Fulfilling Your Purpose

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We welcome the Lord here today, and we want to welcome our visitors who’ve been here for the first time. We pray that you feel welcome, that you’ve felt his presence, and that you will continue to feel his presence the rest of our time together. Today, I’d like to speak on the subject of Fulfilling Your Purpose.

Fulfilling Your Purpose. I’m just going to read one passage of scripture, a little longer than I usually read, but it all fits together. The book of John chapter 21, reading from verse 18.

Jesus was speaking here to the apostle Peter just after he’d asked him three times, Peter, do you love me? In response to Peter’s three times where he denied the Lord. And the Lord turned those three denials of Peter into three callings, three ministries. And then Jesus gave a prophetic word to Peter.

He said, most assuredly, I say to you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked wherever you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch forth your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go. This he spoke, indicating by what death he would glorify God.

And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me. And Peter, turning about, saw the disciple that Jesus loved following, the one who had also leaned on his breast at supper and said, Lord, is the one who is the one who’s betraying you. So of course, it’s the apostle John who’s writing this.

Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, what about him? Jesus said to him, ” If I want him to stay till I come. What’s that got to do with you? You follow me. God has a unique and special purpose for your life.

He knows the end from the beginning. And he’s made a plan, especially just for you. Now in making this plan, he’s taken into account both your abilities, your desires, and your circumstances.

But when you look at what others are doing, sometimes perhaps you feel that he’s shown favoritism to them over you. When you cannot achieve what others are doing, sometimes you feel that you’re a failure. Now Peter’s experience, I’m afraid, is often our own.

We’re too concerned about what’s happening in the lives of others. Well, Peter, this is what my plan is for you. You know, Lord, I don’t know if I like that one.

What about him? Did you also give him a bad one like me? Is he also going to die and get crucified? Now they didn’t know at the time Jesus said this what Jesus meant, actually, but John was writing this way after, and he knew exactly what had happened. Only then did they understand what Jesus meant when he spoke that to Peter. But Peter was thinking, well, you know, Lord, you know, if that’s going to happen to me, what about John? You know, he’s also one of your disciples.

Well, truth be told, John was the only one who actually wasn’t martyred at all at 12. He’s the only one who died of old age. And Jesus knew that.

I think too often, we take our eyes off the call that God has for us and the purpose that he has for us. We start looking around at what other people are doing. And you know, it goes a lot deeper than you realize, because sometimes these things begin very early in our lives.

Right back in our early experiences in childhood. For example, a mother who fails to accept you the way you are, who compares you with others. Well, I wish you were as clever as your brother.

I wish you were as pretty as your sister. But I guess we got the run to the family, which is you. You know, sometimes parents aren’t quite that abrupt, but sometimes they can be.

Sometimes they can be quite hurtful in comparing you. And what about our friends, kids? Do you know what? You don’t seem to shape up with them. Why are you so weak and useless? And you know, sometimes mothers do that without even realizing that they’re doing it.

My own mother was a very strong woman. When I was younger, she looked at how I was doing at school, and she said, ” How come you’re so low in the class? And so and so, we had personal friends, a family who kind of had kids almost the same age as us. How come this guy, who’s your age, in the same class as you, why is he doing so much better than you? See, now, I didn’t know it at the time, but my mom actually saw my potential, and she wanted to encourage that potential.

But she went about it all wrong. What she communicated to me was, you’re not acceptable to me because you’re not as good as somebody else. And that had a very strong effect on me.

Mothers can have a very strong effect on their children, either through neglect or by creating a wrong impression. Because you see, a mother is to give the acceptance that a child needs. And anything that is viewed as, you don’t accept me as the way I am, leaves a scar.

And the first effect that it has is that you begin to compare yourself with others. You begin to think, I’m not as good as my brother. I’m not as good as my sister.

I’m not good enough to be loved. Therefore, I must change. I must do something to somehow earn the same attention that they’re getting.

And yeah, fathers, I’m afraid, make the same mistake. See, fathers fail to recognize your abilities. A father shows favoritism to other siblings.

