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Leadership & Life
Discover The Motion Behind Your Promotion
Mal Fletcher
Behind every human promotion there stands a divine design that sets out not to maintain the status quo but to redesign the future. God does not inspire management mentality but pioneer passion.
This year, God will open to you new doors of influence and new promotions.
You need to discover what motion God wants to bring from your promotion. What does God want you to move forward for him?
Everything God does, he does with a forward-looking perspective, to move something forward.
According to 1 Corinthians 13:13, there are three things in this universe which are constant and therefore dependable: faith, hope and love. They are consistent qualities because they are God-qualities.
God works by faith, relates through love and plans with hope.
Every one of these God-attributes looks not to the stagnant past, but to the dynamic future. Romans 8:25 says, 'we hope for what we do not yet have, [and] wait for it patiently' (NIV). Hope reaches forward for what is still to come.
Hebrews 11:1 says, 'Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see' (NIV). It does not say faith is 'being certain of what we've already seen.'
Like hope on which it is built, faith focuses on the future. G. Campbell Morgan wrote that: 'Faith is the answer to a question; and, therefore, it is out of work when there is no question to ask.'
Then, in 1 Corinthians 13:7, we are told that, 'love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres' (NIV). Like faith and hope, love looks forward.
We all love a good story. The best stories are those where situations and characters are constantly moving forward.
To keep a story moving, novelists will use three devices.
They will start with stasis, the 'once upon a time'. This is where we meet the main character in some business-as-usual, comfortable situation.
The story-teller then adds a trigger, a surprise event which threatens to turn the world of the main character upside down.
The character's response to the trigger event sets them on some kind of quest. It might be a quest for money, love, fame, power, revenge or a host of other things. The quest provides the fuel that moves the story forward in some interesting new direction.
God is the greatest of all story-tellers. His stories are not written not on paper. The pages of his story – history – are written on the lives of those who love him.
Christians should not define themselves by what they have or what they are in the present; but by their future direction. Christians should define themselves not by their status, job, earnings or lifestyle.
We should define ourselves according to our God-given quest.
Through Christ, you are now part of God's greatest story. God has re-written the whole plotline of your life.
Just when your life story looked set to descend into either depressing Greek tragedy, or dreary American soap opera, the great Script Doctor turned the story around.
God is now shooting a heroic drama on the sound stage of your life.
Being the great Storyteller, God will never allow his main characters to remain in stasis. He's forever moving his story forward.
So, whenever God brings any promotion to your life, any new opportunity for influence, he does so to move His story forward.
Through Abram's promotion, God moved his promise forward. Through Joseph's promotion, He moved his provision forward. Through Moses' promotion, God moved freedom forward. Through David's promotion, God moved victory forward.
Through Solomon's promotion, God moved peace forward and through Elijah's promotion, He moved righteous worship forward. Through Elisha's promotion, God moved miracles forward.
Through Isaiah's promotion, God moved Messianic vision forward. Through Daniel's promotion, He moved prophecy forward.
Through the apostles, God moved the gospel forward. Through Paul, God moved the church forward.
Through Jesus, God moved the entire world forward!
God wants to move his Kingdom forward through you. He wants to redeem aspects of your world that have been lost to the Kingdom (cf. Proverbs 29:18).
What does God want you to move forward for him this year?
© Mal Fletcher 2005
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