God Has a Blueprint for Your Life

Copyright © 2013, 2014 Debra V. Chapman.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-4444-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-4445-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-4443-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912403

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/8/2014

Contents

The Master Craftsman

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Analogy of Your Life

The Acceptable Time

A Light of Revelation

A Man after God’s Heart

A Risk Taker

A Sabbath Rest for God’s People

A Secret Brought to Light

A Shining Light

A Time to Run, a Time to Hide

Against All Hope, Believe

An Allotment of Time

An Excellent Spirit

As I Have Loved You …

Assured of the Call

Be a Fighter … and Win!

Better Covenant, Better Promises

Blinded By the Light, Now I See

Blueprint Revealed

Compelled and Warned

Destined to Abide

Destiny by Divine Appointment

Doors of Opportunity

Enlightenment

Exalted

Focus Your Heart, Fix Your Mind

Followers

Glorious Times with the Word

God’s Greatest Desire

God’s Blueprints

Hidden Treasure

His Guiding Eye

I Must Win It … The Prize

I Must …

In Awe of Him

In Him We Live

In Times of Sorrow

It Takes Time—God’s Time

Keeping the Past in the Past

Knowing Him Now

Leaving Matters Alone

Like a Child

Looking Away to Him

Men of Principle

Molded by the Master

Moved by What Matters

Moved with Compassion

No Limitations

One King

Our Lamp

Our Model, Our Pattern

Out of Darkness into Light

The Fulfilling of Purpose

Persevere in Your Purpose

Predestined

Recognition

Run Your Race

Running Light

Safe in the Fire

Sealed by the Spirit

Seeing 20/20

Seeking the Revealer of Secrets

Small

Step by Step

Stumbling, but Not Stopping

Tenacious

A Command to Encourage and Warn

The Bright Lights of the City

The Dynamic Work of the Spirit

The Eyes of the Lord

The Fight for Our Hearts

The Fruit of Our Labor

The Illuminator

The Key to Intimacy

The Lamp of the Body

The Light and Good Works

The Light That’s Ever Increasing

The Living Bread

The Ministry of Giving and Receiving

The Prize Makes It Worthwhile

The Secret Place

The Winning Strategy

The Word … Still Speaking

The Words of Eternal Life

Things yet to Be Revealed

Today, As We Hear His Voice

True Nourishment

Trying to Please

Understanding Authority

Walking in High Places

Walking in the Light

When It’s Closing Time

Who Has Your Ear?

Whose Battle Is It Anyway?

Winning by Enduring

Wisdom and Success

Works Done In Secret

Works That Prove Repentence

Yes You Can

Yielding to the Spirit

Your Blueprint … There’s a Cross in It

To

Greg, Justin, and Blake, the men in my life who love and support me.

To Robert and Patricia Frazier, pastors who lay down their lives for the sheep. You are an example to me.

The Master Craftsman

God is the Master Craftsman, forming each person in the womb. Shaping, fashioning, and not only physically, but instilling in each one His purpose and destiny. Can’t a Master Craftsman shape and form every person He has created into His inclination, just as a potter molds the clay as he sees fit? He breathes His breath into every living soul, making each eternal, and with that breath He instills purpose, His purpose for each. And with that comes choice as well, for it is written in His Word, Choose you this day whom you will serve (Joshua 24:15 KJV). Every person is responsible for his life, but know that there is deposited in each one these things: eternity, purpose, and choice.

The Master Craftsman desires entrance into each life that He may reveal Himself, guide each into His purpose, and enjoy them throughout eternity.

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to Jo-Nyla Jo Hockaday for her willingness to go above and beyond in helping me compile this book. Jo, you know you are my lifesaver!

Introduction

I believe most people desire to know their purposes in life. There is a quest, an innate hungering in the soul of man to know his function, direction, his reason to be on earth. The longing to know purpose is there because God deposited it in man’s heart when He breathed His breath into him, making him a living soul. He placed eternity in men’s hearts and minds. The Amplified Bible in Ecclesiastes 3:11 defines eternity as a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy. Our source placed that divine purpose into our hearts and minds. Only He can activate it, lead us into it, and fully satisfy it as we cooperate with Him. Only a humbling and yielding of ourselves to Him can open the door to that purpose, and the ultimate goal of it is intimacy with the one who created us for Himself.

As we look into the Word of God, we view His dealings and interaction with man from the beginning with Adam and Eve on throughout the establishment of the early church. We see God’s longing for intimacy with man, His readiness to be a loving heavenly Father to those who hear and respond to His voice in obedience. In days of old, He called and drew men to Himself, giving them gifts, direction, assignments, and power so that the glory of His name would be revealed to those who did not know Him. This work continues on to the present day.

God’s blueprint for all men is His best and highest, most perfect and loving purpose of all—that we be reconciled to Him through the extravagant gift of His Son, Jesus. When we believe in the one whom God has sent, the way is made for the indwelling Holy Spirit to manifest and unfold God’s blueprint, to lead and guide us into all truth concerning His purpose for us.

