The Advantage Factor

By Martijn van Tilborgh

The Kingdom of God is big. Very big. In fact, it is so big that seeing only a glimpse of it will disrupt (and likely destroy) any “box” we have built for ourselves.

I got one of those glimpses on the night of Easter 2008, a night that changed my life forever and put me on a journey that helped me be delivered from many preconceived ideas I had about church, ministry, life and even God Himself.

I was confused, frustrated and, to be honest, annoyed with God. I sort of understood what Jonah was feeling after God grew a plant to provide him shade from the sun—just so He could send a worm to damage the plant and make it wither away (Jonah 4:6-8).

I was lying in bed that night asking myself questions: Why would God do this to me? Why would He be so cruel, and why does He have to be such a bully?

I just didn’t understand. The ministry I thought I had was gone. It had come quickly, but it seemed to have disappeared even quicker. Three unexpected things had happened.

First, the financial crisis of 2008 had hit—and hit hard! During one of my ministry adventures, I had a divine appointment with someone from Iceland who helped fund my ministry. The financial crisis caused Iceland to essentially go bankrupt overnight. Their currency plummeted in a downward spiral to the point where it was worth only a fraction of its original value. This instantly dried up my financial resources, as the monthly support that I got from Iceland ceased.

Second, the ministry I was part of at the time went through some hard stuff. We had been highly committed to this ministry for over a decade; we had moved from continent to continent five times in our commitment to its vision. I don’t regret any of it for even one second. However, a series of events led to a crisis in the ministry that caused it to implode. It shrunk down to just a handful of people.

Third, for some reason, certain doors that had been wide open suddenly started closing for no apparent reason. In one instance, a leader within the network I had developed in Vermont created confusion about me among the statewide leaders, which resulted in resistance against my coming back there to minister. I was essentially shut out of the state by the same church leadership who had welcomed me with open arms just a year earlier. To say I was confused is an understatement.

Our financial situation had become bad. Really bad! It happened so fast I hadn’t even been aware of the seriousness of the situation. I added up all our debt and came to the realization that we owed well over $60,000 to various banks and institutions. Our economic situation back in 2008 wasn’t going to provide us with the means to ever pay that kind of money back.

I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown. We had just moved into a new apartment and had no clue how to pay our rent—in addition to all the other bills that had started to pile up quickly.

NOW WHAT. . . . ? (HOW ABOUT NEW VISION)

I remember lying in bed one night looking at my wife, Amy, in despair and asking her, “Now what?”

As soon as I spoke these two simple words, something supernatural happened. Instantly, I was caught up in another realm. I’m not even sure how long I was there, as I had lost all sense of time. In that moment I was struck with what I can only explain as muteness. I couldn’t speak. I could identify with what Zacharias must have experienced when the angel took away his speech (Luke 1:20).

I started crying, which I really don’t do very often. Amy thought I was having a stroke and started to panic.

Then I saw a story unfold in my spirit. It was the story of Jesus and His disciples. For three years they had the time of their lives—I saw it right in front of me. It was almost tangibly visible. It made me wonder, How could life get any better than this for these disciples?

They were walking with Jesus and got to learn from Him up close and personal. They were healing the sick. They were raising the dead. They were casting out demons. Every day they got to experience the amazing teaching Jesus was giving to large crowds. They witnessed miracles where multitudes were fed supernaturally and where storms were calmed by the sound of His voice.

Wow! That was it—that was purpose. They were experiencing destiny like they never had before, like they never had even dreamed of before. They had reached the ultimate goal and purpose for their lives. They were born to live this life!

At least that’s what they 
thought.

Suddenly, one day their paradigm was disrupted when Jesus sat them down and spoke the following words: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7a).

In other words, He told them the amazing things they were experiencing were going to stop—had to stop. In fact, it would be to their advantage if all of it did stop.

