The Extraordinary Life

Definitions: Our purpose or mission as people and as the Church is the task God has gives us to do for his kingdom and Church; it is the reason for our existence, and what gives our lives true meaning.  Vision is God’s dream of what he wants to accomplish in and through us as we work to fulfill our mission. Vision tells us what God’s goals are for us, painted in word pictures of what each life, congregation, or denomination will look like when he’s finished, including the differences we will make in the world around us.  This is the key to excitement, enthusiasm, hope, energy, and motivation.  Without vision we die as people or churches, having no dream of a future, and therefore no hope.  But God has plans for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).

How do we discern God’s vision?  Step 1 is to pray to God, calling upon him to reveal his vision to us.  Congregations must include all members.  Ideally, a period of preparation would happen prior to a meeting to determine God’s vision.  Step 2 is to read the signs God has already provided.  How has God gifted us?  What has he already been doing with us?  What have we been thinking we need to be doing?  God will not ask us to do anything he hasn’t equipped us to do, and will most likely lead us along the path we’ve already been traveling with him.  Though we must always be open to him doing a new thing through us, and the signs of what God is doing around us may give us important clues.

The third step is to study scripture.  In the bible, God already tells us his general vision for us as disciples and the Body of Christ.  Step 4:  rely on the gifts God has given the members of the church in order to discern his vision.  Gifts like prophecy, teaching, wisdom to understand what God is revealing in discussion about vision, faith and discernment, and leadership are given to help us know what God is saying to us.

Step 5 is to discuss and pray some more.  Step 6 is Think BIG.  Looking at least 10 years into the future helps.  In 10 years, people can accomplish almost anything, like putting a man on the moon.  So thinking out that far helps free us to think like God thinks.  We ask ourselves what will be different in our lives, in the Church, and in the world around us for having worked to accomplish our mission and vision?  Remember, whatever we can think of, God’s vision is bigger, because what God sees us doing is greater than anything we can do alone.  What God wants us to do is what only he can do through us.  We must think BIG! 

Finally, step 7:  Be very specific, because God is specific.  Think of God’s vision for Noah (a big boat for animals and family), Abraham (a nation greater than the stars), Moses (a land flowing with milk and honey), and Jesus (a kingdom so great people will give up anything for it).  With all these people, God painted specific word pictures about what he wanted to do.  God’s vision for each of us, our churches, and district are just as specific.

As an example of what vision looks like when written, here’s a vision for a denominational district board.

 Looking ten years into the future, as we fulfill our God-given mission to work together empowering disciples, here’s what we see God will have done with us:

• We will have actively reached out with the Good News of Christ to people in our district’s area and beyond
• Making new disciples of Jesus Christ, membership will be 10 times its current size (to 90,000) with more than double the number of 2007 congregations, to over 100 in Ohio and Kentucky
• An increase in financial support will enable the district to offer effective support ministries to local congregations, strengthening ministries they had in existence in 2007 as well as create a number of new cooperative ministry ventures
• We will see congregations become effective in outreach to the unchurched in their communities, including the creation of an Hispanic ministry which grows into the largest Spanish-English bilingual congregation in the region
• Congregations will cooperate within the district and ecumenically to host an increasing number of equipping seminars, workshops, and multi-day conferences to improve individual discipleship, congregational ministries, and multiple-congregational ventures. As a result, we will be seen as a regional and national resource center for educational and training opportunities.
• We will become a national leader in creating innovative ministries to all areas of society and Church life as needs are identified and the Holy Spirit leads us:  children, youth, singles, families, seniors, holistic health, discipleship, mentoring at all levels of Church life, community development, worship, urban, suburban, rural, use of technology for communications and equipping, church renewal and planting, and more.

As the Great Designer of life, God has a plan to provide us with an experience as much like his own as is possible for his creatures. The apostle Paul outlines this plan in his letter to the church in Ephesus in Asia Minor, now modern-day Turkey. This letter to the Ephesians is God’s Little Handbook for life, in which Paul tells of God’s plan for humanity and how to live life according to God’s design so we will experience God’s best: The Extraordinary Life.