Oh, you know, my son, he’s so strong and great. He does sports. Pity you weren’t a boy.

It can happen. It can even happen the other way around, you know. My daughter is so beautiful.

You know what? You just don’t even come close to her. Just look at how she gets A’s in the classes, and here you struggle just to barely make it through. You know, why don’t you wake up? Rejection.

Rejection. And since the father is meant to give the recognition and the direction for a child, we once again come to this place where we think, for me to be recognized, I need to change. I need to do something.

I need to perform. I need to compete with somebody else and be like them, or I’m not good enough. I think we’ve all been there to some degree or another, because parents are sinful beings.

Even with this knowledge, I made some mistakes myself as a parent, so let’s not shoot mom and dad down just yet. Okay? You can’t change what happened back there, but you can change how you responded. See, and then, of course, siblings.

Brothers and sisters. Oh, boy. There’s a competition, isn’t there, to see who’s going to get the most attention, to see who’s going to get the most favor.

And some siblings, they just win because of who they are. You know, in South Africa, they sometimes call the last one the ‘laat lammetjie.’ The laat lammetjie is spoiled rotten.

You know, and the kids that have labored through the day, through the years, have been faithful. You’re not good enough. You’re not the exciting young baby.

All of these things happen that create within us a sense of, I’ve got to change. I’ve got to be like somebody else. I’ve got to always be on the lookout to see what other people are doing.

Otherwise, I’m not going to succeed. And that starts just in our normal life. And this is what results in and creates.

First, the ‘S ‘word. Stress.

We’ve been looking at how stress can cause some of the major diseases in your body. Deep distress. Fear of failure.

If I fail, I will not be accepted. If I fail, I will not be recognized. So I’ve got to make sure that I do not fail.

Inferiority and insecurity. I’m just the ugly one. You know, my brother’s tall up there, you know, and there’s little me.

What hope do I have? He’s playing A-team rugby at school. Nobody even wants me in any team of any kind. See, I’m just useless.

I’m ugly. And very often, it’s taken up with our abilities or our looks. There are so many things.

But always, there’s this sense of, I’m competing all the time with somebody else to be accepted, to be recognized, to be happy in life. And then you realize that actually, it’s true. You’re not so good.

And you’re going to compete with the other person, sure as nuts, you’re going to lose. So what do you do? You avoid competition. So here’s what you do.

You say, I’m not going to do what everybody else is doing because they’re going to beat me hands down. I’m going to find something else to do that they can’t do. To make me stand out and be unique.

See, nobody can then compare me with somebody else and say, ” Hey, you’re not as good as them because I’m the only one doing it. It’s one of the ways we can respond. And so we have this driving force to be unique, to be different, to go against the grain and go against the status quo, and just to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing, just for spite, just to prove I can be unique, I can achieve.

And then you’re going to overemphasize what? Your natural abilities. See, if the beautiful people are not where you fit because you’re not beautiful, you’re going to find another gift or ability that you have that will make you look better. You know, so I have good strengths.

I can compete in sports. I may not look so good, but man, I can jump higher. I can run faster.

And so you throw yourself fully into another effort in the hope that somehow you can succeed without being told you’re not good enough because everybody else is better than you. Some people go the opposite direction. They say, I have to win.

If it kills me, I have to win. I cannot take failure. So if I compete with somebody, I’m going to practice twice as hard.

I’m going to get twice as fit. I’m going to push myself. I’m going to lose weight.

I’m going to do whatever it takes until I beat them. You know, it goes right down to playing a board game, like Monopoly or something. These people, they can’t lose.

They lose a game, but a game of chance determined by how you threw the dice. And they get all discouraged and depressed and they just don’t want to play anymore. Try to cover a whole lot of different areas because these are some of the effects that this has in our lives.

You know what you end up being? You end up being driven. You’re not in the driver’s seat anymore. You’re being driven.

You’re being driven by an inner force that will not let you relax. They will not let you rest. They will not let you even be who you’re supposed to be because you determined you’ve got to win.