In that moment, Jesus introduced them to a reality much bigger than the limited box they had created for themselves. The paradigm they lived in was about to be crushed in order to show them an advantage they couldn’t see from where they were at that time.

Sure, life was about as good as it gets in their paradigm. But from where God was sitting, there was more. Much, much more!

Their initial reaction was to quickly forget what they just heard Jesus tell them. They didn’t want their current experience to stop.

What could possibly be 
better?

Then, suddenly, when they were least expecting it, the impossible happened. Jesus actually went away like He had said He would. In a moment’s time they found themselves not in the middle of one of Jesus’ incredible ministry adventures but, rather, gathered around a dead body in a tomb where Jesus had been laid to rest.

It’s funny how our human minds work. We always tend to default back to what we know, based on our past experiences, the way we were raised or the things we were taught and the culture we grew up in. And that’s exactly what the disciples did. They went back to the only thing they knew was “right.”

They had grown accustomed to the excitement of Jesus’ ministry. All they knew how to do was to be around Him. So when He died, the first thing they did was to have “church,” but this time they had it around a dead body. They gathered at the gravesite with myrrh, linen and perfume.

What else could they do?

They defaulted to what they knew, which was to be around Him, wherever He was. And even though He was dead, at least they made Him smell good with all the treatments they were giving Him.

I suppose it gave them a false sense of religious accomplishment.

Then, after three days, even that illusion was taken from them. At least within their paradigm it was. They still were failing to see the advantage Jesus had talked with them about—the advantage of His departure!

The truth was, Jesus was fully alive and well. They just couldn’t see it! Jesus existed outside their current reality, where He was trying to get their attention so He could pull them outside of the limitation they had built for themselves.

As I was watching this story in the trancelike state I was in, something remarkable happened. It was as if my own life story was laid on top of this scenario I was watching unfold right in front of me. On some level I experienced what the disciples must have experienced as they went through their crisis.

Like the disciples, I had come to believe that (what I had defined as) my ministry up until that point was the life I was supposed to live all the way to the end. And like the disciples I had failed to see the “advantage factor” that existed beyond my current reality.

As soon as I was able to peek beyond my limitation into a reality I didn’t know even existed, I heard the sound of His voice saying: “Everything must die first!”

I can still hear those words today as clearly as I heard them then. In that moment I came to the realization that if we truly want to experience the fullness of His resurrection power, we will need to experience death first. You can’t be resurrected unless you die first.

It’s pretty simple, really!

In an instant I was back to “normal” and able to explain to Amy what I had just experienced. I knew what I needed to do next. The following day I literally killed my ministry (or what was left of it), despite people in my life discouraging me from doing so. I knew it had to be done. There’s no real point in trying to keep something alive that God has declared dead.

Here’s the reality. God has an advantage factor for each and every one of us. It’s a reality that you can’t even dream or imagine. It’s something that exists outside of our current paradigm, but that He desperately wants to show us.

Once I saw this advantage for my life I took me on a path that deconstructed much of my belief system and much of what I had defined as my ministry. No, it wasn’t easy (to say the least). But was it worth it? Absolutely!

I’m not saying I have arrived. The journey is far from over. In many ways it has just begun. There always remains another advantage to be discovered. A new way to look at the same things. A higher perspective.

We can train our mind and spirit to pursue these advantages and discover new realities like this on an ongoing basis.

Some of these shifts will be small and seemingly insignificant, but others will be life-altering and impact the trajectory of your life.

But how do you do that? How do you look at the same thing through a different set of eyes?

EXPAND YOUR PARADIGM

Albert Einstein said this: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Those are profound words. We tend to look for solutions to problems within the context of our current paradigms—problems that wouldn’t even be problems if it weren’t for the paradigm we are in.

I know, I know! This sounds complex. Let me attempt to explain it with a story about something I experienced some years back.

A pastor from a local church invited me for a free breakfast at his church.

