UNDERSTANDING OUR INHERITANCE WITH GOD

The Father has planned a dynamic inheritance for Jesus, to give Him an eternal companion, the Bride of Christ. As believers re- ceive the truth of who they really are as Jesus’ inheritance, their lives will portray a divine inner strength and a fierce determina- tion to be wholly His. Paul prayed that we would understand the riches of the glory of being Jesus’ inheritance.

The Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being en- lightened; that you may know…what are the riches of the glory of [Jesus’] inheritance in the saints… (Ephesians 1:17-18)

We need the eyes of our hearts opened so that we can know what are the riches of the glory of being God’s inheritance. There is a wealth of glory you and I possess because we are the objects of His desire. We are His inheritance; we are the ones the Father chose for Jesus. Jesus wants us to be His and to reign with Him. When this touches our hearts by revelation, we enter into what is called the riches of God’s glory, or the depth of the vast wealth of this reality. Beloved, by the sheer virtue of this we are very successful in God. When we understand we are Jesus’ inheritance, there is vast wealth that belongs to us—one that can never be taken from us. It is secure forever.

When our hearts connect with the profound greatness we al- ready possess, it changes our emotional chemistry. We feel much stronger on the inside as we gain confidence in our greatness and value before God. We see that our greatness is not based on what we look like physically, how big our ministry is, or how much money we have. We gain an unwavering stability in our inner man because we understand our profound greatness before God. Thus, small ministries in this age do not need to offend us. Wait- ing won’t offend us. We are anchored in another reality; in the riches of the glory of who we are as His inheritance.

As the Church takes hold of the truth of who we really are as honored and esteemed heirs of God’s Throne, our lives will portray a divine inner strength and a fierce determination to give ourselves completely to Him. In Jesus, you married into indescribable wealth and power. Kings do not walk as beggars, because they have plenty in their storehouses and treasuries. They do not worry about receiving the praise of others, because they have confidence in their place of power in their empires. The amount of emotional energy we expend trying to establish our own sense of success and importance is massive. The gift of greatness has been given to us wrapped in the revelation of the Bridegroom God, Christ Jesus.

WILLINGNESS

Most people at one time or another entertain a dream of find- ing their way into a role where they wield great power, work short hours and have time enough to pursue recreation, paid for, of course, by a comfortable salary. Somewhere along the line, these people graduate and enter the real world, where they receive a rude awakening. The “executive position” with their uncle’s company turned out to be in the mailroom. That sales position proved to be all commission, which quickly translated into no commission. Expecting to land on top of the hill, they found themselves at the bottom staring up, and no one was will- ing to team up with them to get to the top. In that place of dis- appointment, they enter a testing period. In lieu of the perfect opportunity, what will they do? Will they ignore lesser opportu- nities at hand and hope to land the big job? Or will they roll up their sleeves and get down to business?

With a mindset that this life is all there is, it might make sense to wait for a better job while you still have the chance, even though good jobs rarely fall out of the sky. However, if you look at this earthly life as an internship for the next, you realize those lowly roles we so often end up with are actually valuable training for our hearts and our heads. The skills with which we master the low wire will serve us greatly when it’s our turn on the high wire. In fact, thinking of it that way, why do we really want to start on the high wire anyway?

One of our ministry leaders worked his way through Bible college. Completely convinced that all his fellow students were out planting churches that would grow to a thousand members by the time fall arrived and they had to return to school, he took the only summer job he could find. It was at the last full- service gas station in town. Not only was he pumping gas while his friends preached the Gospel, he was the only one in town doing so!

Looking back on that job, he’ll tell you it actually was quite beneficial for ministry. Almost everyone buys gasoline. In

watching the stream of customers come through the gas station that summer, he learned more about human nature than he did in his college psychology classes. He tried to give everyone the same service, occasionally surprising the poor fellow driving a beaten up old station wagon by insisting on washing the wind- shield just as if it were a sports car. He learned about doing the job that you have until the job you want comes along. In short, he learned about doing little things well.

