This is the third in a series of writings on how to discover God’s mission for your life. In the first post of the series, we focused on Ephesians 2:10, in which we concluded that you are a masterpiece made on purpose and with a purpose. In the second post, we looked at Ephesian 5:15-17, which challenges us to make the most of every opportunity, both spontaneously and strategically.
In this post, we challenge you to think outside the box. Sometimes we think that God’s vision for our lives must be something inside the church, such as a pastor or evangelist. There are two errors to this kind of thinking. First, God intends faith to reach beyond the confines of the church. Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV) tells us that the real work of the ministry is not done by professionals, but by everyone else. “He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” As we minister at our places of work and shopping and volunteering and schools, the body of Christ is built up, because people will come to faith as we share ours.
Consider Acts 17:26-27 from the perspective of God drawing people to Himself. It says “[God] determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (NIV). I think it is important to understand that one of the key ways that God uses the places and times in which he puts people is other people — His followers — who were also placed there in those places and times to help others find him.
The second error in thinking that being a pastor or evangelist is God’s main or only vision for those who are serious about God is that God cares for all areas of life, not just the religious sector. Lance Wallnau has been teaching the past several years about the seven mountains of culture which span the areas which the Kingdom of God needs to impact in order for an entire people or nation to be touched by God. Lance didn’t dream these up himself — he learned about these when he learned of a historic meeting between Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission. Each of these guys independently had a vision / dream, with God revealing the seven mountains. When they met, they each shared the vision, and realized that God was instructing them with a strategy for reaching the world. The seven areas are: religion, family, education, government, media, arts/sports, business/technology.
Given the careers and paths that you are already on, you might think about how your life so far might fit into one or maybe more of these seven areas. This might give you some ideas for how God already guided you. Or perhaps you don’t feel that you are on the path that God ultimately has for you. That’s fine too… These seven areas can perhaps provide some food for thought for how you might get involved in God’s plan for you.
I believe that things like making movies that change the way people think about God; or working in agriculture to develop new crop varieties or techniques that can be used to feed a nation; or showing compassion like a Mother Teresa or perhaps a Heidi Baker — all these things fall under the category of good works which God prepared in advance for particular people to do. And the thing is, he has good works for each of us to do.
I think a lot of us believe we got to where we are in life by accident, or even in rebellion to God. Sometimes, however, God’s guiding hand was on our lives all along, giving us the education we needed to accomplish the things he has for us; giving us the experiences we needed to fulfill the purposes for us; causing us to meet the people who can open doors for us to walk into what God has prepared for us. Let us not throw out our experiences as if God has not been in them. While not everything we have done is necessarily something that was in God’s best plan for us, certainly some of the things (and maybe all of them) may have been God’s provision for us for the day that we were ready to listen to him to find out what His vision for our lives might be. We need to take time to ask God about these things, and to reflect on where we are in life and the inventory of resources that we have amassed through the years.
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Discussion Questions
1) What skills, education, influential people, and life experiences have you acquired that would provide potentially useful building blocks for God’s next steps?
2) Which of the seven mountains do you feel most drawn to or most qualified for in terms of advancing the Kingdom of God?
Part 1 of the series: Hand-crafted for Specific Works
Part 2 of the series: What You Do With Your Life Matters a Lot
This is part of an earlier message had all the parts posted on this website, but which was very long. That message came out of a sermon given at Harvest Church in Hampstead, Maryland, USA, in April 2012.
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