Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I feel prompted to begin posting on a subject that I addressed in 2012. I have also written on this in my book, Generational Leadership. I am addressing the need for a 100-year plan in the church. I am not talking about our ability to live for 100 years, but rather our ability to transition inheritance to the generations beyond our lives. God is a multi-generational God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel. He is the God of Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and others also (2Tim. 2:1, 2). As leaders we must lead in a way that the God given vision and the God given letter entrusted to us becomes a spiritual reality in increasing measures beyond our lives. Our leadership must not be for our lifetime, but for the generations of our lifetime. The generations of our lifetime will lead to the generations of the lifetimes to come. I believe that there should be three and four generations revealing the glory of God at all times.
So much of the church is longing for the day of Jesus’ return, but I believe that our aim in life must be for His continual return. Jesus’ is revealing Himself as the One who stands in the midst of His Church at all times (Rev. 1). His prophetic testimony is a testimony of life that continues to mature and advance in the generations of men. We are the bride of Christ and the Holy Spirit lives within us. The cry of the bride and the cry of the Holy Spirit are for Jesus to come (Rev. 22:17). This is not just an event in the coming future, but a continual reality of Christ’s manifest presence in the advancing generations of men. We are living in an administration that is suitable for the summing up of all things in Christ and there is a continual increase of glory to the fullness of the summing up of all things in Him (Eph. 1:10).
There is a difference between being a successful person and a significant one. One can be successful in life and only accomplish things that can be measured in his or her life, but true significance is to make an impact upon others. When we equip others, we find that the testimony of all that God has given to us becomes a testimony in the generations of tomorrow. I believe that the heart of leadership in the church must be the heart of a father. Fathers live to raise up sons (men and women) that can carry the vision of today as a dream for tomorrow. A father seeks to put responsibility in the hands of the next generation. A father takes the secrets that he has received from God and gives them as an inheritance to his children and his children’s children.
Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
The true measure of God’s law is a testimony of His law of love working in and through our lives to others. This is an attribute of our heavenly Father. It is not merely the attribute of a god, but one of a loving Father. Abraham is known as the father of faith. God’s promise to Abraham was a multi-generational promise. That promise was not a promise of a sovereign God, but of a loving Father. When we read the covenant promise given to Abraham, we find that it is a multi-generational plan. I call this a 100-year plan. God made a covenant promise to the human race through the SEED of Abraham. That covenant promise was one of blessing, multiplying, possessing, and influence in the world.
Genesis 22:17, 18 “…blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
God’s words to Abraham had four levels of ingredients. Those levels are generational in their nature. They are the ingredients of a 100-year plan:
1) In blessing I will bless you
2) In multiplying I will multiply
3) Your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies
4) In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed
These four things are the ingredients to a 100-year plan. I will be addressing these things and what it means to have a 100-year plan in my blogs for next few weeks. What secrets are you called to release as an inheritance in the earth? What secrets have and are you receiving from the generations of the past? The revealed secrets of God are the blessings to men. The blessings of God are supposed to be expanded in the generations of men. All that God gives is meant to change the world to become a testimony of the increasing inheritance of God as our heavenly Father. We are His multigenerational family to walk in His life-giving authority in this world.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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