Scripture tells us of a time when Jesus spoke to a group of people who anticipated that He was going to overthrow the governments of Rome and Israel. They expected him to bring His Kingdom in very quickly, and they wanted to be lined up for positions of influence when He did. They were the first- century equivalent of the college student dreaming about his perfect first job. Sensing that He needed to stress the second- ary nature of this life and the reality of a coming Kingdom that awarded greatness on a very different scale, Jesus told the story of a demanding man who gave his servants varying levels of responsibility. He illustrated the principle of being willing to work hard at the beginner level when the man in the story told his employee, “Well done... because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities” (Luke 19:17).

Jesus showed that doing little things well right now leads to opportunities for doing big things later. While that is true in the natural, it is doubly true in the spiritual realm. Being a willing and humble worker in this age translates directly into having au- thority in the age to come. It’s counterintuitive to our impatient and incomplete ideas of greatness, but time and again we see it played out in Jesus’ teaching.

FAITHFULNESS

One of the most important factors involved in determining greatness in the age to come is that of faithfulness. The old ad- age says the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. While that is true, it is equally true that there’s a side road made of

the same stuff: it leads absolutely nowhere. Ask any leader how many volunteers they’ve had to track down due to neglected commitments. Sunday school teachers don’t show up. Commu- nion trays don’t get filled. Trash does not get taken out. These are the minor infractions! On the other end of the spectrum, employees betray their bosses and married couples are unfaith- ful to one another.

People often ask us what it was like to start IHOP. I reply, “Little, rough and ugly!” Worship leaders doubled as the clean- ing crew, prayer leaders doubled as sound techs, and sound techs doubled as ushers. In the hectic time that offered so many jobs to so few workers, I was approached by one of our worship lead- ers who said, “What can I do to help? I’ll do anything.” I wish I could say I prayed about it; that would make the whole story sound more spiritual! Instead, I just saw a need and put someone to work: “Would you manage the cleaning of the building for us?” It should be pointed out that “the building” was a sorry en- semble of three old office trailers huddled together on a parking lot with craters you could lose a car in. We had a couple of meet- ing rooms and four bathrooms. “Managing cleaning” was more cleaning than managing. Gregg, the worship leader in question, found himself cleaning toilets and picking up trash. He distin- guished himself with his smile. He was serving in a low position, but doing it with joy.

Fast-forward seven years. IHOP had grown from a hand- ful of interns to 400 staff members and 300 interns, as well as another 300 Bible school students. Gregg was still leading wor- ship. By this time he’d recorded a couple of CDs and was doing some international traveling. But here’s the amazing part: he was still cleaning our restrooms. Our facilities had grown to include multiple buildings on four different sites. Even though he now had a crew of interns and others to assist him, he was still es- sentially doing the job I’d asked him to do seven years before. In between scheduling workers and ordering soap, he could still be found unclogging a toilet. And in seven years, his smile never wavered. It was simply amazing!

After serving IHOP for seven years, he announced with his wife that they were going to be doing more international travel. Their giftings had opened doors for them in Europe, meaning they would be gone for two or three months at a time. With regret, he handed back the role he’d volunteered for seven years earlier. I think Gregg is the kind of person Jesus was speaking of in Matthew 25 when He told the story about people’s differing reactions to responsibility. He described a master who left his workers in charge of a variety of things, only to return after a long time to see how they were doing. When finding a servant who had done exceptionally well, the master said: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matthew 25:21).

The day Gregg handed his duties over to his replacement, we had him come up on the platform during a staff meeting. The room erupted with spontaneous applause in appreciation of his service. I enjoyed telling the story to the new staff members of how he had volunteered for what we both assumed would be just a few months, and how he had served faithfully in that role for seven years. The staff cheered him with such gusto because they recognized this was a great man in the Kingdom.

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