You’ve got to keep going. You’ve got to keep at it because if you don’t, somebody’s going to overtake you. That produces things like arthritis, ulcers, and high blood pressure.

So many effects in our lives because we can’t relax. Continually on our toes, we’ve got to keep our head above water. We’ve got to be the best.

You may think that God has given me great ability. We even give the Lord the glory for the great things that I do. How do I know these things? I’ve been there through a lot of these.

When I was still younger and full of zeal and felt I could conquer the world, man, I was just going one goal after another. I made this famous statement, ‘When I stop pushing forward, bury me ‘cos I am dead. One day, the Lord brought me to the place where he said, stop.

I wasn’t dead yet. And I realized I’d been pushing myself for years, thinking that I was doing it out of zeal for the Lord, but I wasn’t. I was trying to be unique.

I was trying to be different. I was trying to be on the cutting edge above everybody else and beyond everybody else so that I could stand and feel good about myself, that I’d accomplished great things for the Lord. Now, what about other people? If you have this need to perform and compete, other people cannot win.

So when you look at other people who are achieving, the first thing you would do is pick holes in it. Say, yeah, well, you know, if I had the money that her dad had, I could probably also do that, you know. You know, if I were living in that particular place, perhaps I could also accomplish that.

You know, he’s not so great. You know, he’s just been given opportunities I didn’t have. We try to justify why that person is succeeding, and we’re failing.

And we’re continually nitpicking and being negative about everybody else. And really, at the end of the day, it’s because you yourself are feeling insecure, incapable, and a failure. If you can find enough faults in that person, that makes me feel better.

You know, if that star has risen up and everybody’s talking about, if I can find a few faults in her, then maybe I won’t feel so ugly anymore. That’s human nature. It’s sinful human nature.

And all of these things, they rob us of the joy that God wants us to have. And you know, it affects your health. Well, one of the first things you’ve got to do is you can’t be a normal person who eats junk food and puts on weight.

Now, you’ve got to be super fit. You’ve got to do those exercises every day. You’ve got to be at the gym at least three or four times a week.

You’ve got to keep slim and trim. You’ve got to have that curvaceous figure. You’ve got to starve yourself because it doesn’t come naturally.

You’ve got to work hard and do all those exercises because it doesn’t come naturally. And you know something? It never satisfies. As fit as you are, or as slim as you get, you still aren’t satisfied.

You know why? Because there’s a restlessness inside of you, a driving force inside of you. And in the end, it just robs your health anyway, so that eventually you become physically incapable of doing any of these things. And what did you accomplish through all of that? Absolutely nothing.

Your Calling

Okay, that’s the bad news. Let’s bring the Lord into the picture. Sometimes the Lord’s in the picture there, but we just left him out.

Let’s bring the Lord into the picture. The Lord has a plan for your life. It’s known as a calling, okay? Now, your calling is unique to you.

I’ve taught this very clearly so many times. Your calling is not what everybody else is doing. ‘Well, I’m called to be a prophet.’

Do you know how many prophets there are out there? Yeah, you’ve got this problem of competing. You’re going to have to have something a bit better than just saying, I’m going to be a prophet. I’m going to be a pastor.

I’m going to be a teacher because there are millions of those. See, your calling is unique because God calls you based on your own unique talents and abilities and experiences in life and circumstances. He puts together a package that only you can do.

See, instead of worrying about being the best prophet, you’ve got to be the best you. See, for me to strive to be the greatest apostle is foolishness. I must be the greatest Les Crause that there is in this world, and that’s all that God requires of me.

Nothing more. Oh, but you know, Les Crause is one of those little nobodies. He’s just got this tiny little group of people, you know, and there’s this big name there who’s drawing the thousands.

See, that’s the mistake we make. Because I want to tell you something, your calling is likely to be very different from what everybody else is doing. Now, a lot of the time, we don’t want to be unique.

We want to be in with the in crowd, you see. But your calling is something that only you can do, that nobody else can do. So you need to find out what God’s called you to do.