Here is what Paul calls “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,” in my own outline based on Ephesians and other scripture as noted:

1. God, often called the “Father,” and member of the three being trinity of God, chose us before he created the world (Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, or 1:4). In other words, before any of us were created, God had conceived of us in his mind and heart. Then he created the universe and our earth as a gift for us.
2. He planned before creation for us to be adopted as his own children (1:5).
3. By the death of Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth, who is the son of God come to earth, we have been redeemed from our ignorance and separation from God (1:7). How exactly this redemption works is a mystery in itself, but it involved God the Son, and member of the trinity of God, coming to earth to become one of his own creatures (as the human Jesus), to reveal God in-person, tell us how to live to have The Extraordinary Life, and to prove his love for us, even unto death by execution.
   1. We are spiritually dead, so to speak, as far as our relationship with God is concerned, because of the sin that comes from living by the ways of the world and not by God’s design for life (2:1-2)
   2. But when we believe in God’s plan, including that Jesus Christ, his Son, died for us, then God makes us spiritually alive with Christ (2:4-5). Because Jesus had already paid the price for all sin, once and for all (by God dying the “perfect” death), our faith in God’s plan means that we are saved from being forever dead to God, and given eternal life with him.
   3. When we believe these things, God makes us alive by placing his own Holy Spirit, the third member of the trinity of God, within us, transforming our created spirit to be like his spirit and making us through our new spiritual “DNA” to be God’s children. Having infused his spiritual DNA into us, we have the same stuff as our Heavenly Father. This also makes us siblings with God’s son, whom we know as Jesus. Having the very Spirit of God inside us is also God’s seal and deposit guaranteeing our inheritance as his children (1:13-14).
4. God made know to us this and other parts of his plan (1:9-10).
5. And, Jesus Christ, having brought the Kingdom of God to earth, has brought those who believe these things into his kingdom, made them to be citizens of God’s own country, and given them every spiritual blessing in Christ (2:19 and 1:3). This includes you, if you believe in Jesus Christ, which is God’s plan for all humanity. The word “Christ,” by the way, is the English form of the Greek word meaning “savior/redeemer/deliverer,” and is the synonym of the Hebrew word for messiah.
6. These blessings that Christ’s followers have in him in the heavenly realms (1:3, 2:6) include the Father’s plan for the following:
   1. To completely know Christ’s love that we may be filled with it to exactly the same measure as God! (3:18-19). God wants to give us all love he has in him.
   2. Through the Church, the body of Christ on earth, to bring all Christian to i) to unity in what we believe, ii) to unity in our knowledge of the Son of God, and iii) to become just as mature as Christ! (4:13)
   3. To be totally transformed through a renewing of our thinking and attitudes that we become just like God in true righteousness and holiness! (4:23-24)

On our own, we can never rise to attain such things. But God’s plan is to transform us to become like him in these ways that we may experience life as God does. To put it another way, it is our heavenly Father’s plan for us to spiritually grow up to become just like our Dad in many ways. Again, we will always be God’s creation and children. We cannot actually become God. But God’s wanting to give these to us tells us how much he loves and values you and me.

Jesus said his mission in life included seeking and saving those that have no clue what God is up to in their lives, and giving them life to the full, or abundantly (Luke 19:10, John 10:10). He didn’t mean this just for our next life after we have died in this one. Jesus said that whoever is willing to put him first and let nothing come in the way of that, will have a hundred times more of what was given up in this life, and eternal life in the next (Mark 10: 29-30). This life is often referred to as “the abundant life.”

Paul tells us that if we live life according to God’s design, we will experience it as God does with his very love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:16-23), and Jesus promised us rest for our souls if we join ourselves with his spirit (Matthew 11:29). And Jesus said this way of living is easy once we’ve learned it (Matthew 11:30).

The Extraordinary Life that I’ve outlined here is a life-long process to fully achieve, but in a fairly short time we can come to experience all the fruit of living God’s way and continue to grow in it forever. To be able to experience and feel life exactly as Christ does is truly extraordinary.

Your servant,

Mark Gardner

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As a footnote, the capitalized term “The Extraordinary Life,” is a trademark of my ministry, and as such, may not be used without my permission. The term refers to my style of teaching God’s design for life, my understanding and explanation of God’s principles and skills for living, and the components and total of that teaching. All of these things, including this blog are my copyright, and may not be reproduced in any form without my permission, except as partial quotations in other works that cite me as the author. This blog and trademark are copyrighted and owned 2007 by Mark Gardner.

This blog is the companion for my Christian Life Coaching site, gardnercoaching.com, and this is the first post. Here I’ll share what I know about having The Extraordinary Life God has promised us. Stay tuned; the first real posting with content will happen soon.

Mark Gardner

mark@gardnercoaching.com