Details

Written by Lynne Hammond

"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star" (Rev. 2:26-27).

Every child of God has a destiny to fulfill.

Every one.

That means, if you're born again God has something planned for you—yes, you!—to do.

You're not designed to simply live your happy little life and then go to Heaven. God has a purpose for you.

Ephesians 2:10 says it this way: "For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), created in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]."

No doubt, as a born again believer, you can sense in your heart this is true. You have a longing deep within you to do something big for God. That desire is a part of your new nature. But many believers live their whole lives without ever fulfilling that desire. They never find out what God has called them to do.

I can almost hear you thinking, Yes, Sister Lynne, that's me! I know I'm destined for something great...but I don't know what it is! Can you help me?

Yes, I can.

I can't give you all the specifics. You'll have to get those directly from the Holy Spirit. But I can tell you this: You are called to take an inheritance for God!

Taking God's Promised Land
"What do you mean, take an inheritance for God?" you might ask. "I thought I was supposed to receive my inheritance from Him! My inheritance is the salvation, healing, prosperity, blessing and dominion that comes through my relationship with Jesus."

That's true. You do have an inheritance in God. It includes all those things, and praise the Lord for them! But God also has an inheritance and He can only receive it through you.

If you'll look back at the nation of Israel and their taking of the promised land, you can easily see how you can receive an inheritance from God and take one for Him at the same time. Think about it for a moment. God promised the land of Canaan to the Israelites. They were to live in it, enjoy it, and prosper in it in every way. It was their inheritance from God.

But, when they marched in and took that land, God also received an inheritance. Through them, He was able to overthrow wicked governments. Through them He was able to cleanse the land and obtain for Himself a place to put His tabernacle. Through their victories, He was able to gain access to all nations by demonstrating to all the people of the earth that He is God.

In that same way, we have an inheritance to take for God today. Psalm 2:8 tells us about it. There God said, "Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as your possession" (Ps. 2:8).

The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is on a mission in these last days. We are on a mission to take an inheritance for God and that inheritance is the harvest from the nations. We are destined to go forth and gather to Him men and women, boys and girls from every kindred, every tribe and every tongue—to free them from the bondage of darkness and bring them into the light of God's dear Son!

More Than a Handful of Tracts
How are we going to fulfill that destiny?

By the wisdom of the Spirit of God. In this final hour, God is going to give us such insight into His ways and operate through us in such authority in the name of Jesus that "...through the Church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects [might now be] made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere" (Eph. 3:10).

You see, it takes more than just grabbing a handful of tracts and hitting the streets to take a nation for God. Many believers don't understand that, but it's true. From the beginning, God established spiritual seats of authority that rule over nations.

His intent was that righteous rulers would reign from those seats of authority and promote godliness in the earth. That's why in Genesis when God made Adam, He gave Him dominion. God meant for Adam to take that dominion and, working together with Him, use it to promote God's will on the earth.

But you know what happened.

Adam disobeyed God and yielded his authority to Satan. Then Satan used Adam's dominion to gain legal access to spiritual seats of authority and rule the nations of the earth. You can verify that fact by reading what the devil said to Jesus in the wilderness of temptation.

After showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, he said, "...all this power and authority and their glory...has been turned over to me, and I give it to whomever I will" (Luke 4:6).

I used to think the devil's forces were always in confusion. But I've come to see I was wrong. Hell has the most organized crime syndicate in the universe. If a crime organization comes into a city, what does its members do? They strategically take it over. They have a leader who designs a plan and those under him carry it out. They move into places of power. They remove good people and replace them with bad so they can rule that place and do whatever they want there. They set up their own system.

That's exactly what the devil does. He sets up his own system over cities and nations and it's called the antichrist system.

We saw that happen in Germany when the Hitler regime arose. Have you ever wondered how one man like Hitler could get such power that he could plow through a continent in a short amount of time and plunder nations? He can only do it when he is backed by a satanic organization.

