Pillar One: Basic Discipleship - What is Keeping You From Your Destiny

The following is a transcript of the Audio and Video for Pillar One: Basik Discipleship - What is Keeping You From Your Destiny

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What is keeping you from your destiny?  You know you have one. Everybody has one. Everybody on the face of the earth was created for a reason. That is why abortion is so wrong. There is no telling how many people who could have solved some of the greatest problems, written some of the best music or drawn some of the greatest paintings were killed through abortion. They had a destiny.  That is what God says in Psalms 139:16, “Before you were born, I knew what I was going to do with you.”  I do not care who you are. I do not care if you are sitting in a bar watching this. I do not care if you are in a jail cell. I do not care if you are in a business office in another country. I do not care if you are just sitting at your computer and watching this on the Internet, God has a destiny for you. If you are young, you have energy and excitement towards life. You have dreams. You have goals. You have things you want to do and God wants to use your life. In fact, it even says in the Bible not to get caught up in youthful lusts that war against your soul.  Put them aside and get going with God.
 
God does have a plan. Are you familiar with the book, The  Purpose Driven Life? Have you read it?  It is really is good to help you get a grip, idea or wisdom on how to know what you are really supposed to be doing.  But here is my question: millions of those books have been sold and I do not know that I have met that many people that can say, “I am in my destiny and I know it and I am just going.”  But the people that are doing it have a spring in their step, they have energy, they have passion. 
 
How do you know your destiny? (Look at this picture. Look at this girl. You can tell she is there asking that question. She is thinking, “Lord what am I here for? What am I suppose to be doing?”)  I have discovered there are usually three reasons why people do not know their destiny or do not actually get in it.  The first one is they do not know what it is. They have never figured out how to know what it is. The second reason why people do not reach their destiny is that they will not grow it. They will not do what it takes in order to grow into their destiny.  The last thing is that they blow it.  I heard that there are more people in prison that were called to preach than there are anywhere else. Why would that be?  Because when they got going with their life, they had that call. They ran from it, ran to the wild life, ran to the troubled life. But God can call you out anywhere you are. I do not care if you are 65 years old and are hearing this for this first time. You may be thinking, “Lady, I have missed it.”  I want to tell you, no, you have not. There are other people who begin late in life.  Colonel Sanders was around 65 years old when he founded Kentucky Fried Chicken.  He had been a salesman and had not really done that much with his life. He got this idea of making chicken with a special blend of herbs and spices.  He used to be in the advertisements and it was been a wonderful thing. He did a great thing with his life from 65 on.

I want you to zero in on God and say, “Lord, I need you to make so clear to me that I know what my destiny is, because I am going to do it.” You cannot be one of those people that says, “Tell me what it is, and I’ll think about it. If I want to do it, I will get back with You and let you know.”   I will tell you right now that He will never tell you, because God is all or nothing. You can go with God and do what God wants you to do, or you can go with yourself and do what you want to do.  God does not play a game with you and say, “Okay, well I will tell you about it, you think about it and get back with Me, then we will work.”  He does not do that. He says, “I have the plan. I created you before the foundation of the earth. I have a plan for your life. If you will give me all, I will give it to you. Then you have to make that choice. That is the first step.
 
(Look at this second picture. Do you see this puzzled businessman?  Now look at him. He is so frustrated and cannot figure out what is going on and what he is doing here.)  One of the main reasons people do not get their destiny is they do not know what it is. A lot of people are in business, and they were never called to be in business. Or they are a doctor or a lawyer and they were not called to that. They just thought it was a good thing to do. Or they were a teacher or a musician. It does not matter.  So many people allowed themselves to be guided, pushed or pressured into something where they knew, “This is not what I want to do with my life. This is not it.”  And that is that puzzled businessman.

