A God-Sized Future: Move Out of Your Comfort Zone, Embrace Change, and Discover a New Vision for Your Life

To Brent and Yvette Morgan, faithful members of

Abba’s House whom God has used in the business

world to provide jobs and charitable blessing around

the world! May God’s blessing remain on you both!

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Perry Stone

Introduction

It’s Time for a God-Sized Future

SECTION I: EMBRACING CHANGE FOR A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

1 God Requires Change

2 Time and Chance Require Change

3 The Faith Life Motivates Change

4 The Surrendered Life Initiates Change

5 The Spirit-Controlled Mind Directs Supernatural Change

6 Radical Obedience Requires Change

SECTION II: FIVE KEYS TO A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

7 Solid Ground for a God-Sized Future

8 Don’t Kill the Change Agent

9 Kingdom Breakthroughs Follow Change

10 A Challenge to Change

11 Clear Direction for Change

SECTION III: FIVE STEPS TO A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

12 Leave the Graveyard

13 Move to the Miraculous

14 Join the Team

15 The Will to Fight

16 Failure Is Not Final

SECTION IV: FIVE TRANSFORMATIONS THAT MANIFEST A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

17 A God-Sized Life

18 A God-Sized Attitude

19 A God-Sized Future

20 A God-Sized Destiny

21 A God-Sized Mind

Conclusion

Welcome to the Future!

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IWANT TO THANK all the staff of Abba’s House who are with me on this journey. I want to thank Perry Stone, who provoked me to transformational change. I also thank my friend Rick White, who keeps me balanced. I thank Damon Thompson, who has renewed my hope for the church. Most of all, my son, Ronnie Jr., who is seizing the future.

FOREWORD

AFTER THIRTY-FIVE YEARS of full-time ministry and traveling across several parts of the world, I have discovered one word that tends to frighten Christians and cause them to put up a mental and spiritual barrier: change. This is especially hard for older Christians, often due to the worries of life and spiritual challenges. As we become older, we operate more from the memory part of our brains than from the visionary part, causing us to be stuck in the past with no interest in pursuing a new and exciting path in life. Just as there are four seasons that bring necessary changes in the weather, change is also imperative in our lives. In this dynamic book my friend Pastor Ron Phillips explains the spiritual requirement to move out of your comfort zone into an exciting realm of God’s supernatural blessings. Pastor Ron has lived and practiced what he teaches in this book. You will learn that God requires change in order to move you away from being stuck in a place without the fullness of God’s blessing in your life. When you repented of your sins, your life was changed. The word change means to transform, take a different course or direction. More changes are coming in the world we live in, and you must prepare to make the necessary changes, lest you get stuck in past memories and miss what God has prepared for you. Get ready for your God-sized future, and let God change you according to His purpose and will!

—PERRY STONE

VOICE OF EVANGELISM MINISTRIES

Introduction

IT’S TIME FOR A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

DR. VANCE HAVNER was a traveling preacher whose straight talk laced with humor would often empty a church rather than fill it. A prophet to Christians before the prophetic movement as well as a prolific author, he wrote such classics as Repent or Else!, It Is Time, and Home Before Dark.

I had the privilege of hosting Dr. Havner in 1976 in my Alabama church. He was a peculiar man! He never owned or drove a car. He loved bananas and corn flakes after the night services! Dr. Havner was actually the preacher to coin the now famous phrase, The church is a hospital for sinners and not a museum for saints.

I remember one story he told. He and his wife were traveling by bus (remember, no car) to a speaking engagement. The bus made a rest stop at a country store and gas station. There was an old woman sitting in front of the store entrance. She was dressed like something out of the 1800s. Dr. Havner’s wife said, Look at that lady. She does not have a clue about all the changes going on in our world. Dr. Havner replied, For God’s sake, don’t tell her!

That story resonated in my spirit then and does today! In spite of all the positives that change has brought across the years, change can be uncomfortable and even frightening. For a God-sized future you must move off the porch of the past into the destiny God intended.

When I was young, Momma would always get us new shoes at Easter! These new shoes felt tight and uncomfortable. My old shoes were broken in and easy to wear. There was something comfortable about those shoes I had gotten used to that made me not want to change. What I tended to ignore was the worn-out sole that no longer helped me to not slip and hurt myself, or the worn-out places in the leather that allowed water to come into the shoe.

Also, old shoes take on an odor that everyone can smell but the owner. I was at The Ramp for the men’s meeting, and worship was hot and heavy. It was crowded, but Karen Wheaton and Damon Thompson had graciously made a front seat available to me. Some of the younger men came up front and were dancing and jumping. One of them took off his Nikes, and the odor emptied my whole row. He needed new shoes and did not notice it! Just like old shoes, clothes and diapers also stink if they are not changed! Life can grow stale, sour, and odorous without change! I want to help you put on some new faith shoes and move you to a God-sized future.

Life, business, technology, and church can be like those old shoes. Nothing is wrong with them until they are worn out and have become the wrong size and fit for the future. Sadly the church is often the last to embrace necessary change. Honestly, when computers came out, one of our older elders opposed it because it would lead to the mark of the beast. Of course Satan can use technology—and he certainly will—but so can the church.

We shouldn’t be afraid of these temporal changes, because the Lord, the Bible, sound doctrine, and the good news of Christ are unchanging! These are the basis of our faith. Yet our methods of communication and our culture change. We cannot afford to be an eight-track church in an iPod world! God’s mighty movements have always resulted in massive shifts in how we do church! God’s transformational power in individuals always begins with life-altering change.

