Chapter 7

Prophetic Purposes

Chapter 7 Text

Prophecy is history written in advance, as Graham Cooke says and I have mentioned; it declares the intentionality of God.

You and I are living in a day in which His prophetic purposes are unfolding in ways we have not seen before. He has spoken His intention from the beginning of time. We have the privileged position of not only being able to witness this work, but to participate in it.

Today, centuries and generations removed from Eve—the first enemy of Satan—a whole host of women are arising as his foes. These are women whose hearts are turned toward God, who understand their value and significance as women, who walk in their God-given authority, who embrace their place in God’s eternal plan, who have begun to see things from His perspective, and who understand what it means to contend for His purposes to come to pass in their individual lives and in the nations of the world.

Ephesians 1:11 tells us that He “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” That’s not just a few things, not even most things, but all things. God does everything with the fulfillment of His plan in mind. He overlooks nothing. He does not waste time or motion. Every detail fits together for the ultimate purpose and plan of God to be fulfilled. We may not understand the events that are taking place in our lives or in the world around us, but one thing we can know is that God, as Master Builder, is always at work bringing about His master plan.

No Purpose Withheld

No story in the Bible more clearly makes the point that God is a God of purpose than the Old Testament account of Job. Through a time of tremendous testing, Job came into a revelation that increased his understanding of God. He stated that he had “heard of [God] by the hearing of the ear” (Job 42:5). He understood that God was a God who could do anything (see Job 42:2), then went on to say, “But now my eye sees You” (Job 42:5).

What was it that Job saw but did not understand as he walked through his incredible time of trial? Can you imagine the temptation to doubt God’s love as he lost everything—property, health, and his children? How the enemy loves to ride on the back of such destruction in our lives. How he loves to whisper his lies into our minds, causing us to wonder if God even knows our names. How he endeavors to speak against the eternal goodness of God. His goal continues in the same pattern it had in the beginning—to cause doubt and ultimately separation from God by introducing lies about God’s character and His nature.

But in the midst of Job’s trial, he had a revelation of truth about God that brought clarity to his already amazing stance of faith and trust in the Almighty. He came to see that God is only a God of purpose (see Job 42:2). What He purposes to do, He always accomplishes.1 There is no purpose of His that can be withheld from Him. He has a purpose for His creation. He has a purpose and destiny for your life personally. It may feel at times that you have been forgotten, overlooked, not cared about. You cannot see how your destiny and all the prophetic words spoken over your life could ever come to pass. You feel as though you are looking at a mountain that is unmovable. Remember, situations are not just there to be resolved. They are allowed to bring us into a revelation of God and an experience of Him at that point!

Job found out that his destiny could not be withheld, first of all from God, and secondly, from himself. Your destiny cannot be withheld from you, because it cannot be withheld from Him. You have a destiny. He has spoken it over your life. He is working in your life to bring it to pass.

It’s about God

Even as David realized that God was leading him in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake (see Psalm 23:3), he was declaring the same truth that Job discovered. This is more about God than it is about us! He leads us in “right paths” or paths of righteousness, for His name’s sake. He is leading, guiding, and constantly moving on His own behalf in our lives. You can count on it. It is His nature. It is His plan. This realization will change your prayer life. It will cause your heart to be lifted up in celebration and worship as you journey through life. You will find yourself praying heaven-to-earth prayers. You will hear yourself declaring God’s truth over your life and the situations you face. This realization will cause the Church to rise up in the victorious stance He purposed for us from the beginning of time. It is all about Him!

God’s destined purpose for the Body of Christ will come to pass, not because we are mighty in ourselves, but because it was the plan He conceived as His eternal plan before the foundation of the world. It is more about Him than it is about us. We simply get to be the ones who participate with Him in this grand unfolding of His plan in this hour.

The Bigger Picture

When we refer to “the Fall,” we often view it as the starting point of God’s purpose on earth. In doing this, we then interpret human history from the point of the Fall. This thinking leads us to perceive that God’s primary purpose on earth was the redemption of mankind, that there was no other goal. We become very “man centered” instead of “God centered.” It becomes “all about me.” He came to save me, bless me, and take care of me. Of course, these things are, in fact, the heart of the Gospel. However, if our perspective never becomes larger than ourselves, we will live with a short-sighted view, a “self”-centered view of God’s purposes.

Redemption is never to be minimized. But we need to move beyond ourselves and our needs to see the bigger picture. God had a plan from the beginning of time. The enemy moved to disrupt that plan and bring chaos. Redemption was incorporated into God’s plan to bring us back to His original purpose. We need to move from a self-centered focus to a God-centered focus that reaches from eternity past, to eternity present, into eternity future.

God’s intention has always been to have a Body—a group of people in the earth who would love Him and follow Him—so that through them He might make Himself known in the earth and bring the authority of heaven to earth. His purpose extended beyond the first man and woman in the garden and reached out to every human being who will align with His glorious plan. We are those people. His glorious purpose is unfolding. It is an awesome time to be alive!