Everybody who is following what they believe to be God’s destiny for their life needs to know some certain things. First, you have to know what your real talents are. There are tests you can take at most colleges and junior colleges that will show you what your aptitudes are. They are usually not very expensive. You also need to know what your gifts are. This is where people miss it the most. When you are gifted at something, you think everybody can do it. I have had people say to me, “You mean everybody cannot do this?” And I will say, “No, they cannot do it.” The person will say, “It comes to me so easily, I just thought it is not a big deal.” The reason it comes to you so easily is that God gave it to you. He put it in you when you did not even know it. You also need to think about your personality. If you are an introvert and do not want to be with people, God is not going to put you out in front with a big TV show. He is not going to put you out where you have to be out doing something you are not equipped to do. He wants you to prosper. He wants you to be successful.
 
Let me ask you something about your destiny. What is in your heart that you want to do? What would you love to do? If you had asked me when I was in in high schooI, what was in my heart that I wanted to do, I would have said travel.  I wanted to travel, work with people, meet all kinds of people and speak. I have been speaking in front of large groups since I was in about the 5th grade. Has it been hard?  No, it is not hard at all.  It is fun because I love it. Do I get scared? No, I just get excited. Why is that? It is because God put that inside me. It is easy for me.  When other people say to me, “Don’t ever ask me to get up and speak in front of people, I sure do not want to do that. The thought of that scares me,” I look at them and I think, “I love it.” I just love it because I am made that way. 

Another question I want to ask you is where have you seen God use this desire in some form or fashion in your life?   Where have you seen God use it already in your life? It may not be where you ultimately would like to go, but where have you seen it used?   God starts small. In Zachariah 4:10 it says, “Do not despise the day of small beginnings, for the eyes of the Lord rejoice to see the work begin.”  Do not ever think that your destiny is going to arrive on a silver platter with all of the problems worked out or that you will know everything about how to do it. It just does not work that way. You will look back in your life and begin to see all along there have been things that you always wanted to do and you got to do them. What have you done that has brought you the most life and joy? That will help you determine your destiny. What brings you joy? What is it? What brings you life? You may be tired, but you get all of this energy when you get to do this thing. You may wonder where all of that energy came from. It came from that destiny inside of you.
 
Let me ask you another question. What would you love to do to serve God the most? If you could do anything you wanted to do, anything to serve God, what would you do? I can tell you what mine would be. I would be going all over the world all of the time. I would just come home long enough to see my children and grandchildren regularly and see my friends. I would want my husband with me. The passion in my heart is to go all over the world, living with the people, telling them about Jesus, telling how wonderful He is, and what He can do for their life, and telling them what He did for my life.
 
God has his own ways of bringing about your destiny. One of the ways is called death of a vision. It happened all though the Bible. God would put it in a person’s heart to do something.  They would start out doing it, and the next thing you know something happened that killed that thing. There was no hope of it ever happening.  Then God brought it about in such a way that it was better than ever. What are some examples of that in the Bible? Joseph is probably the best example. Joseph had a dream as a teenager. He said, “I saw the sun, the moon and the stars bowing down to me, and it was all of you. You are all going to bow down to me.” It made his brothers so mad. And yet, it was really God’s dream for his life and it did happen. But it died in a big way. He even ended up in prison. Maybe you are in prison, and you had a big dream. If you will completely sell out to God, get rid of bad friends, get rid of your drugs, your alcohol, your junk, ditch it (it is killing you anyway) and say, “God,  here is my life. If You can do something with it, I am giving it to You. I mean it, and I am not going to go back. I do not care how hard it is. I am asking You right now, make me strong because I do not want to go back.”   God will use you, and it can be the greatest thing that ever happened to you.
 
Another example in the Bible of how God worked out destiny is Abraham and Isaac. (Look at this picture. Right now, on your screen. There is Abraham and Isaac; it is kind of like a cartoon isn’t it?) The thing that meant the most to Abraham was his son. God said, “Sacrifice it.” That is another aspect of reaching your destiny. One is finding out all of your gifts and talents and where you want to go. Two, you have that death of a vision that nearly always occurs.  The third thing is that you have to sacrifice it. You have to say, “Lord, if I have to give this up in order to serve you, then I will give it up. You mean more to me than anything in the world. I will give up anything in order to stay with you.” Abraham got there, I cannot even imagine being there. What a terrible place to be. But you see, Jehovah, had a ram in the bush. Often when we are looking for where God wants us to go and what God wants us to do, we do not see a ram in the bush. We just see God saying, “Give that up. Die to it. Sacrifice it.” Then when we are willing, God says, “Look over there. What do you see over there?” And there is your ram in the bush. A different way of doing the same thing God asked.
 