Instead of looking at what everybody else is doing and saying, I’d like to do that as well. Now, there’s a place for that, as we’ll look at shortly. Now, the problem with a calling is that it requires a preparation.

And if you’ve been through our training courses, you will know that the preparation and training for those who rise up in leadership all have one common factor, the ‘D’ word, death. In other words, you’ve got to come to the place where all of the things you’re good at have to fail, where all the things that you depend on become undependable. You’ve got to come to the place where you realize that without God, you can do nothing.

But you spent your life competing with others. You spent your life being the best in what you do, lest somebody else should rise up above you and you get left behind. Such a person faces the greatest difficulty when they try to move into the call of God, because God says you don’t qualify for this lesson by being clever and passing the tests.

In the world, yes, that’s the way it is. You study hard, the more you know, the higher marks you get in the test, you’re the one who qualifies. In God’s economy, sometimes it’s the other way around.

The person who comes last in class is the one God wants. Why is that? Because the Lord doesn’t need your strengths or your abilities. He wants to be the one who provides those.

He wants you to learn to depend on him and on him alone. So what role then do other believers play in your spiritual experience? Should you not look at what other people are doing? Not at all. They can be a tremendous inspiration to you.

They may even give you a goal. When you see what they have accomplished for the Lord and with his power, you may say, Lord, I would really like to rise up like that and be used by you also. But it’s not a case of I want to do better than them.

When I was going through this syndrome when I was younger, I would sit in the pews listening to the preacher, and I would say to myself, I’m sure I could preach better than him. I’m going to learn how to preach better than him. And I did.

But it didn’t help me. People still didn’t recognize me. They still didn’t want to promote me.

They still didn’t want to put me behind the pulpit. Even my own pastor said, I’m jealous of you, the way you preach. He never gave me his pulpit.

So what did it accomplish? Absolutely nothing. It was only when I learned to come to that place of saying, Lord, I can’t do this without you. Lord, I can’t do this.

I am nothing. Who am I? Just a funny little old bald-headed man who has nothing going for him in this world. Lord, if you can take this ugly piece of clay and do something with it, have a go.

See if you can do something with it, Lord. See, that’s what God’s looking for. See, so if you’re having this problem of comparing yourself, if you’re driven to perform all the time to be the best, it’s actually going to stand in the way of you fulfilling your calling.

No matter how great somebody else is being used, you can never be that person. Because God called them to be what they are, and he’s called you to be what you must be. And the only thing you need to find out is, what he has called me to be? Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t come to him and say, oh, Lord, I would love to be used.

Lord, I would love to flow in certain gifts. Lord, I would love to teach and preach. There’s nothing wrong with that.

And in fact, if those desires are in you, the Lord may even have put those desires in you. You know, if you set your target to be as good as that minister over there, you may actually be aiming too low. God may have something greater for you.

You know how many people reach a plane in their ministry, and they’re now content? And yeah, sometimes that’s all they were meant to be. Maybe they were only meant to get that far. See, I had this striving.

I wanted to be in ministry, and the Lord said, ” No. But everybody else was going into ministry. They were not even as qualified as me.

Then he finally released me into ministry, and I thought, at last, I’ve arrived. And I thought, I want more.

I’m not happy with this. I want more. Because God had something higher for me.

How many people, they reach a plane, and they become satisfied? Some people like to just be pew warmers, you know. I’m going to go to church every Sunday, get blessed, and I’ll pray. And you know, most of us are happy if we’ve got enough money just to meet our needs at the end of the month.

And that’s fine if you’re happy with that. But you could be wealthy. It could be God’s calling you to something higher.

Have you asked him? Or have you looked at somebody else who’s wealthy and said, that’s not fair. I want to be like them. See, there’s a big difference between those two.

And you know, all that the Lord asks is that you follow him. Jesus said when he walked this earth, I do only what I see the Father do. Jesus didn’t look at what everybody else was doing.

He kept his eyes fixed on the Father, and he said, Father, what do I see you doing? What do you want me to do? And that’s what it means to follow him. To fix your eyes on him and see what Jesus is doing. See what Jesus wants to do.

