I went to see Jesus Revolution with Sue and recommend it highly. I got saved in that era, so it’s particularly meaningful. Came to tears many times.
Lonnie’s personal life story wasn’t the film’s theme, but as I read his full history, it is a mixed story and has been repeated 1000s of times. Lonnie really is a hero celebrated in heaven and church history, but he also struggled with drugs and died at 43 of aids. Finding your 5-fold ministry or leadership position in a church is not a panacea. That alone is incomplete, without purpose and context.
Gifts are always tools that serve a higher purpose. Worshipping the gift apart from Kingdom purpose turns into idolatry. It leads people to view God’s purpose only through the lens of their 5-fold gift. Many things resist the purpose of heaven, and that’s understandable. If “many things resisting” is interpreted as rejecting your personal calling, you won’t survive. You will interpret it as your identity being attacked and God abandoning you. It will be theologically impossible to hear, “Well done.”
Find your unique Kingdom purpose that ‘belongs to Father,’ and save yourself a bipolar shipwreck. The dualism associated with confusing your spiritual gift with your earthly, Kingdom purpose will divide your personality along the lines of valuing spirituality and despising the natural, e.g., you’ll put your 5-fold gift ahead of marriage, kids, work, vocation, finances, etc., and think you’re spiritual for doing so. It’s a source of flawed character and self-serving carnality.
Do what your Father is doing. Share the purpose in His heart. Jn 5:19.
Your 5-fold gift can be on the bus; it just can’t drive the bus. It’s a tool, not a goal, not the purpose of your life. A 5-fold gift doesn’t come with a promise to support you vocationally. However, Kingdom purpose has a value-adding component connected to your financial prosperity. God wants us to work (on our purpose) and be productive; work is worship in the Kingdom.
Deut. 8:18 – But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth (Chayil, produce value), and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. NIV
Desire Gifts, without worshipping them – Once you find your Kingdom purpose, you will experientially realize you have access to all the gifts. They are not offices, titles, positions, or purposes – they are gifts to be given to others to facilitate a higher Kingdom Purpose. We are God’s sons and daughters, messengers, angels, and warriors. Our ministry gift is much too small a box to contain God’s purpose. It’s not about “me!” We may be visible, celebrated, successful, and wealthy or we may be hidden and not affluent or well-traveled. Either way, we can have a purpose and add value to God’s Kingdom. They both pay the same in Heaven. Paul wrote a significant portion of the New Testament from prison, and his life ended with an execution – He’s a hero! Just do you!
Several premises interfere with hearing God’s purpose for our lives. The main one is that our purpose is generic and that there is nothing to hear.
- God is building His Church (Mt 16:18). That is usually translated as believers attending/serving a local church and that that is our highest purpose. We all have the same evangelistic purpose expressed in building our local church through the leadership of 5-fold ministers.
- The corollary is that for God to build his church, he gives 5-fold ministry gifts to make it happen (Eph 4:11). That translates, “If I’m serious about serving God I will have one of those gifts and contend for a position in the church, ideally a full-time staff position.”
- The third premise in the great commission is that we “go into all the earth and preach the gospel” (Mt 28:19). This one leaves us with a preaching commission. The verse says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” There is no credible strategy for reaching nations through evangelism in the church mountain. Preaching is never enough.
- The fourth manipulative premise is the soon return of Jesus. Our purpose is to reach people before we are raptured out of this mess. We expect the nations to go to hell instead of experiencing redemptive reformation.
The impact of these four tenants of Christendom is a focus on full-time 5-fold preaching ministries who plant and build churches for the sake of an end-time harvest under the urgency of a rapture. The false assumption is that focus represents God’s purpose for all of us. It logically prevents believers from looking for their true, unique purpose and discourages the opportunities for engagement in other mountains of our culture.
Find your Real Purpose – Father does want to speak to you about your purpose. It’s not a canned formula scripted by your pastor. Be part of a local church and feel free to serve there, just don’t make it your identity and worship it like it’s your purpose; it’s not! The actual definition of Ecclesia is not people in a local church; it’s people gathered around their kingdom purpose in any mountain. It’s people impacting their city in education, business, or government. That’s how revival meetings in the church mountain will become Reformation of Nations; when people leave their church-only paradigm and engage their Kingdom purpose, create value, and impact their culture. Our church-only paradigm is partly just our religious idolatry that people resist. However, if you lead with the heart of Father’s purpose for people, businesses, or your city, those same people will volunteer to join you and join God’s kingdom. It’s evangelistic! Read Intentional Reformation.
Reformation – For the last month, a spontaneous, 24-hr youth revival happened in Ashbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. As of this writing, it has spread to 10 other universities, churches, and even other nations. There is a business mountain version of the same thing, which I call Reformation, that can happen when your staff is heart-connected and becomes an Ecclesia with a shared Kingdom purpose that multiplies all by itself, just like the gospel. It takes a CEO who is intentional about nailing his Kingdom purpose and creating Reformation. Then, you can have a Kingdom Business Culture energized by your unique purpose and shared by your staff. We can show you how, provide the references, and help you through the transition – details here (free ebook).
