JESUS MADE A PROMISE

The Book of Revelation was written sixty years after Jesus as- cended in the resurrection to be with His Father in Heaven. Certainly during those sixty years, small groups of believers sat around the fire wondering, “If He were to appear tonight, what would He say?” Sitting on the island of Patmos, John found out. Sixty years after His ascension, Jesus gave encouragement and correction to seven churches in Asia Minor (Revelation 2-3). To the Laodicean Church, Jesus gave a staggering promise of great- ness. He said, “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My Throne” (Revelation 3:21). This is one of the most amazing statements in Scripture. Nobody sits in God’s presence. Every creature described is pictured as standing in respect or prostrate in holy adoration when appearing before God. Yet in this passage we read of saints sitting in God’s presence. This is one of the most stunning statements I can imagine. Do we have any idea who we are?

God satisfies our longing to be great by granting us, His Bride, a position of authority surpassing even the highest-rank- ing angels. The revelation of the redeemed as enthroned with Jesus answers our cry to be successful. The promise that Jesus’ disciples will sit with Him on His own throne must have been so strange to John. Just think about it. Here in the United States we have a certain protocol. There are certain things that are simply not done. When you go to the White House, even as an invited guest, you do not sit behind the desk in the Oval Office and put your feet up. To do so would be the ultimate in pre- sumption—that desk belongs to someone else. While stealing

someone’s pew in church on Sunday is forgivable, you certainly wouldn’t take the President’s seat in his own office.

Take that absurd example, multiply it a billion times, and you still have not begun to approach what it would be like to sit with Jesus on His throne. When John received this from the Lord, he probably pondered a while. Sit on His throne? What does He mean? It means we will rule and reign with Him. We will help rule over a vast eternal empire called the Kingdom of God. We will be entrusted with the most significant tasks in ruling this eternal city. This means the Church is at the pinnacle of power in the created order. Nothing could ever compare to the great- ness of the Bride of Christ when she takes her seat next to her Bridegroom. In offering her His chair, He says, “You were made for this; you were destined for greatness.”

As John reflected on this, he probably remembered other things Jesus said during His three-year public ministry. I can imagine John smiling and thinking, “Sixty years later and I’m still piecing all this together!” John might have thought about Jesus teaching on a hillside one day. Jesus had said many profound things that afternoon, but two phrases suddenly stuck out.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven… (Matthew 5:12)

…Whoever does and teaches them [God’s commandments], he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:19)

Even then, Jesus was laying the groundwork for this under- standing. We were destined for greatness and it is within our grasp if we choose it. The longing to be great, to be noble and to be successful is answered by God when He enthrones us as His bridal partner in eternity. As the Bride of Christ, we are given the highest position of honor and authority in the Eternal City. Romans 8:17 tells us we will be co-heirs with Jesus. This is an expression of how He feels about us.

Every social order has a ruling class. Generally, it’s a small

number of the population. This aristocracy controls the finances, the power and even the land in most instances. There aren’t too many opportunities to break into this aristocracy. One usually has to be born into it. The other way to become a part of the ruling class is to marry into the aristocracy. Well, as a believer, you have married into money and power in a big way, an extreme way. In becoming the Bride of Christ, you have married into indescrib- able power. You are part of the aristocracy in the Eternal City, part of the ruling upper class of God’s eternal empire. You are royalty. This is not to say the redeemed will be equal to God. That is a lie Satan has successfully used in many false religions. But you will reign on the Earth as a king and priest.

He…made us kings and priests to our God… we shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:10)

All of this seems too heady to truthfully consider. Jesus wants us to be great? To be kings and priests? As kings, the saints will reign with judicial responsibility and authority on the Earth in the age to come. Knowing our own hearts, we wonder how this can be. We have not progressed far past our childhood “King of the Hill” days. It’s hard to believe Jesus would choose us to pres- ent to His Father as a co-heir of the Kingdom. There sure seems to be a lot of work to do before we’re ready to step into that role. Fortunately, Jesus always makes a way. He never appoints us to anything without providing a process of preparation. Esther, the young Hebrew girl who found herself in the court of royalty, had her time of preparation before she approached the king (Es- ther 2). Timothy had his apprenticeship with Paul before being launched into ministry. The primary preparation on the path- way to greatness is entirely different from what we would do by nature.

Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. (Matthew 20:26-27)

Whoever humbles himself…is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:4)

Although the picture of servants and slaves bears little re- semblance to today’s Western culture, the concept is still sound. Servants attend to every whim of the master and, if they are faithful in their roles, they’ll still be servants at the end of their days. Jesus turned this concept upside down, saying that making oneself a servant is the only route to true greatness. We have a fundamental misunderstanding about our roles here on Earth. There is a great drive to be all we can be now. This is driven by the idea that we get one chance at life and if we don’t maximize every opportunity, we will miss out. We seek the highest station in life we can achieve, somehow believing it will be used for the ultimate good, and this is the motive that drives us. Many times we couldn’t be more wrong.