Because whatever you do in ministry, it’s not going to be you doing it. It’s going to be him doing it through you. So what does Jesus want to do through you? Does he want to preach? Does he want to heal the sick? Does he want to just be there to care for people and show them love? Does he want to stand up and teach? What does Jesus want to do through you? Open your eyes and watch and see and follow him.

That’s all that’s required. And once you find that out, then you do that to the very best of your ability. Now, here’s the part that we struggle with.

Okay, Lord, I did what you told me to do. Lord, I stood up, and I preached fervently, powerfully, and nobody responded. You know, when I was finished, nobody said afterwards, ” Hey, that was a good preach.

Nobody shook my hand at the door and said, ” Hey, that was great. You know, I’m coming back next week to hear what you preach again. And sometimes they’re just kind of ignoring you.

You kind of get the feeling they probably didn’t like what I said. I guess they didn’t like what I said. Maybe I wasn’t so good.

Yeah, maybe I went a bit hard on that. Maybe I wonder, what did I do that was wrong? Have you been there? See, Jesus didn’t ask you to bring results. He asked you to do what he told you to do and to leave the results in his hands.

History shows that some of the greatest names came from insignificant little meetings with some little guy who was the only one who went forward to get saved. One day he became one of the first famous evangelists. See, now the preacher that day probably felt he failed because he didn’t get everybody coming to the front.

He’s got one young guy who probably didn’t even know what he was doing. You’ve been in ministry, you know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t, you’re going to find out soon enough.

And we in Mexico would send out to our mailing list, and I’d sit down and get a great revelation from the Lord, nice study, and I would send it out, thinking this is just going to bless the people. And if you got one amen, that was huge. Same thing on Facebook.

Post this awesome thing. Everybody’s going to rave. And all you get is amen, amen, amen.

I guess that didn’t touch them. I guess it didn’t mean much. So you’ve got to get yourself out of the way.

The only question you need to ask is did you do what God told you? Did you speak the words he told you to speak? How would you know somebody else? Somebody else posted some stupid little article and he had 10,000 results of people raving, raving, raving. And you said nothing. You said it.

It is so hard not to be discouraged when that happens. Sometimes the Lord, in his grace, rescues us. For me, it usually happens six months later.

And somebody will write and say, ” Remember that email you sent out and you said that? Oh, you know, that was exactly what I needed to hear. Yeah, it was right on time. It changed my life.

And I’m thinking, could you have told me a bit earlier? It would really have helped. Are you following him? Are you leaving the results to him? Do you know what? All you have to do is what he says. And whatever results come are the results he wanted to accomplish. It’s not to show what a great preacher, teacher, or minister or how anointed you are.

So you prayed for the sick and nobody got healed. How do you know? Healing may have come later. God may have touched somebody in a totally different way that you didn’t expect.

Did God tell you to do it? Yes. Were you anointed when you did it? I could feel the anointing. Nobody got healed.

You’re going to face a lot of that. In the aftermath of our seminar, as we’ve looked at moving in some of these things, and many of you received an impartation. And now you’re waiting for something super duper to happen.

And it hasn’t yet. I’ll give it time. Just take what he’s given you and use it.

Practice it. Develop it. Get it out to the world.

What does Jesus require of us? He requires us to just follow him, do what he tells us. And he only looks for three qualities: faith, hope, and love. You read the letters that Paul wrote to his churches.

And right at the beginning, he always says, I thank the Lord for your faith. Well, I thank the Lord for your hope or for your love. And if one of them is missing, he’d say, I thank the Lord for your faith and your love.

Now I pray he will give you the hope that you need. You’ll see it. Next time you read your Bible, if you haven’t done it for a while, go through all Paul’s epistles and look for those three words, faith, hope, and love.

And you’ll see how intertwined they are in everything. Those are the three things God is looking for. And if you can walk in faith and hope and love, you will have everything that you need to be what God has called you to be.

Well, how do we develop them? Oh, I could teach you a whole series on each one of them. But let me give you a simple summary and show you where the keys lie. Faith.