Jesus of Nazareth was not what the Jews expected. I have read the prophecies in the Old Testament. We have the New Testament and two thousand years to look back.  We are able to see, “Yes, of course that was Jesus. He was talking about Jesus.” But they thought he was going to be a mighty king that was going to deliver them from all of their enemies. He was going to set up this mighty kingdom on earth and rule and reign.  They thought they were going to be a part of it. It is true that it will happen, but not yet. That has to wait till the Second Coming. The first time Jesus came, they stumbled over him. He was from a little old hick town. They said, “Nazareth, can anything good come out of Nazareth?” and he did not look like what they thought he ought to look like. He did not say what they thought he would say. He did not do what he thought he ought to do. But, Jesus, on in the inside, knew his destiny. Did He not? He knew it.
 
Sometimes that is what keeps you from your destiny. People around you have not heard God talk to you, and you have. And they do not understand. “You want to do what?” I had people saying that to me. I would tell people, “God is going to take me all over the world. I am going to speak all over the world. I know because He has spoken it to my heart.” And they would look at me like, “Really?” But I knew it, and it did not matter that they did not believe. I knew it. And Jesus knew it.

You know it. You know what God is saying to you. In fact, if you are even in doubt at all just say, “God, would you confirm it again to me. Would You do something that tells me again, ‘I am calling you to this. This is Me. You know my voice.” God does not want you to be in the dark about what He wants you to do with your life. There is too much work to be done. In fact, it is like, “All hands on deck! Do not care if you are a man. Do not care if you are a woman. Do not care if you are a child. Do not care where you live. Do not care if you live in a country where you have a dictator. Do not care. Nothing stops the Lord God. Nothing. And you can do your destiny. I do not care if you say, “I am so poor.” Well, Gideon said that. He said, “I am the poorest, my family is the poorest family. I am the runt of the family. Nobody listens to me.” And God said, “Listen, you mighty man of valor. I have called you. You are the one. I have picked you.” God will do that with you. You do not have to wait until the circumstances are right. If you go through all of that opposition, but you will not grow from it, you still are going to be kept from your destiny.

(Look at this picture of this man preaching. Can’t you tell he has got the fire in him? He has the passion in him. Look at his body language. Look at his face. I can look at that man’s face and tell that he has a pure heart. He is out there. He is so excited. He is doing what God called him to do.)

You know that dream inside of you and it will not go away.  You may have disappointing things happen, unbelief in yourself, fear or doubt. The dream goes away for awhile, and the next thing you know, it is back again. It pulls on you, and it will not let go of you. You cannot get rid of it. It will pop out at the most inopportune times and go, “Here I am. I am your destiny. Do not give up.” That happened to my son. He had a dream to go to Harvard. And he put a little piece of paper in his billfold that said, “Harvard, there is no substitute.” He went through college, played around and did not make good grades.  He went through a sad marriage that ended in divorce. He was driving a taxi while he was finishing his undergraduate degree. He said, “Mom, it is the craziest thing. About the time I start thinking, “You will never go to Harvard. What are doing thinking you could go to Harvard’?  I will pick up a fare, they get in the taxi and we start talking.  They will say something like, ‘Well, I went to Harvard. If I can go, you can go. Sure, you can go. Hang onto that. You can go.’” He said, “Mom, it just pops up every time, and it comes back bigger than ever.” That is because it is a God dream for you. He eventually ended up going to Harvard.  He got a Masters degree and made great grades.  It shocked all of us. He made really good grades.
 
It can be a long time in coming. That is the hardest thing. That has happened to me, and maybe it has happened to you. You say, “I have gone along. I have done what God has said to do. I have tried really hard to do a good job and be found faithful.”  That is very important in growing your dream. You have to be found faithful. Do not be one of those people that looks at what God is having you do now and say, “This is not that big of a deal. I only want to do the big stuff.” No, I told you God said, “Do not despise the day of the small beginnings.” You want to be found faithful. It does not matter how it looks. You are not out to impress people anyway. You have an audience of one that you are trying to impress, just God. And you want to impress Him with your faithfulness, “Lord, I am doing it. And I am not going to quit. I am going to do a good job.” But you see, even if it is a long time in coming, God will have signposts all along the way to encourage you that say, “Hang on. It is coming. Hang on.” When you get the most discouraged, that is about the time one of them will pop up.
 
