Since your church could only grow by bearing fruit—by making new disciples—would its focus be different? Which church would best advance God’s plan for your community?

If God asked you to design a 21^st Century church that would accomplish His goals, what would it look like? Don’t ignore what you know, including the history of the Church, but don’t be bound by preconceived ideas either. Be bound only by Apostolic Certainty.

At the beginning of time, God had a secret.  It was a big secret. The secret contained the very purpose of the all that we know and all that we are.  Sound like a big deal?  The Apostle Paul thought so too.

Remarkably, God decided to make human beings fellow heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—through His Church.  This secret was finally revealed to us through Paul, so all can see the “Fellowship of the Mystery.”

Big deal!  Paul directs our attention to the Mystery of the Ages. Shouldn’t we pay attention?

In revealing the mystery, God states the purpose of creation and the specific purpose of the Church.  And Guess what?  The purpose is not about us—about me—at all.

The purpose of history, of time, of the ages, of the Church is to demonstrate God’s manifold wisdom to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. We are not them.

This is not bad news.  God has chosen us to be joint heirs with his Son, to have the right to become children of God, to be able to call out “Abba Father.”  That is awesome news!

But as we live the abundant life, let us never forget our true purpose. This purpose gives context to all that we are and everything we do. It explains why we have to die in order to live; why we are called to deny self, pick-up the cross, and follow Him.  Understanding our purpose should help us begin to understand the Mystery of Unfulfilled Promises—what is really means to “ask anything in His name.”

Jesus said we would do the works He did, and even greater works!  What a promise!  And if you ask anything in His name, He will do it! Wow!  Lots of exclamation points—but this is really astonishing stuff.

Why do the fulfillment of these promises seem completely absent from our experience in the American Church? Was Jesus just teasing us? Did He really mean what He said?  Are we misinterpreting His words, or are we excusing God’s apparent failure to fulfill His promises when we compose such explanations?

What does it mean to “ask anything in My name?”  Does concluding our prayers with the tag “…in the name of Jesus Christ” give us magical powers?  What if we have sufficient faith?  If we have sufficient faith do we get what we ask for even if God does not agree?

Seem like tough questions? Slogan Christianity fails to carefully consider the implications of these queries, and suggests that the celebrated promises of Jesus in this weighty passage on Christian living are about securing God’s blessing for ourselves.

Join with me and carefully and prayerfully read and contemplate Chapters 14, 15, and 16 in the Gospel of John, and help me resolve the mystery.  Let me know what you think. If we can, we can see the Father glorified and participate in accomplishing God’s will in our communities and the world.