word of God?
  2. Are you fellowshiping with other believers?
  3. Are you a worshiper?
  4. Do you have a life style of prayer?
  5. Are you a generous giver?

God has placed His call on our lives. The call of God as an invitation. God gives us an invitation to join Him and to fulfill the destiny of our lives. He is willing to give us real kingdom work to do with Him in His power and anointing. For some of us that will include the prophetic, or healing or evangelism. We must commit to obey Him as He shows us His plan for us. We must trust that His plan for us is good, and that He will empower us to do all the things He calls us to do. To really catch His plan, we need to draw close to Jesus and to follow Him. There are two practical ways to follow Jesus today. First, get to know all about Him and His life through the gospels and the book of Acts. Second, follow someone who is following Jesus and learn from them.

Unfortunately, there is a barrier that stops some people from following Jesus and fulfilling His vision for their lives and ministry. That barrier is the cost ... sometimes it is just too high ... because Jesus wants your whole life. Continually He would say, this is in Matthew 16.24: "Jesus said to them, if any of you want to be My follower you must put aside your selfish ambitions, shoulder your cross and follow Me."

This is true if you want to move in the prophetic and it is also true if you want to be used in any other type of ministry. Many of you have heard the term "paying the price for the prophetic." Many people misunderstand that to mean that you have to pay some sort of special "price" to be allowed to move in the prophetic. But that is not what it means at all. It means that if you want God to really use you, to really gift you, then you have to allow Him to really mature you as well. That is true for the prophetic and it is true for pretty much any other ministry as well. And that maturity process takes time and it often has some very painful elements. But God needs to work His character in you, to mature you, before you can be an effective spokesperson for Him. If you want to be God's mouthpiece, then you have to allow Him to crucify the old nature and to work His nature in you. That often comes through the refiner's fire.

You see, Jesus is going to require your whole life. It does not matter whether or not you want to be a minister. It does not matter whether or not you want to be a prophet. If you are Jesus' follower, His disciple, then that is the cost. I know it's simple. Follow Him. But it's going to cost you your life to do so.

Will you follow Him and embrace His vision for your life?


-- © GodSpeak International 2004 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <prophetic-school-owner@godspeak.cc> --

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