“A free breakfast?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said. “A free breakfast! Bring your wife and we’ll have fun. There are a ton of other people coming. You’ll enjoy yourself.”

Of course, I knew there is no such thing as a free breakfast. Someone is going to pay for it somewhere. I somehow had this uncomfortable feeling that even though this was an opportunity that was presented as “free,” we would be the ones paying for this breakfast.

I was right!

Looking back, the best way to explain the whole experience is by calling it a Christian timeshare presentation. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what it was really all about: the church wanting to expand into a bigger, better, nicer facility. The breakfast was simply a platform for pitching the new building project.

The sales pitch was convincing. Everything the pastor said sounded logical and made perfect sense. The breakfast itself was pretty tasty, which put us all in a good mood. It didn’t take long before the first people in the room started reaching for their checkbooks.

It was like a QVC presentation. The lines were open!

Yet, while listening to this seemingly flawless pitch, I couldn’t help but notice something wasn’t sitting well with me. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Besides the fact that I think new building projects for churches are boring and predictable, I knew on a deeper level that something was off.  

Suddenly I had an epiphany.

It was the paradigm in which the sales pitch was delivered. You see, we structure our ministries according to certain assumptions. One of the arguments the pastor used to support his pitch was this.

He said:

Well my friends, we all know that on Sunday morning we have experienced some amazing growth. We are super thankful to the Lord. As you have noticed, this building we are in has become a little tight. One example is the room next door. It comfortably holds 40 children during a Sunday morning service. For the last several weeks we’ve been having 50 children in that room. It has become too tight. If we want to have a bigger capacity to minister to more kids, we need to have a bigger facility. I propose to you this new building plan. It’s going to require $2.6 million to get started on this project. I want to ask you to seek the Lord to find out what you should give.

Now, on the surface that all sounds great, right? You can’t argue with him for wanting to minister to more children. I can certainly appreciate his desire to take the ministry to the next level.

The problem with the picture is the paradigm in which the pitch was communicated. The paradigm controlled the message (and even the vision) to the point that it reduced it to something that could happen only within a religious, predefined set of rules.

Think about it!

By saying, “We need a bigger building in order to minister to more kids,” he was effectively saying that the only way to minister to kids was in that room next door!

I’m sure he wasn’t the only one looking at the situation under the same set of assumptions.

Where do these assumptions come from?

Let’s say we did spend $2.6 million on that new building. The limitation of 40 kids is gone; but now it’s replaced by another limitation of, let’s say, 100 kids. There is no businessperson in the world who would invest that kind of money for such a small return. He or she would think, There has to be a better way.

And they’d be right!

What would happen if we were somehow able to remove all the assumptions from our thinking and allow our spirits to be in tune with God’s Spirit to get new, innovative, creative ideas from Him on how to do ministry outside of our current view of what is possible?

In other words, what if we tapped into the advantage factor, a new reality that we were unable to see before?

Think about this. What if we were to take a fraction of that $2.6 million and facilitate a platform from which we could equip the church families to minister to kids? Not so much by telling them how to minister, but by allowing them to tap into the creative inspiration of the Spirit in order to devise forms of ministry that suit the individual. Not ministry that’s done in church on Sunday morning, but ministry done in the community as part of people’s everyday lives.

The families in our churches are already in contact with the families in the community. Everyone’s kids already go to the same sports clubs, schools, birthday parties and other activities.

If we were able to facilitate a platform that would equip people to become effective in the sphere where they already are planted, wouldn’t that be more effective than building a bigger building—as well as cheaper and more fulfilling, exciting and diverse?

You see, too many times we tell people how the giant should be defeated. We tell them to put on Saul’s armor and go forth bearing his heavy sword because that’s the way this battle is fought. But what would happen if we instead allowed people to find their sling (whatever that means for them) and face the giant in their faith instead of ours?

Then how many giants do you think you would slay on a $2.6 million budget?

That’s right! There is no limit!

Let’s enter the advantage 
factor!