THE BIRTH OF A DREAM
We had good services this morning, especially with having as many visitors as we did. We should remember them in prayer that the Lord will continue what perhaps began in their hearts.
Traditionally, Easter and Christmas can bring in people that don’t normally attend church services. Most everyone will sense God’s voice call them out from their routine of things and bring them into church.
Did you know that the Lord actually will (at one point, or another) stir everyone’s heart to consider the things of God.
I believe that even the coldest of hearts that seem indifferent to having anything to do with the Lord, will sense a need for spiritual matters. It’s just that some people are better at hiding their heart than others.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has put eternity in their hearts…(NKJ)
I believe that everyone is affected by the call of God. If you were to ask someone that is not a believer what he/she wants out of life, they may answer with the most basic of things.
“Oh, give me some water, and some food, and some place to sleep, a place to play and have fun, and I’d like to have someone who loves me and will take care of me. Basic necessities.
That request fits the needs of a dog’s life.
Seriously, any person will have a desire for more than that. Oftentimes, people will try and find happiness from most anything in life. These things can become fixations in our lives. We get attached to different things that can possess our hearts.
These things can become idols for anyone looking outside the realm of God, and His eternity. This is a problem for the unsaved and for the saints of God.
Idolatry can control a believer’s life and cause confusion and heartaches. A believer living like this is looking for a spiritual accent in their life, and that’s about all. It’s just like a spiritual band aid. This becomes a carnal relationship with the Lord.
This happened at the church at Corinth, and Paul wrote to them and said this in I Corinthians 3:3
You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
Paul also said in Ephesians 3:11 that we have “eternal purposes” that we have to consider. There are things in this life that are much more important than we realize. We can no longer afford to look to Jesus just for the needs in our day to day lives. We have to understand that Jesus has for each of you an eternal plan that He is trying to birth in your hearts.
God can and will speak to you and tell you specifically what He has for you. As an example consider the Birth of Jesus.
Text: Luke 1:31 thru 37
Mary is told, by God what her Destiny is for the rest of her life. It was birthed within her literally and figuratively. There will never be any question in her heart and soul what her life is all about. She will have to remember this angelic visitation the rest of her life. This is what I would call a significant spiritual experience. Mary’s life will never be the same.
This was no small task. Without the hand of God Almighty to protect and guide her, Mary could have lost her life as a result of this prophecy. Mary had to give up any other ambition in her life.
Our Divine Destiny is no different. We have to hear from God and set aside every other ambition we have ever dreamed of in order to fulfill the plan the Lord has for us.
And like Mary, when we discover the eternal purpose for our lives, we will never be the same again. We have learn how to walk in it with complete surrender to the outcome.
Nothing else will ever be as important as the eternal purpose that God has for you.
As with the birthing process that any woman goes through, there comes a time when you have to make some tough decisions.
When you allow the Lord to Birth that Dream in your life, you will have new responsibilities. You may even be tempted to abort that dream in trade for the satisfaction of someone else or something else.
There was a time when Jesus spoke to some tax collectors, lawyers and Pharisees about John the Baptist. The tax collectors had been baptized by John the Baptist, and they agreed with Jesus that John was a “greater prophet”. The Pharisees and lawyers didn’t. Look at Luke 7:30 NIV.
It is evident that God did have a purpose for the Pharisees and Lawyers. But when they looked at things from their biased perspective, they choose to reject God’s purpose for their lives.
They missed what God had for them.
They aborted the plan the Lord had for their lives.
So you can see that God even had a purpose for the Pharisees.
We should understand that Jesus wasn’t biased against the Pharisees. Rather Jesus just wanted these men to take hold of the eternal purpose God had for them. An eternal purpose of living the example of the Truth before the Jewish people.
We have to serve the eternal purpose God has created us to live.
Read Philippians 2:12 & 13.
We have a partnership with God. We are to do and want to do exactly what He wants for our lives.
Why is this so important? Because we are many times like the Pharisees in that we have a different agenda from what the Lord has designed for us. We can ignore it, defy it and even rebel against it. (If we choose to.)
I haven’t the time tonight, but each of us need to meditate on the third chapter of Philippians 3. There we will find the revelation to the Birth of Our Dream. The fact of the matter is this,
You cannot determine your Destiny.
This is the common thinking with the New Age Movement.
Your Destiny is determined by Christ reigning and ruling inside of you. It will be Christ and Christ alone Who will walk out the steps that God has for you, after you surrender with complete obedience to His Eternal Purpose.
Galatians 4:19
My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,
We will discover our destiny when Christ is formed inside us. If we attempt to perform or develop a talent, or what we think we are good at, we will miss the Eternal Purpose He has for us.
The best example of this is the parable of the Prodigal son. Before he left home he only wanted the things that belonged to his father. But when he came to senses and came home, all the son wanted was to be in his father’s presence.
Just like Mary, there is a new life being formed in many of you. It may not be an easy thing for you to adjust to.
You may not enjoy going through the process of the giving birth to your dream. There may be some hardships.
Hebrews 12:7
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.
Some of you may be excited with the changes God is bringing into your life, but there may be those who are having to experience some new disciplines in their life.
The fact of the matter is when difficulties happen to the unsaved, they have no one to turn to.
When it happens to you, you should understand that it very well could be the Lord conditioning you for His Eternal Purpose.
Sometimes we Christians are looking for the easy way out on the hard stuff. We selfishly want some high powered Evangelist to come and pray the hardships out of our lives.
But God ain’t through with you yet.
God may be treating you as sons and daughters.
I Thessalonians 3:1 thru 3
We were born to endure/suffer in certain things. Sometimes when the Lord is dealing with someone specifically on something, they will turn the other cheek and go to another church.
They will choose to run away from the challenges they are faced with. This is not the plan of Destiny for that person.
When it comes to the things of God, you can run but you can’t hide. God will follow you and keep taking you back to where you tried to leave Him off.
God has gone to a lot of trouble to stay after you with what He has for you. He is not going to give up on you.
He is more persistent than you are. You can find yourself getting side tracked with what the Lord is doing in your life, and you will look to find your satisfaction somewhere else.
You should know that nothing else in this life is more important than the calling on your life.
Hebrews 12:1
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Closing:
With every birth, the mother is told to Push…
PUSH = Pray Until Something Happens
Your Destiny is Eternal.
1 Corinthians 15:19
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Our reward for this life’s destiny will not be found here.
There is so much more in the eternal life with our destiny.
