Some of us have lost our sense of purpose, our sense of destiny. Originally, we signed up and had a focus to do great things for God, but somehow it has been choked out by work, family or other distractions that have consumed our time. It might be time to look around and reinvest into something you believe in. After so many months or even years, it’s hard for some of you to actually believe that you can live in such a way as to make a difference in the culture that you live in.
For too many of us survival is the order of the day. “Don’t talk to me about destiny, tell me how to make it through tomorrow.” Men, I honestly believe in you, and I believe there is a passion within each one of you. So I ask, what kind of disciple will you become? What price are you willing to pay to see the gospel of the kingdom take root again in your life and relationships? In moving toward effectiveness, some times we have to ask the question, what is it I really want? Honestly, many of us don’t have a clue to what we actually want. Hopefully, we want to be more effective in our marriage, work community, relationships and ministry. Ask yourself, do I want the next twenty years of my life to be more effective than the last twenty?
I believe if some of us change the way we think, maybe we could become more effective. Isn’t that repentance, a change of mind, a change of direction? And yet some of you are thinking, “I’ve always done it this way.” Are you willing to entertain the possibility that if you change the way you think, you could become more effective?
The spirit of deficiency is a mindset. Our feelings come from our thoughts, if you think wrongly, in all probability; you’re going to feel badly about yourself. The conclusion I came up with is that what I’m feeling about myself is the truth. And so at end we find ourselves believing the lies that live within us, because somehow we’re persuaded by the emotional weight we feel at a given moment in time. The strategy of your enemy is to keep you from becoming a person of destiny. He can’t touch the fact that you’re born again, saved and that the blood of Christ has been applied to your life. But he will do everything in his power to handicap you from becoming effective.
Strongholds of the mind have kept many of us on the sidelines. Some of us have been followers of Christ for five, ten, fifteen years and if we were to look back over the years some of us would conclude that we’ve not been effective in our lives. Why? Because of some of the strongholds in our minds that have kept us paralyzed. Are you willing to entertain the possibility that if change were effected everything would be different.