Where does faith come from? Romans 10, 18 says, faith comes by yearning and yearning by the rhema word of God, not by the logos word of God. Faith comes when you hear God speak words directly to you. In other words, got to come up out of your spirit.

Now, when God speaks in your spirit, usually he gives impressions or pictures. And sometimes we cannot understand those unless we’ve read the word. And so you need to combine the word with the inner revelation.

And when you do, a rhema comes out, you say, oh, that’s what God’s trying to tell me. Now I know that I know that I know. At that point, faith is born in your life.

So you need to feed on his word, and you need to be in his presence to hear what he’s saying to you. Now, he could be saying it to you from somebody else’s. Something that I said today may hit home straight.

Oh, I can hear God speaking straight to me. That may be your rhema. But the best rhema is the one that comes up out of your own spirit.

So you need to be in fellowship with the Lord and in his word to have faith. Hope means having a clear vision for the future. It means having something to aim for in life.

And it also means that when you step off the road, you are aware of the fact that you stepped off the road and get back on it again. Otherwise, you’re not going to reach that goal. That means not only do you need to have from the Lord a clear word of direction on what his purpose is for your life, but you need to continually, daily hear his confirmation that you’re doing it right.

You’ve got it right. You missed it there. Get back on the road.

Continual fellowship with him. Love means having the right motives in everything you do. Love means keeping it other-oriented, not self-oriented.

And we can’t do that without God’s divine love. Well, where do we get that from? The Bible says the love of God is shared abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which he has given to us. So all of these things come from fellowshipping with the Lord.

How do we do that? David told us way back in the Old Testament, in the book of Psalms. Psalms 91 is one of the most beautiful Psalms. Every believer should memorize it.

I was doing pretty well, and then I decided to re-translate it, and now I’ve got to memorize it all over again. But that’s okay. Here’s what it says in Psalm 91 verse 1. The one who remains in the secret place of the Most High.

In Hebrew, that’s El Elyon, God Most High. Will live under the shadow of the Almighty. That’s the El Shaddai.

The one that remains in the secret place. What’s the secret place? Many of the prophets have learned to enter the secret place through prayer and intercession. To come into a fellowship with the Lord Jesus by his Holy Spirit and to come into that place where it’s just you and him alone.

It’s almost like the intimacy of the marriage bed. Very close intimacy in the Spirit. But actually, I think the secret place is more than that.

I think the secret place is what I try to communicate during the seminar. It’s the realm of glory in which we are seated with Christ in heavenly places right now. In other words, we need to go into that secret place daily.

We need to do it by choice, not wait for it to happen to us. Many of us wait until the Holy Spirit moves upon us and, oh yeah, I feel like praying now, and I’m going to pray, and yeah, the Lord begins to manifest himself. Oh, that’s wonderful.

I experienced the secret place. What is the last time you were in the secret place? Can you even remember the date? The truth of the matter is, you’re living in the secret place spiritually. And actually, you don’t have to pray for hours to get into the secret place.

Sometimes the secret place is an attitude more than an activity. It’s a choice where you step out, as I try to teach in our seminar, stepping out of the natural and into the supernatural. And you can do that by choice and by an act of your will.

Okay, Lord, here I am. We step now into the supernatural, where I’m seated with him in heavenly places. And from the supernatural now, I begin to walk into this world and do what I do.

Now, if you remain there, David says, you will live under the shadow of his protection. And at the end, he actually gives us a conclusion in Psalm 91, verse 14. He says, because he has set his love upon me, therefore, I will deliver him.

I will lift him up and exalt him because he has intimately come to know my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble.

I will rescue him and glorify him. Looking for the glory. Here’s where it comes.

With long life will I satisfy him. Don’t have to worry about premature death. He calls him to see my salvation.

You’re going to be protected from all harm. You’re going to be lifted up and promoted. You won’t have to promote yourself.

He’s going to answer all of your prayers, and he’s going to give you a long, fulfilled life. A life of joy and happiness and accomplishment, and to know that it was a life well lived and enjoyed. Where are you at today? Have you grown up with this sense of always feeling inferior to others? Always feeling that you’ve got to compete with somebody else.

