November 3, 2006

• Duty – Dream – Destiny by Pastor Don

  Pastor Don pointed out that while we all assume God made us, we don’t always realize that God made us with a purpose. There is a reason for doing what we are doing, for why we have the gifts we have, why we have the fruit of the Spirit, why we have the goals we have, and the works we have to accomplish.

  We are taught for a purpose, the anointing is for a purpose, and the fact that we are gathering crowns and leaving them at His feet is for a purpose. We are to run the race, but even that race has a purpose. Jesus came to Earth to fulfill destiny. Paul was knocked off his horse for a purpose. Timothy, Titus, Peter, the disciples all had purpose. And sometimes we lose track of our purpose, or do not succeed at first. John Mark went with Paul on his first mission trip, and failed so badly that Paul did not want him on the next trip. Barnabas took John Mark under his wing, and he matured, so much so that Paul requested his company later in life, and he was able to write the book of Mark.

  Destiny – For example, Esther – due to a fluke of circumstances, was a poor peasant Jewish girl who ended up a queen. And she saved the lives of all Jewish people. Her uncle told her,  4:13-14 …“Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

  There was a purposeful design in the placement of Esther. She still had choice in this, she could choose to fulfil her destiny or not. Destiny is optional. Will you accept your destiny or reject it?

  Pastor Don pointed out that Saul fulfilled his destiny in some areas, but in a point of disobedience, Saul stepped out of his destiny and that was his ultimate downfall. Had he obeyed God completely his life would have been different and he would not have gone into insanity. The Holy Spirit would have remained with Saul. Saul did achieve many great things, but missed God’s perfect destiny for his life.

  In the spiritual realm, the designer of individuals (God)  sees our destiny, our problems, our pivotal points, our turning points, our places where we lose the path, and our good and bad choices. While it is hard to comprehend with our limited understanding. God is able to give us free will to make choices, but at the same time, God is Sovereign and what He wills will occur. There are different time lines – the line of Eternity (God) and the line of time – us on earth. When Eternity crosses our time, changes occur.

  Time was invented for us in this realm, but God’s understanding is out of our willful understanding, out of our time frame. God’s understanding is beyond anything we can think or imagine. When Eternity enters our time frame, it can alter anything in our life.

  Pastor Don asked us if we have ever experienced those moments of the supernatural where time and eternity meet – where you can think you prayed for five minutes and an hour has passed or you think you have prayed an hour and only a few minutes have passed.

  God sits outside of our time frame, looks into our time lines, and makes different conclusions than we make in our three dimensional time frame. We cannot understand all the functions of our human brains, how can we even think to understand the far reaches of God?

  The Word of God, in our time frame, gives us situations in which we have to make a choice.

  So often we won’t see the full result of these choices in our time frame, but that is where faith enters in. Faith exists in our time frame. If faith was part of the supernatural time frame, we would not be able to use it. Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I am in time, and am choosing to believe by faith something that is outside of my time frame.

  If I choose not to choose I am still choosing. God puts me in a situation, I have free will, but I can choose not to exercise that free will. If I don’t make a choice I will die. Even if I believe that I am like a rat in God’s maze, if I just sit down and do not move in the maze, do not make decisions to go straight, to the right or to the left, I will not get the reward (food) and I will die. With our life, if we do not make choices we will not get anywhere, we will not end up doing God’s will in our life, and we will not be effective.

  Love does not function in a vacuum or out of control. Love is only love if it comes from the free will to choose to love. Love without commitment is not love. We say we love Jesus, but do we really? If we are making willful decisions out of our own will and not obeying God, is that choosing to love God? God gives us free will to choose. God designed us to be purposeful, he wants us to pick ways to be purposeful in His kingdom.

  Everything on our planet was made by intelligent design. It is easy to see that if one thing was changed in our universe it could have killed all life. One degree closer or further away from the sun would affect life on earth, the atmosphere is perfect for life, etc. Why would we not think that we too, were created with intelligent design?

  God redeems souls for His purpose. Everyone in creation has opportunity to fulfill their best design. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever indicate that God wanted anyone to be miserable. When we are miserable it is because we are not seeing the process that is leading towards our purpose. We become miserable when our purpose doesn’t line up with our dreams (joyful contemplation of possibilities), with our wholeness, our happiness. Satan tries to get us off track, getting us to lose focus of our dream, so that we start getting mired in our circumstances instead of holding onto our dreams.

  Pastor Don reminded us of the following Disney song:

  A dream is a wish your heart makes
  When you’re fast asleep
  In dreams you lose your heartaches
  Whatever you wish for, you keep
  
  Have faith in your dreams and someday
  Your rainbow will come smiling through
  No matter how your heart is grieving
  If you keep on believing
  the dream that you wish will come true
  
  Our dreams are something that we think about and then at some point apply faith to so that you can arrive at your destiny. Our destiny is God’s purposeful plan for you to fulfill what you have desired to do.

  Julie, one of our members, had in her Bible a page torn out from the devotional The Word for You Today, Entry from August 12 about dreams. “What’s your dream? When you dream you move closer to the way God sees things; you see beyond your limitations; you move from where you are to where He wants you to be; you begin to see your goals in their completed state. The question isn’t can you dream, but do you have the courage to act on it? If your dream doesn’t stretch you to the point of discomfort it’s probably not of God. Furthermore, God won’t miraculously lift you out of your dream and set you down in the middle of its fulfillment. The children of Israel dreamed of living in the Promised Land. But the only way to get there was through the wilderness. That’s where we learn to (a) trust God daily for the manna we need; (b) discover His power in the Red Sea situations of our lives; (c) be led by Him when there are no clear sign posts; (d) get up every morning with our eyes on our destiny and move steadily toward it; (e) refuse to become like those who complain and never make it out of the wilderness. Now for a warning; someone will always try to steal your dream. Always! Often it’ll be someone who never had a dream of their own, of if they did they abandoned it. It could even be a family member who reminds you of what God couldn’t or wouldn’t do through someone like you. What do you dream about? What has God enabled you to see that doesn’t yet exist? You’ll never out-dream God! For “God can do… far more than you can ever imagine.”