Jesus was approached by a rich man who wanted to know more about following Him (Matthew 19:16-30). Somehow, this rich young man instinctively knew that the life he was living was not going to fit the bill. He had achieved greatness in the eyes of his peers and still knew, from the perspective of Heaven, he was lacking. The young man knew about more than just money; he also knew Jewish law. An apostate, cheating, two-dimensional villain he was not. When Jesus told him some of the command- ments, the rich young ruler assured Him that he had lived them out faithfully, but was still convinced he lacked something.

He was right. Jesus told him if he wanted to be perfect, he should sell his possessions and give the money to the poor; that way he would have treasure in Heaven. Jesus then told him to follow Him. In saying this, Jesus was not orchestrating a fund- raiser. He was making a point to the man and the disciples: the point that money and position make it more difficult to make the necessary life adjustments to pursue God wholeheartedly. The Bible says the man walked away in sadness because he had great wealth. Jesus chose this moment to drive home a point to his followers.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23)

Jesus was not condemning wealth or social position. He was illustrating the point that this man had so much emotionally invested in his assignment in this life that he was unable to con- sider letting go of any of it in order to pursue his assignment in the next age. The young man had people reporting to him, status and responsibility. In his mind, he had achieved great- ness—a greatness difficult to let go of even to the smallest de- gree. Today we constantly live in the tension of weighing our assignment in this life against our long-term assignment in the age to come. Rest assured, whatever you’re doing right now, you probably won’t be doing it during the Millennial Reign or the eternal age!

At the International House of Prayer, we run five different internships. At any given moment, there are at least 300 people of all ages, married and single, who are serving as short-term IHOP interns. College students take a semester off from their studies to pursue the Lord full-time; retired people invest what some people would consider their leisure years in the prayer room; married couples uproot their families and move across the country to raise their children in the environment of 24/7 prayer; there’s even a nocturnal group we call “Fire in the Night,” com- prised of people who minister before the Lord through the night hours. The lives of all these people are structured around the prayer room, classes, and serving the Missions Base ministries.

Very few of our interns find themselves on the platform dur- ing these internships. They will rarely sing during a conference or speak to a large group. They’re aware of this before they start the program. These interns come to serve and learn for a few months. They understand that the purpose of an internship is to learn the basics of how we do things and to allow God to form their hearts. What is interesting is that after a period of serving, a high percentage of them stay on as full-time staff members and

eventually find themselves in leadership roles, based largely on the servanthood they exhibited during their internships. Choos- ing the low road makes a way for them later.

I view our lives in this age as seventy-year internships (Psalm 90:10) that prepare us for our lives on Earth in the age to come. Our next stage of life in the age to come starts in the Millennial Kingdom. This is our primary ministry assignment and it lasts for one thousand years (Revelation 20:4-6; 2:26-27; 3:21; 5:10; 22:5). In this “seventy-year internship” we determine to what de- gree we want to function in His government in the age to come. The measure to which we develop in love, meekness and revela- tion during our lives now determines our positions and functions in His government (Matthew 7:14; 19:30; 20:16, 26-27; 22:14; Luke 13:24). Our ministries in the age to come have nothing to do with how much we accomplished outwardly in this age, but rather how much we developed inwardly. The choices we make in our seventy-year internship determine where and how we will function in our next assignment. There exists a dynamic continuity between our lives now and what happens to us in the next age.

Like the rich young ruler, most people fail to understand this. They fall for the idea that they must live out their longing for greatness during life in this age, so they push, prod and poke their way to the top of the hill. Obviously, most never make it. A few become great in the earthly sense, but only until some- one younger or stronger knocks them off their dirt-clod throne. Worse yet, they reach the end of their lives and find that they have wasted their earthly lives, pursuing greatness in the eyes of others at the expense of greatness in the age to come.

I unashamedly want to be great, but not just for seventy years on Earth. In fact, I am willing to forgo greatness or human acclaim on this side of glory in order to be all I can be in the next age. I would gladly trade the temporal recognition of my peers for the eternal recognition of my King. I am no different than the rest of the world in my longing to be great. I’m just deter- mined to focus on seeking it in a different timeframe.

So then what determines a successful seventy-year intern- ship? What sorts of things will ensure that we fulfill our longing for greatness in the realm where it really matters and really lasts? No matter how big or glorious, our ministry or marketplace as- signment is only our first assignment; it remains a temporary assignment. We get our next assignment based not on how big our first assignment was, but on how much meekness we devel- oped in it. The majority of people are putting all their eggs in a wrong basket. They put all of their energy into making their first assignment big in the eyes of others, or successful by the reckoning of their peers and associates. Jesus said that it is hard for the rich to be great. Why? Because they are so distracted by their riches in their first assignment. They become so captured by their temporal power and greatness that they cannot em- brace a lifestyle assuring them greatness in the age to come. It is hard because their first assignment consumes them and they lose sight of their next, eternal assignment.

God has given us the gift of greatness that lasts forever. It has nothing to do with how big our ministries are, how big our bank accounts are, how many people like us, or how many people get healed when we pray for them. It is something that transcends all of those realities.

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