When Robert Jefferies came to be pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, the church was at a standstill. Dr. Jefferies had a survey not of that church but of the greater Dallas area to see how the public at large perceived the great old church. The church—where the legendary George W. Truett and W. A. Criswell served for nearly a century—was shocked by the findings. Their city perceived them as a 1960s–1970s church.

This was not true, but it was how they were perceived. Dr. Jefferies led them to change that perception in their city. That has led to a willingness of that great church to take down their historic but decaying building and build for the coming generations. They remain anchored to the Bible, but now they are geared to the twenty-first century. Change for change’s sake can be our enemy, but God-given change is our only hope! They embraced a God-sized future.

This book is a call to embrace change rather than fear it. It is also a call to every believer to stop fretting over lesser things and move forward into the God-sized future awaiting you. It’s time to receive a renewed vision for your life. The church must move forward and begin to take the lead in our culture. After thirty-two years at Abba’s House and forty-five years as a pastor, I am ready for change that brings transformational renewal.

Finally, change must include a welcome to the Holy Spirit’s power, gifts, revelation, and joy! To that end I send this book to all who long to see God move in power today!

SECTION I

EMBRACING CHANGE FOR A GOD-SIZED FUTURE

1

GOD REQUIRES CHANGE

All change comes from deepening your understanding

of the salvation of Christ and living out the

changes that understanding creates in your heart.

—TIM KELLER

IT IS A fairly well-known tale. Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. The lieutenant on the lead battleship was on watch on the bridge as night fell. As the patchy fog rolled in and visibility became poor, the captain stepped onto the bridge so as to keep an eye on all activities. In the dark night the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, Light, bearing on the starboard bow.

Is it steady or moving astern? the captain asked.

Lookout replied, Steady, captain. This meant the hulking ship was on a dangerous collision course with that other ship.

The captain then ordered the signalman, Signal that ship: ‘We are on a collision course. Advise you change course twenty degrees.’

A signal came back, Advisable for you to change course twenty degrees.

The captain, perturbed, ordered the response, Send, ‘I’m a captain; change course twenty degrees.’

I’m a seaman second class, came the reply. You had better change course twenty degrees.

By that time the captain was furious. He spat out, Send, ‘I’m a battleship. Change course twenty degrees.’

Back came the flashing light, I’m a lighthouse; advisable for you to change course twenty degrees.

With no further communications exchanged, the battleship changed course.

Too often believers are like that battleship. We live lives redeemed by Christ, we operate in love with other believers and with unbelievers, we function in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we view this equipping as something that makes us mighty, instead of realizing that it is the One who gave us those gifts and empowers us to live and operate in power who is truly the mighty One.

God alone is immutable. He never changes! Malachi 3:6 says For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. He is eternally the same. Hebrews 13:8 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the lighthouse! And if He gives us directions to change, we are well advised to follow His orders.

For those who dwell on the earth, change is inevitable and necessary. Man’s fatal choice drove the human race forever from the unchanging to the always changing world. Today we live east of Eden in a world whose seasons change, giving witness to the shifting nature of our existence.

CHANGE IS GOOD, RIGHT?

As I write this book, the United States has a president who undergirded his entire campaign with one word: change. This desire for change brought more than sixty-nine million Americans into cohesion. Politicians often use this idea of change to support platforms that are unclear. In many instances, change becomes a kind of magic word that makes specifics unnecessary. After all, if things are going bad (in any way, for any reason) we need change. Permission is often given for carte blanche change as long as we don’t have the same situation we have now. The problem with this, of course, is that history teaches us over and over again that change can easily turn into catastrophe.

Even now as I write these paragraphs, I see reports on the news of the Occupy Wall Street movement happening in New York and in various places around the country. With no condemnation or approval of these people (their struggle and issues are topics for other avenues than this particular book), I note that virtually without exception every person interviewed is clamoring for change, but I cannot discern any particular demand or desire that those involved are making. They have grievances ranging from high unemployment, political and financial corruption, inequality in taxation among the brackets, among other things, but there is no unifying force such as there was during the civil rights movement of the late fifties and sixties. The single unifying theme espoused from virtually every participant I have seen interviewed is that they simply want things to change.

Think of czarist Russia in the early 1900s. The situation was grim to say the least. The economy was far worse than anything we see today. World War I was not going well at all, and the Russian people had had quite enough. They clamored for change.

Unfortunately their change brought on a totalitarian regime that made the despotism of the czars look appealing. The Bolsheviks (who would later become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) killed more people of their own citizenry than the czars killed in the previous ninety years, and this goes without counting the millions who died in the government created famine of the 1930s.¹

You know if you read only these last few of paragraphs, it sounds like I am trying to convince you that change is bad. But that’s not what I am trying do at all. I am simply trying to point out that, yes, change can lead to catastrophe, but only when it is not God-led. Thankfully God-directed change is the way out, the way up, and the way home for all humanity!

In the Old Testament when we read the words return, turn, and repent, these are often translated from the Hebrew word shuv. This word means to change direction and, more importantly, to return to a point of origin in such a way that you effectively reverse wrong decisions. These same instances and ideas in the New Testament often use the word repent, and the meaning there is even clearer. Repent is translated from the Greek word metanoia, which is a combination of words: meta, meaning change, and noia, which comes from another Greek word, nous, which means mind. The clear meaning of repent is to experience a literal mind change. Before one can change direction, there must be an act of will that comes from a change of thinking. Repentance is no less than a complete reversal of one’s mental process.

IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

When humans were created, they were made in the image of God! That image included a mind to think, a heart to love, and a will to choose. This image was housed in an innocent body and inhabited by an eternal spirit. It is the faulty, corrupted body that will, one day, cease to function until the believer receives the new and incorruptible glorified body. Man does not have a soul; he