This book cannot pinpoint God’s specific blueprint for you, but it shines a light on those who have gone before, who were called and led according to God’s predestined purpose. It examines the response of those in the Bible to difficulties and challenges and considers the consequences of their obedience or disobedience. In it we see the blessings of God on those who stepped out to take a risk (and those blessings that have been passed down to countless generations). It is my hope that we can glean insight from their successes and failures.

My prayer is that you will be encouraged through the reading of this book to pursue and press into God, and in so doing, lay hold of His destiny for you.

Analogy of Your Life

In the book

   that is your life,

       each day is a fresh page.

Every page unfolds the

   substance,

       direction,

           focus,

               purpose of your life.

If you will start each page—

   (the beginning of each new day)—

       seeking Me,

               humbling yourself,

                   yielding yourself to Me,

then each chapter will present adventures…

   adventures of My presence, leading, and power

       manifested in the common, everyday events of life.

The dynamic of the Holy Spirit will turn the mundane and ordinary

   into the supernatural and extraordinary.

The pages of your life will read with unexpected

   twists and turns and great excitement

       because I am never boring.

If you will follow My lead with each new page,

   your life will come to a satisfying end.

It will be a good read.

The Acceptable Time

To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.—Ecclesiastes 3:1–2a (AB)

The plan was set in motion before the first man came to be. Jesus would come at the acceptable time, although it would be thousands of years—a long period according to the world’s timetable—before man realized it. For even before the foundation of the world, Jesus was chosen and foreordained (destined and foreknown), but He was brought out to public view (made manifest) in these last days for the sake of you (1 Peter 1:20 AB).

The Creator of all life has a specific time for every purpose under heaven. There was a particular season for His Son to come to earth, to fulfill His divine destiny, and a particular time for Him to die. Even before He came, it was written in God’s book all the days that were ordained for Him (Ps. 139:16 AB). The description of Jesus’ purpose was written by an Old Testament prophet of God approximately seven hundred years before His birth. This book, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was a precursor to the arrival of Messiah, an indication of the divine destiny and role of the future Redeemer of Israel. And so it happened that on a certain Sabbath (approximately seven hundred years after the writing of this book), Jesus walked into the synagogue of His hometown of Nazareth. He stood up to read from the Torah, and the book of Isaiah was handed to Him. Knowing who He was and the acceptable time of His purpose and ministry, Jesus deliberately found the passage that spoke of His life and calling and read, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed, to proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18–19 AB).

Just as Jesus came at an appointed time in order to fulfill His Father’s plan, so were you chosen by the Creator to be born at such a time as this. You were created with a unique blueprint, a particular purpose, and God has a time for every matter or purpose under heaven (Eccl. 3:1 AB). Your acceptable time is now. Now is the time to know His love and mercy through the redemptive act of His Son, Jesus. Now is the time to lay your life down in submission and obedience to His Word and will for your life. Now is the time to seek Him and be led by His Spirit so that the gifts, abilities, and anointings deposited in you will move you into your divine destiny.

This is your time. Time to be who you are called to be in Christ. Time to do all He has planned and purposed for you to do.

Lord, there is no such thing as chance with the believer. In Your wisdom, You have predestined for us to be born now that we might know You and do the works You’ve called us to do. We rely on You to accomplish those things.

A Light of Revelation

God saw fit and was pleased to reveal His Son within me so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentiles as the glad tidings (Gospel).—Galatians 1:15–16 (AB)

What a difference the Light makes. A fanatical Pharisee was making real progress in exterminating the followers of the Way when his life—and grandiose agenda—came to an abrupt halt. The Light has a way of doing that—of taking a life and turning it 180 degrees in the opposite direction. How astounded the Christians and the Jews must have been when Saul arrived in Damascus and began proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah!

This shining light from heaven brought repentance and salvation to Saul the Pharisee, and he became Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ. God’s light of revelation continued to play a major role in the fulfilling of Paul’s destiny. In his own words, Paul tells how the gospel message was not taught to him by any man; rather, it was made known to him through a direct revelation by Jesus (Gal. 1:11–12 AB). After his conversion experience, Paul did not confer or counsel with any frail human being, but went away to Arabia for a period of time (Gal. 1:16–17 AB). (Although the Bible does not specifically say so, I believe this was probably a time when Paul received great insight into the prophetic Scriptures concerning the Messiah and also enlightenment concerning his own calling.)

When the infant Jesus was presented in the temple for the first time, Simeon spoke of His purpose when he declared Jesus would be a Light for revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:32 AB). Interestingly, the Lord charged Paul and Barnabas with this same prophetic verse, giving them the same mandate and purpose spoken over Jesus. When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Antioch in Pisidia, they received strong resistance to the gospel message from the Jews. The two men stated, Now, behold, we turn to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has charged us saying, ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 13:47 NKJ). The Lord had commissioned and sent Paul and Barnabas on their missionary quest, and they were busy doing the work to which they were called. Through divine revelation, these men knew that the thrust of their ministry would be to the Gentiles.

The light that opened up Paul’s eyes to the Redeemer was the same light that illumined him throughout his journey. It is the light living within the believer and shining from above that reveals purpose, direction, and insight into God’s Word, heart, and ways. It is our light of revelation,