Have you thought that God has a great plan during the pandemic? It’s to bring us from identity to destiny! But it doesn’t start here.
1.The Problem
God’s great plan is to get the Church, the Bride, ready for the Bridegroom, when His Son Jesus returns. However, the Bride is not ready.
Many believers lack intimacy with their Father and identity in Christ. This has led to activism rather than intimacy and focussing on being servants rather than being sons and daughters. God’s priority is intimacy and His love relationship with His children. Then knowing their massive identity in Him.
So I believe that one of the reasons that God has allowed a pandemic, difficult as it is, to bring us back to intimacy and identity in Him, and get us ready for the return of His Son.
Which are you? More an activist or do you prioritise intimacy with your heavenly Father? Do you relate to God more as a servant or as a son?
2.Prioritise Intimacy
So God wants us to separate time for Him, separate from our cell phone and internet, even from friends to seek first intimacy with Him.
- This requires us to be intentional about this. A commitment to separate from worldly attractions or even good things, to seek the better!
- Also to diary regular times in to spend with the Lord alone.
3.Then Grow Identity
During these times of intimacy God will begin to give us revelation about our identity in Christ. Today many of us seek identity outside God, for example in our work, in money, in success, in relationships or in seeking the praise of men. This then takes us away from our loving Father, because we treat them as alternatives to Him.
So God is drawing us away with Him to also build our identity as sons and daughters just in Him, and outside serving Him.
When Kim Walker Smith, the now famous singer of the band “Jesus Culture” was in her early 20s and unknown, she began the Bethel Supernatural School, in California. She would work in the morning, do the Supernatural School in the afternoon and then she would go to the prayer room in the evening, every night!
God told her not to audition for the worship team or even tell people she sung, so that she could spend time with Him! She just obeyed even though she didn’t understand at the time.
She realised later that God wanted her to grow her identity in Christ and not in her singing, so that whatever she did with her life, the source and foundation was her identity with Him.
God wants to do exactly the same thing now during the lockdowns.
Read more from OUR INCREDIBLE IDENTITY IN CHRIST
Finally:
4.Discover your destiny
God has a unique plan and destiny for all of us and it arises out of first knowing our identity.
When Andrew excitedly introduces his brother Simon to Jesus for the first time, Jesus immediately gives him a nickname “Peter” meaning rock in Greek (Jn 1:42), that is Peter is going to be someone incredibly steadfast and strong in character, on whom Jesus will build his Church. Jesus further expands on this when he says:
“And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Mt 16:18)
That is Jesus will build his Church on Peter’s rock-like leadership. So his God-given destiny arose out of his identity.
Our ultimate destiny is to be intimate with God and be like Him (Rom 8:29).
However, everyone has a specific destiny also. God had it in mind before we were born and before the creation of the world.
In Jer 1:5 God says to Jeremiah:
“before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Eph 2:10 says that God created us to do good works that He prepared in advance for us.
When we are operating in our destiny, it is like turning a sailing boat into the wind, until all is aligned with the wind and water. The boat then begins to glide upon the waters with great ease and freedom.
When we flow in what we operate in, our destiny, we will feel His delight. There is a scene in the film “Chariots of Fire” when Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish runner and preacher, said that when he ran he felt God’s pleasure.
CONCLUSION
Today, especially during the pandemic, God wants us to separate time to be intimate with Him. Then receive revelation about our huge identity in Him, leading to us discovering our destiny.
So through this process God wants to give birth to ministries that will impact people outside the Church during the pandemic and after! This will help prepare them also for Jesus’ return.
Are you ready to go from identity to destiny?
For stories on revivalists and Bible passages that will help you grow in intimacy, identity and destiny, do read my book GRACE OUTPOURINGS: 21 DAYS REVIVAL DEVOTIONAL for a great devotional experience.