Desire Is Destiny.

There’s a particular phenomenon in the grammar of the New Testament which you might find interesting.  It lies at the heart of what it means to follow in the Master’s footsteps.  It’s called the subjunctive mood, or quite legitimately the ‘mood of volition,’ of human will, free agency.  We might even call it the ‘mood of potential.’  Verbs in the subjunctive mood are used over and over again in the writings of the Apostles and Prophets, often frequently in a single context.

What do they mean for you and I?  Well, there’s a little equation at work in the Kingdom of God.  Potential + Capacity = Reality.  There’s a potential out there which Abba desires for us, and we’re meant to desire for ourselves.  It’s something we can have or something we can not have; it’s something we can receive or something we can reject.  Our primary priority is salvation, redemption through the Son of God.  The potential of eternal deliverance, when you add the capacity of faith, equals the reality of grace.

Let’s look at this in light of three things.

 I.  Deliverance {from sin, darkness, and death}.  It’s a potential for every last member of the human race, especially for the least and the last.  How do you receive it?  By faith.  When the capacity of faith in the finished Work of Jesus is exercised, the potential is no longer potential.  Now it becomes reality.

II. Growing As a Child of God.  Babies, Adolescents, full grown Sons and Daughters, Heroes of Faith, and onward and upward into Friends of God.  It’s a potential for every Lover of Jesus alive on planet Earth right now!  There is, just like in redemption, a capacity.  Once again, the capacity is faith— faith on a step by step, moment by moment, day by day basis.  The reality comes one Spirit-enabled step at a time.

III. As Abba’s Children look beyond the Cross and beyond our own growth spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually, we begin to look to the Crown.  And we know that the ‘Crowns,’ the rewards, the decorations for valor in conflict and competition, have a price.  There’s only one qualification for these honors— faith.  If you qualify for salvation, you get it.  What’s the qualification?  Faith.  If you qualify for growing into Abba’s likeness, you get it.  What’s the qualification?  Faith.  You have to embrace it, be willing to believe, reach out in trust and turn loose of control, to grow one more step ...and when you do, there it is.  If you want spiritual blessing, temporal power, and historical impact, how do you qualify?  Very simple— by faith!  When you qualify, you have it.

A person qualifies for martyrdom by having a faith which is above and beyond most ‘believers,’ a passion to know Jesus personally and powerfully.  That’s what the Apostles had, a relentless passion for the Person of Jesus.  This kind of love, relentless and undaunted by the weight of the World, will change a destiny: a single human life, a marriage, a family, a Community of Faith, a city, a state, even an empire.  Desire is destiny.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
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