A Prophetic Purpose Fulfilled

God’s eternal plan, spoken at the beginning of time, seemed so disrupted. How would that purpose be fulfilled? Understanding that He is only a God of purpose, we know that He would have taken “all things” into account, and nothing of His plan would be lost. He had spoken it first to a man and a woman. Would the recovery come through a man and a woman? Abraham was the man chosen of God as the starting point in His plan of redemption and His work of recovery. Romans 4:17 tells us that Abraham is the father of all those who believe. Through Abraham, God would turn the tide for all mankind. Redemption was accomplished by the death and resurrection of Jesus, but its starting point was with Abraham.

We hear the prophetic purpose of God being spoken forth in the earth. Genesis 12 gives us a clear indication of how far reaching this calling was. He would become the father of many nations. In him all the families of the earth would be blessed. See the pattern set forth in the garden being repeated now to Abraham: Live in the land; express God there; and carry out the authority of heaven in that land. Sounds like the plan spoken to the first man and woman.

God has always wanted a people for Himself. It started with Adam and Eve, and then, with the calling of Abraham, a mighty prophetic purpose of God hung in the atmosphere waiting to be fulfilled. God’s redemptive plan would come through this man. However, there was a problem. His wife Sarah was barren! Romans 4:19 states that his own body was dead as well, because he was a hundred years old. Even if Abraham’s body was restored to life, there remained a problem—barrenness and deadness in his wife’s womb, no ability to receive the prophetic seed of life that would bring to pass Abraham’s destiny and the prophetic purpose of God. God’s recovery plan for mankind could not come to pass until the barrenness in Sarah was reversed.

Think about the fact that Scripture includes two significant instances when God prophetically spoke His purposes pointing toward the First Coming of Jesus. In each case, He chose a man and a woman: Abraham and Sarah, who would bring forth Isaac, the promised heir of the covenant (see Genesis 17:16–21) and a type of Christ. Zacharias and Elizabeth, would bring forth John the Baptist, the one of whom it is said: he will “make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17). His purpose was to herald the arrival of the Messiah. In each of these cases, the women were barren. In order for God’s plan to move forward, pointing toward the First Coming of His Son, Jesus, He first had to deal with the barrenness in these women. Unless God moved in their lives in this way, His prophetic word, His promise, His ultimate intention, would not come to pass. God’s plan for the world was—and remains—intimately connected to the lives of men and women, and the destinies of men and women are often intertwined for the fulfillment of His purposes.

The same is true today. Prophetic words will remain only empty words until heaven intervenes and quickens those words to life. Destinies will go unfulfilled and God’s plan will go unfulfilled—for both men and women—until heaven reaches down and breathes life on those words that will cause us to walk together in unity and power, as He planned from the beginning.

Again, God underscores the power of the man and woman, together, in bringing about His eternal plan. He intends no less for men and women today. I believe God is quickening and reversing the spiritual barrenness in women in this hour as we have never seen before. This is for the ultimate purpose of restoring the corporate Body, male and female, to life and fruitfulness, so that together we can participate with heaven in this final stage of His unfolding plan. Let me share, from a “front row seat,” what I see happening in the lives of women today.

It’s Happening Everywhere

James 4:7 speaks of God’s order of dealing with Satan. “Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” From the beginning, this was the order of things. Partake of His life, then resist the enemy and he will flee, run away from us. This is how we become a mighty force for God upon the earth.

When I write of “a mighty force for God upon the earth,” I do not mean legions of angels. I mean real flesh-and-blood women and men who so understand their significance and their authority that they have given their hearts and lives to the fulfillment of God’s purposes. I’ve seen them; I know them; they are everywhere.

I believe we are living in a day when we are seeing a corporate calling forth and a worldwide awakening in the lives of women (yes, and men) in a unique and unprecedented way. It is unprecedented because never, in all of history, has a move quite like this occurred among women globally. As we look back in history, we can see that God has always used women. However, it has been primarily on a singular basis. There have been the Hannah’s, Deborah’s, and Esther’s who have been wonderfully used of God in furthering His plan in the earth, sometimes without even realizing it. But never has there been this kind of a worldwide awakening. Because He works all things after the counsel of His will, this indicates to me that He is up to something! It is something glorious.

The backbone of many societies in the world today—and throughout history—has been women. We are the ones who raise the children; we instill into them their traditions, their ways of thinking, and their belief systems. In these ways, women perpetuate values, ideals, and mindsets. This is true in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and many other religious and cultural expressions. When God captures the hearts of women, He also gains access to the hearts and minds of men and children—and that has the potential to change the world.

Summary

• God is a God of purpose. He allows difficult situations in our lives to teach us something about Himself.
• God is constantly moving in our lives for His sake, for the accomplishment of His purposes.
• We need to value all that God has done for us, while moving beyond ourselves to see what He is doing in the earth.
• God’s plan for the world has always been intimately connected to the lives of men and women, and the destinies of men and women are often intertwined for the fulfillment of His purposes.
• God is healing, awakening, and calling forth women around the world today in a unique and unprecedented way.