Look at this next scripture, Habakkuk 2:2-3, “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Write my answer plainly on the tablets, so that a runner can carry the message to others. This vision is for our future times. It describes the end and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently. For it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” God will not even be delayed an hour.
 
I heard the neatest thing recently about Joseph.  The speaker said, “You know three months before Joseph was released from prison, he had no idea he was going to be released. He had been there for years. Three weeks before he was released, he had no idea. Three days before he had no idea. Three minutes before, he had no idea it was going to happen, and then, Bam!  It happened on the time table of God, right on time, not one second late. God is detailed and organized and especially in the affairs of men”
 
What else keeps you from growing into your destiny? One thing is that you get into a comfort zone. You may not like where you are and wish you could change, but you are comfortable. You have a good paycheck. A man once said to my husband, “Bill, do you know what keeps men from really doing something with their lives? It is having a pretty good job.” He went on to say, “Bill, I was in one of those people. I was a geologist and it was a pretty good job. I was taking care of my family. But I really wanted to get into the oil exploration business. I was scared, but I decided if I do not go for it, I would be stuck in this comfort zone.  I really did not want to be there.” He said, “I just stepped out, and I am so glad I did.” You want to do that. You do not want to be a person that says, “I wish I had done that.” You want to be a person that says, “I am glad I did that, oh so glad I did it.”
 
Fear stares at you and says, “You are going to fail.” That is from the devil. He wants you to fail. But God wants you to succeed beyond your highest expectations. He wants you to look at that dream and say, “I want to do this, but I cannot do it without you, Lord. You can open doors that I cannot open. You can put me in places where I would not even know to go. You can put people across my path I would have no way of knowing. God, you can do it and I want to do it.” Never say, “I am too poor. I am uneducated. I do not know how.” It is going to stretch you to reach your destiny. That is what God wants you to do. He wants you to stretch and become a bigger and bigger person.
 
It is hard. There are character qualities that also keep you from growing. There are some character qualities that God needs to grow and develop in you. The first one is integrity. How is your integrity? Are you ethical? Do you do what you say you will do? Are you honest? How about availability? Do you do things on God’s time schedule or do you say, “No, God I do not want to take care of those people. I am tired.” And God is saying, “Do it.” Do you have a servant’s heart? Are you willing to meet other people’s basic needs without expecting any kind of a reward? Do you do it just because of God called you do to it?  There is a book called, Who Moved My Cheese that can help you move out of your comfort zone.  It can help you figure out how you need to change and how to move into a new call of God.
 
Now look at Matthew 20:28.  It says, “Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.” Well, that seems backwards, does it not? That is what the Son of Man did. He came to serve, not to be served. That is why Jesus said, “I came to minister, not to be ministered to.” When you are really doing God’s work, you must be willing to say, “I do not care if it is my desire. I do not care if it is my destiny. I do not care if it makes my heart go pitter patter.” You have to always be thinking, “I am doing this because I want to help people, I want to serve people. I want to serve God. I am not doing it for the wrong reasons.” You have to have commitment. You have to have consistency, courage, creativity, dependability and determination.

If it is God’s destiny for you, there will be plenty that happens along the way that is totally unexpected. You must have the fear of the Lord. You have to be able to say, “Lord, I want to do what you say. I am not going to stand before you in Heaven and have to hang my head and admit, ‘I did not reach my destiny.’” So, do not blow it. Do not blow it. Go for it. You can do it.      
 

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS                       
1.  List the reasons why people are not in their destiny.
2.  What can you expect in the beginning of your journey toward your destiny?
3.  What attributes are required of you before you can reach your destiny?
4.  Write out the questions you need to ask yourself in order to know your destiny, pray about these questions, and then record your answers. 

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