PURPOSE AND
PROCESS
Apostolic
Mandate and Function
by Doug Fortune
As one who functions
primarily in an apostolic gifting, I am consumed with PURPOSE.
Everything
I do revolves around God's purposes in the earth. I am so focused on the end
product- the PURPOSE, which is God restoring fully His image and likeness in a
many-membered New Creation Man, that often times I forget to mention that there
is a PROCESS involved. As a result, sometimes after the initial excitement of becoming
impregnated with PURPOSE, people look at me and ask, "What do I do
now?" This is where PROCESS comes in. I find this topic especially
important now that I am pastoring a local fellowship.
There
are some who are so in tune with PROCESS that they end up repeating PROCESS
again and again and have difficulty moving into PURPOSE. May I interject that
we need BOTH purpose and process working interdependently with each other to
attain the goal of manifesting Christ in the earth!
Ephesians
chapter 4 is a good example of this as it describes Jesus' first action as the
crucified, resurrected, and ascended apostolic High Priest. Verse 8 says
"When He ascended on high... He bestowed gifts on men..." (Amplified
Bible). By virtue of this being His first course of action as He ascended, we
know that it is filled with PURPOSE. Verses 12-13 goes on to describe that
purpose, "...His intention (PURPOSE) was the perfecting of the saints...
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness
found in Him." (Amplified Bible, my comment in parentheses). THIS is
purpose, to manifest the fullness of Christ!
Integrally
intertwined within the PURPOSE contained in these verses is PROCESS. That
process is five-fold ministries equipping the saints.
Consider the PROCESS as
each gift equips the saints:
Apostles
imparting a "sent one" mentality
Prophets
imparting vision and revelatory awareness
Evangelists
imparting the ability to draw people to Christ
Pastors
imparting a caring and concern for others
Teachers
imparting sound doctrine and true knowledge
All
of this is contained within the PURPOSE of being transformed into the likeness
of Christ and manifesting Him in the earth.
In
other words, if I believe my PURPOSE is to just "hang on till Jesus comes
back, get a few people to heaven, and hope for a rapture that I may escape this
world", then my PROCESS will be very self-serving and limited. If I
believe that my PURPOSE is to manifest Christ by being transformed to His likeness
and advance the Kingdom, having dominion in the earth, then my PROCESS will be
a reflection of that PURPOSE.
A
great problem arises when we try to make PROCESS our PURPOSE. In other words,
as a prophet if I make imparting the revelatory my PURPOSE, then I become
imbalanced and no longer see the need for the evangelist, teacher, etc. If I
make spiritual warfare my PURPOSE, then I become imbalanced, looking for demons
behind every bush. If I make inner-healing my PURPOSE, then I'm always looking
to dig up everybody's hurts and wounds and have difficulty releasing them as
healed and whole.... I think you get the idea here. Conversely, if all I have
is an awareness of PURPOSE and do not understand that there is PROCESS
involved, then I am living in a dream world (you might know someone like
that!).
PURPOSE determines
PROCESS, but PROCESS brings PURPOSE to manifestation.
When
God said, "Let
us make man in Our image, after Our likeness..." (Genesis
1:26), the Last Adam- Christ- was the PURPOSE, but the first Adam was the
PROCESS.
Consider
Paul's words in Galatians 4:19, "My little children for whom I am again
suffering birth pangs until Christ is completely and permanently formed within
you!" (Amplified Bible). Here he is speaking of PROCESS with the PURPOSE
of Christ being completely formed within. The word he uses that is translated
as children, teknion in the Greek, is different than the Greek word nepois used
in Ephesians 4:14, "children tossed to and fro" referring to infants.
The Greek word huios used in Romans 8:19 which speaks of the
"manifestation of the sons of God", refers to mature sons.
There seems to be a progression
in maturity:
Nepois
= infants
Teknion
= young men
Huios
= mature sons
I
believe that this is the PROCESS of "working out your salvation"
(Philippians 2:2), in other words bringing that which is already perfected
within your spirit to manifest in your soul. PROCESS is imperative, but it must
be born from PURPOSE. Religion is filled with process but it is devoid of true
purpose.
Consider
Peter walking on the water to meet Jesus. His PURPOSE was to get to Jesus but
he began to focus on the PROCESS (By the way, I'm not bashing Peter, at least
he got out of the boat!). Many of us are like that, we begin in PURPOSE but get
bogged down in the PROCESS, because we focus on PROCESS rather than PURPOSE.
2
Corinthians 3:18 reveals these dynamics well, "And all of us with unveiled
face, because we continued to behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are
constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing
splendor and from one degree of glory to another; (for this comes) from the Lord
(Who is) the Spirit." (Amplified Bible). Our PURPOSE is to be transformed
into His likeness, to see His glory in the mirror, and as we maintain our focus
on PURPOSE while actively engaging the PROCESS, we will see the PURPOSE become
a present reality!
Unfortunately,
I believe that many in the Church have mistaken PROCESS for PURPOSE, thus we
have groups worshiping at the altar of past "moves of God." Even the
restoration of the five-fold ministry is merely a PROCESS that will eventually
be consumed in PURPOSE as He brings forth the "perfect man", and the
five-fold is superseded by the order of Melchizedek. I see the current
apostolic thrust as bringing PURPOSE to the church, but let it NOT be to the
exclusion of PROCESS!
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