But you never shape up. You find yourself driven at times to try and keep your head above water, lest you sink while everybody else is floating. Have a good look at that.

Examine your heart and bring it to him today and say, Lord, I want to do only what you show me to do. I’m going to stop looking for what people think about me. I’m going to stop looking to achieve and accomplish in this world and get recognition and acclaim.

He says he’s going to exalt and promote you, and he’s going to glorify you. He’s going to give you all of those if you’ll just take the time to stay in that secret place of his presence. There you will hear his voice and his voice will always, always be positive.

His voice will always be, I love you. You are special. I care for you.

I think you’re the greatest. I believe in you. Oh, if we’d heard those words from our parents, but we didn’t.

Well, let’s not go back there and condemn them. Let’s go to the one parent who will always be consistent in giving us that affirmation and motivation. Keep going.

You opened your mouth or went out there and gave it your best shot and missed. Don’t ask everybody else what they think. Go into that secret place and say, Lord, Lord, I missed it.

Lord, I really screwed it up badly. Oh, Lord, I feel such a failure. Oh, Lord, why did I even try? I’m just never going to do that again.

Find out what he says. He may say you were meant to miss because that was part of my training for you. You didn’t fail.

I brought you to that for a specific reason. You don’t know what happened. You’re going by what your eyes see.

But I see more than that. I see everything. And I see the past, the present, and the future.

And you do not realize that you sowed a seed that’s going to grow into a mighty tree. Maybe you don’t see it right now. But what did he say? What does he say? If you really did miss it, he’s going to correct you in love.

And he’s going to say, let me show you how to not miss it next time. And he’s going to lift you up, encourage you, motivate you, and send you back out again in the field to do better. You know, it’s a known fact that every success has a pathway of failures.

Nobody ever succeeds the first time, very seldom. If you cannot handle failure, you may never reach that success. And when it comes to ministry, you’re going to have to fail to qualify.

So don’t let the failure syndrome bug you anymore. Find out what God’s purpose is for you. What are you here for? What did he call you to do? What unique thing has he arranged for your life? What plan does he have for your future? Once you found that, all you need to do is daily get into that secret place and say, okay, Lord, what do we do today? Where do we go from here? What do I do next, Lord? And watch him as he leads ahead.

He takes you by the hand, and he shows you exactly where you should go. At times, he may lead you through difficulties. It doesn’t mean you missed it.

It means he’s leading you through that for a specific purpose. Always rest assured in the fact that you are following him. Oh, Lord, what about John? Is he also going to die? What about that person in church? Are they also going to rise up and be a great preacher? What about that person? Is she going to become a great actress or singer? None of your business.

None of your business. What I do with him has nothing to do with you. You follow me.

You just do what I’ve told you. Next time that driving force rises up within you, calm it down. Say, hey, what are you trying to prove? Lord, I’m not going to be driven anymore.

I’m going to be led. That’s the difference between a believer. Those who are believers are led by the Spirit of God, which means he goes ahead and we follow.

When we drive, we leave him behind. Make your choice today and say, here I am, Lord. Show me your purpose, and I will follow it.

Thank you, Lord, for your word. Deliver it as you gave it to me. I thank you for the challenges that you’ve given, the principles that we need to apply, for highlighting so many of the areas that we fail, Lord, and yet your love remains constant.

No amount of failure can change that. No amount of failure can change your love for us, Lord. I ask you to lift up those today who are feeling a sense of failure, who are feeling a lack of accomplishment, who are feeling that perhaps they missed the mark and failed to be all that they could be.

I ask you to reveal to each one your purpose, your unique purpose in calling for their lives. Show them the next step to take. Show them that you are in control and that the final results lie in your hands and in your hands alone.

So, Father, even as I’ve delivered this message, the final results I leave in your hands and in your hands alone. May you take it and do with it as you please, and accomplish what you sent it to do as you promised. I thank you for that now in Jesus’ name.

Amen. Amen. The Lord bless you.