Today we continue our series entitled “Destiny’s Child – You Are Not a Mistake!” For weeks now, I have been driving home the point that you are not a mistake and that God made plans for you before the world began. Today we will talk about what you can do with this revelation. When you know God made plans for you before you made plans for yourself, and God starts to reveal those plans to you by His Spirit, you are then in a position to agree with what God already decided. Let’s talk about it.
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. When God reveals His plans to you, you have a choice to make.
(Mat 16:24, 25 ERV)
24 Then Jesus said to his followers, “If any of you want to be my follower, you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you for following me.
25 Any of you who try to save the life you have will lose it. But you who give up your life for me will find true life.
(Luke 9 TPT:24,25)
23 Jesus said to all of his followers, “If you truly desire to be my disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace my ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to my ways.
24 For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for my glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.
— When Jesus was speaking to a crowd of His followers, He knew how His Father had already had plans for each of them. This is why Jesus could confidently look out at a crowd and say, “If any of you who want to be my follower must stop thinking about yourself and what you want.”
— Jesus knew His plans for their lives were much greater than anything they could come up with on their own. He knew the people He was looking at were already destined. They were already called to greatness. Their path to victory was already mapped out. But Jesus also knew that for them to RECEIVE the victory God had already prepared, they would have to DIE. They had to die to self and selfishness. They had to give their lives as a sacrifice in order to receive true life, the life God planned for them to live.
— What was true that day, while Jesus was speaking to the crowd, is true this day as I am sharing with you!
— Long before you were born, God planned your life’s outcome and the path to it. But to experience the life God planned, you must first have a relationship with the planner and then be willing to die to the plans you came up with without Him.
— If you are not willing to DIE to the plans you came up with on your own, you will never LIVE as the man/woman God birthed you to be.
2. When you decide to yield to God’s plans over your own, it will often require you to look foolish in the process.
Faith does not make sense. God is spiritual, not sensual. Therefore, the things of God and the life of faith often require you to do things that will seem foolish to the average person. If you are not willing to look foolish, the life of faith may not be for you.
(1 Corinthians 1:25 NLT)
This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
— The foolishness of God is greater than human wisdom. The strength of God is stronger than human strength.
— We yield to God because there is wisdom (from above) that is greater than ours. Now, from a human point of view, what God leads us to do often seems crazy. A financial planner who is not Born-Again, for example, will never understand why you would give well over 10% of your income away. If the person is not filled with God’s Spirit, they will try to talk you out of sowing into God’s Kingdom. The same can be said for medical situations, relationship advice, and etc. God’s Spirit will lead you to do things that are contrary to the way the world does things. You must be willing to do what God leads you to do, at the risk of looking foolish, in order to become who He called you to be.
— The cross (where you die to self) is the place where we yield to God’s wisdom, His strength, and His power. It may look like weakness, but it is a weakness that leads to strength. It may look like foolishness, but this foolishness leads to wisdom.
— God’s wisdom is brighter than the most intelligent man. God’s strength is stronger than the strongest man. God will lead you to do things that seem weak and foolish. Why? So you can learn to rest in His wisdom and strength!
— Living in sync with heaven will often make you look like you are out-of-sync with the people down here, in this world. If you are not okay with that, the life of faith may not be for you.
— To live by faith you cannot be moved by people’s opinions of you.
— Faith is about yielding to God’s will and dying to your own will, even when it does not make sense, even when it makes you look foolish, and even when it makes you look weak. At that point, you don’t care HOW YOU LOOK. You are being led by the Holy Spirit and you know that He will bring you into victory when it is all said and done.
— If you are willing to look foolish today, God will make you look wise tomorrow. People will be amazed by the wisdom you operate in, but it is only because you were willing to look foolish when God led you to do things that made you look crazy. I am a witness. God has done this for me SO many times. In the end, things work out for God’s glory, and then the people who thought I was doing something crazy actually wind up praising my decision. At that point, all I can do is remind them that all I was doing was being led by God’s Spirit. I was willing to look foolish, and God made me look wise. I was willing to look weak, and God made me look strong!
3. In order to do what God has called you to do, you will have to yield to God’s empowering grace.
— God is not looking for you to work for or earn His plan. His plan for your life is already mapped out. He called you by grace, not by merit. God is simply looking for you to believe His goodness, receive what He wants to do in your life by faith, and then DIE to self, so you don’t mess it up!
— God wants you to get to the point where you realize your life is SO MUCH about Jesus and NOT about you, that you finally REST in His finished work.
— The Father does not want you working hard to become someone in Him. You are already are someone in Him. He just wants you to believe what He believes about you so you can embrace the grace to do what He has called you to do.
— God does not want you entering every day attempting to work to earn His approval. The Father wants you to enter every day FROM the position of His approval. There’s a big difference! When you know you are God’s beloved, you freely open your heart to receive the grace required to do what you could never do without God. This is how you yield to God’s plan and His grace.
— The Father does not want you to live your life striving to MAKE things happen. He wants you to discern what He has already done. This is #TheGraceLife
Declaration of Faith:
Father, this is a season of LEVELING UP for me. I LEVEL UP by aligning my life with Your plans. My life is no longer about me or my selfish desires. My life is all about You and Your desires for me. I am not working FOR grace. I am working BY grace. I am not striving FOR Your approval. I enter every day knowing I am approved. I am Your child. I am Your beloved. I am called for such a time as this. This is my season. This is my time. I am no longer the star of my life’s story. And since I glorify THEE Father, You are can now glorify ME! I am committed to making You famous, and You are committed to making my name great! I yield to Your plans and to the grace to bring them to pass. Living this way, I can boldly declare: GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