  And an entry from August 13 “Pursue the dream God has given you no matter how farfetched it may seem, for dreams are like your children; they’re your offspring. They’re the joy of your present and the hope of your future. Protect them. Feed them. Encourage them to grow, for as long as you have a dream you’ll never be old. In spite of betrayal by his family, attempted seduction by Potiphar’s wife and false imprisonment, Joseph’s dream carried him all the way to his destiny as ruler of Egypt. Now, we’re talking about God-given dreams that lead to God-honoring results, not selfish ambition. Paul writes, “Long before we first heard of Christ…he had…designs on us for glorious living” (Eph 1:11-12) God has a dream for you and if you seek Him He’ll reveal it to you. But when he does, remember 3 things: (1) Dreams are specific, not general; personal, not public. God won’t give somebody else your dream, He’ll give it to you. He may confirm it through others, but He’ll reveal it to you. When He does, don’t share it with the wrong people our you’ll get hurt. Like Joseph’s brothers, they won’t be able to handle it, especially if it doesn’t include them. (2) Dreams are usually outside the realm of the expected. Often your dream will cause rational people to say, “You’ve got to be kidding!” Remember, that their opinion, not God’s; with Him “all things are possible.” (3) Dreams separate winners from losers. Dreamers are always a minority. Those who walk by sight will always outnumber those who walk by faith. So today, follow your God-given dream.”

  Pastor Don asked us how can fulfilling scripture, doing what God desires for us, and doing what we dream about be the same thing?

  Then Pastor Don said that he has hanging up on his kitchen wall the following scripture which he always starts his day off reading, Psalm 37:1-4.

  Psalm 37: 1-2 Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and whither as the green herb.

  We had to repeat many times “do not fret”. Pastor Don told us not to worry for God will step into our enemy’s lives and fulfill their worst nightmares. God will take care of the evildoers, we don’t have to return evil for evil. God is not a bully. If we are holding onto an evildoer in our life and asking God to whack him, God won’t do it. We have to let the evildoer go, take our hands off of him, and then God can deal with the evildoer (not always whacking though). He wants to reach all people, just like he reached us.

  Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

  God will take care of our needs, He is faithful. He is sovereign. Our worry won’t change things because God has it in control.

  Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

  This is the verse that Pastor Don focused on. Pastor Don pointed out that there were two ways to interpret this verse. One is material – that God will give us what we desire in the physical. The problem is, that so often we say to ourselves that “If I had that car, boat, house, thing, then I will be happy. But that is a fleeting happiness because that thing like the car will break down. There will be repair bills, etc. But God knows best what is in our heart and will make us really happy. It isn’t the thing – it is what the thing represents. For example, if you want a mansion – it isn’t the mansion, but the security that having one’s own home provides. God knows what the real desire is, and it doesn’t always coincide with what we think the desire is.

  The second way of reading this verse is that God actually places the desire that we have into our hearts. He knows what will make us happy, He knows what is in our best interests. When we ask God to put the desire in our heart, and then pray for that desire to come to pass, we are praying in line with God, and He will honor that prayer for the desire to be fulfilled.

  He will put the desire into our heart that He knows will fulfill that deep need that is there.

  Ecclesiastes 2:19-23 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This is always vanity.

  All the things we desire are fleeting, but God knows what is good for us. If our duty and dream don’t line up, we may not arrive at our destiny and all of our labor is in vain. For if we are working towards things that are not of eternal value, then they will pass away.

  Lamentations 1:9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not consider her destiny, therefore her collapse was awesome; she had no comforter. “O Lord behold my affliction, for the enemy is exalted!”

  The skirts refer to the external trappings, and were donned without considering the destiny, so the collapse was inevitable. She did not have the comforter (She being Israel in this case, but also us). The Comforter we know as the Holy Spirit who will help to guide us to our destiny.

  John 14 – 17 talks about the Holy Spirit as a comforter. Without the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can get lost somewhere between our dream and our destiny, for we can get locked in time and circumstances. But the Holy Spirit can guide us with a sure hand towards our destiny.

  2 Corinthians 1:8-12 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many, for our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.

  Paul talks about the race, keeping the eye on the prize, and keeping the focus on the work for Christ. As you can see above, he caught lots of trouble in doing God’s will. We have to get it out of our minds that when we are walking towards our destiny the way will always be easy or without trouble. Not so, Paul, Jesus, the disciples, all had challenges. But they focused on the destiny, not getting caught up in the confusion of circumstances. God gave Him the grace (complete with the power and ability) to do what He willed.

  Dreams and duty gives us the ability to step into our destiny. We have to get out and heed His specific commands for us. This goes beyond age – whether you are two or 102, there are things that we can be doing for the Kingdom. We don’t know what our final destiny will be. We do know that God wants us to be happy, and He will give us the peace that passes all understanding. We need to begin to walk out our dreams, not the dreams in our heads, but the dreams in our hearts. And as we walk, God will guide us toward the destiny.

  Hope you have a blessed night!

  Heather

   

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