Ruling Through Prayer
During World War II, there was a great, praying man named Rees Howells who understood that truth. He knew that the devil himself and his agents were behind Hitler's success. He also knew the reason behind it all. He knew that Hitler was Satan's agent for preventing the Gospel going to every creature. So he set himself to pray until Hitler and his antichrist regime were defeated.

The apostle Paul understood that same truth. He knew that corrupt governments and rulers could close the door to the spreading of the Gospel while godly governments would open that door. For this reason, he wrote Timothy and said:

"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

Jesus has already defeated the devil. The Bible says He spoiled principalities and power and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them through His death and resurrection (Col. 2:15). But you and I must enforce that defeat and one of the primary ways we do that is through prayer.

I'm telling you, God is raising up an army of praying saints in our day to pray for seats of government. They will pray for those places so that God can move into government systems and overturn demonic rulers that have kept nations of people in darkness by blocking the spread of the Gospel. Through prayer, the forces of God will go into those places of authority, enforce Satan's defeat, and loose the Word of God in nations so the people can be saved.

This army of prayer warriors won't be composed of just a small group of unique individuals, either. This army will be made up of believers, like you and me, who are all giving their supply. Together we are going to become a living organism in the earth that is taking God's inheritance for Him.

Lessons in Ruling and Reigning
"But, Lynne," you may say, "I don't know anything about praying like that!"

That may be true. But if you'll start giving yourself to God - spirit, soul and body - yielding to Him in prayer, and believing Him for wisdom, He will teach you by His Spirit everything you need to know.

In this day, He is going to teach the Church (that means you and me) more about ruling and reigning than the devil ever knew. He is going to take possession of us by the Holy Spirit as we allow Him and rule and reign through us.

Notice I mentioned two things there that we must do to put ourselves in position for that kind of prayer. The first is to give ourselves to God. Rees Howells, the man I mentioned earlier who was so mightily used by God to help pray the Allies through to victory during World War II, understood this principle as well as anyone I've ever read about. Describing a divine encounter he had with the Holy Spirit, he said:

"I saw Him [the Holy Spirit] as a Person apart from flesh and blood, and He said to me, 'As the Savior had a body, so I dwell in the cleansed temple of the believer. I am a Person. I am God, and I come to ask you to give your body to Me that I may work through it. I need a body for My temple (1 Cor. 6:19), but it must belong to me without reserve, for two persons with different wills can never live in the same body. Will you give me yours? (Rom. 12:1) But if I come in, I come as God, and you must go out (Col. 3:2,3). I shall not mix Myself with your self."

We've all sung the song, All to Jesus, I Surrender, but have we really done it? Certainly, we've surrendered things to Him at times. We've surrendered our cares or certain things we possess.

But it's not things God wants. It's you. He wants you to give Him all of yourself.

The more you give yourself to the Spirit of God, the more He can live through you. Why does He want to live through you? So He can take the world! He knows how to do it and if you will let Him, He will do it through you!

The second thing we must do to be equipped for this work of prayer is this: we must ask and believe for the wisdom of God. James 1:5-7 says, "If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who Gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting)...."

The reason we can ask in faith, appropriating this divine wisdom, is because God promises it to us. In 1 Corinthians 2, He says that the Holy Spirit reveals to us "the profound and bottomless things of God [the divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man's scrutiny]" (v. 10). He says "we have the mind of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart" (v. 16).

Fulfilling Your Destiny
Listen to me, precious believer. You have a destiny. It is greater than anything you have ever thought or dreamed. You are destined to take an inheritance for God. You are destined to take a seat with Jesus in heavenly places and rule the nations.

You may go to those nations and walk them with your feet. Or you may simply travel there in the spirit on your knees.

But either way, if you will let God use you, you will save lives. You will help remove the obstacles to the Gospel so the last great harvest of souls can be brought into the kingdom of God. You will, from your little prayer closet, forever change the world.

Copyright © Mac Hammond Ministries
All rights reserved. Used by permission.