Moving On with Passion

Do you want to have a life of fulfillment? Pastor Paul Shepherd tells you how to get there next on today's Destined for Victory. Today's message, Moving on with Passion, comes your way next.

But first, Pastor Paul joins me now from his studio in California. Well, the holiday season is upon us, and this year is a bit different, of course. It's always a very important time for ministries like Destined for Victory, but especially this year, Pastor, with all we've experienced.

Pastor, we've got a lot of questions to send to our friends who donate, so tell me about this. Until recently, I was going to present a very different message for our year-end gift, and it was going to be a good one. But as the year began to wrap up, I was experiencing some things, and I went to the Lord and said, Lord, I need you to help me get my focus back in order.

And as I processed and prayed, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me, I ended up thinking, you know what, this is the time. This isn't just for my benefit. I need to share this with my audience. And as a result, I have recently decided to change that message, and I'm presenting a message entitled Refocus that is going to help people work through the challenges that have been borne out of this pandemic and some of the frustrations we've all experienced.

And I'm giving three very practical steps as to how we need to address these matters. I think it's important in my life these days that emotional health is every bit as important as physical and spiritual health. And so this message is going to help, I think, a lot of people, and I trust that donors this month will not only be a blessing to us through their generous gifts, but they will be blessed by hearing me unpack this theme and help us all get ourselves refocused as we look ahead to the year to come. Thank you, Pastor Paul, and now really is the best time for all of us to begin thinking that way as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ and get ready for a brand new year. And right now, for your very best gift to Destined for Victory, we'd love to send you a copy of this DVD message, Refocus. That's Refocus, a DVD message from Pastor Paul, our gift to you by request for your most generous gift to Destined for Victory this month. Call us at 855-339-5500 to give over the phone or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online.

You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Sometimes the enemy of fulfillment is past achievement. You missed that. I gotta say it again. Sometimes the enemy of fulfillment is past achievement. Sometimes we sit back and kick back and say, well, you know, I've done pretty good to this part of my life. Well, pretty good is not going to get you to fulfillment if you dwell on it. So Paul said you need to let go of what's behind you.

If you want to live a life of fulfillment, you have to do it on purpose. You don't back your way into your destiny in Christ. With his help, you pursue it head on with prayer, with perseverance, and with passion. Today on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd takes us back to one of the most familiar stories in the Old Testament to show us what a passionate pursuit of God looks like.

From his teaching series Journey Towards Fulfillment, which you can find online at pastorpaul.net, here is Pastor Paul Shepherd for today's Destined for Victory message, Moving On with Passion. Let's get into the Word of God together. Let me pray over this message.

I believe God wants to use this series in a special way. So let me pray over it right now. Father, we acknowledge you as we get into your word. We know that the entrance of your word brings light. And so I pray, Holy Spirit, that you will take the words I'm going to share and you will preach them to each individual in the ways that he or she needs to hear from you. Speak to us, Lord, for your servants here. Bless us as we enter into this word together in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. I want to continue a series I'm entitling, The Journey Toward Fulfillment. This series is helping us to learn from the experience of the Joshua generation how we can move toward fulfillment. As you know, from the previous installment, the generation that Moses led out of Egypt was unsuccessful in moving into fulfillment because they had doubt and unbelief. They had murmuring and and all kinds of things going on in their lives that prevented them from experiencing what God had for them. And so God said, tell you what, all these folks are going to die right in this wilderness. And what I'll do is raise up their children and let Joshua lead their children into the promised land. And so what we're trying to do is learn how is it that that generation Joshua led moved in fulfillment where their parents were unable to move into fulfillment?

And with this, I'm making the very first point. And here's what it is. The journey toward fulfillment requires passion.

It requires passion. I want you to look with me at Numbers Chapter 13. I'll begin reading at verse twenty six so I can give you the context for why their parents did not go into fulfillment. Look with me at Numbers 13, beginning with verse twenty six. Ten of the twelve spies started out stating facts.

Look at what they say. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Verse twenty seven. Then someone spoke on behalf of the ten spies and look at what they said. We went into the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit. And they had brought back some fruit.

Then look at what it says. Nevertheless, some translations use the word, but the people who dwell in the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land to the south.

The Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks. What were they doing? They started out sharing just objective truth. And then they started slanting in a negative direction, because as they described the fortified cities and the giants, they were clearly showing people what their hearts were saying, which is we cannot go over there because of the obstacles that we saw over there. And that's why they never were allowed to go in, because God saw that their negativity would never allow them to experience the land flowing with milk and honey. Here's what I want to say to you about your life, because this is not about a history lesson.

This is about you and me experiencing fulfillment in our lives today. And here's what I want you to understand. Look at how Caleb responded to the negativity we just read. Caleb said, verse 30, he quieted the people and said, let us go up at once and take possession.

Watch this. For we are well able to overcome it. Now, how do 10 of the spies say we can't do it?

There are giants, there are walled cities. And yet Caleb, speaking, of course, on behalf of Joshua, they were the only two other spies. And they said, no, no, let's go at once.

We are well able to do it. How do 10 people see what the other two saw? And they come back saying, I can't do it.

And the other two say, let's go right now. We need to adjourn this meeting so we can head to the promised land. The difference is passion. I want to say if you want to reach God's plan and purpose and experience is best for your life, you need to have passion for something positive, something you've never experienced before in your life. And my challenge to you right now is if you want to journey toward fulfillment, you've got to develop and pray that God will help you to live the rest of your life with a passion to go where you've never gone, to do what you've never done, to experience fulfillment in your life. And if you will be a person of passion, I'm telling you, God is going to bless you to experience fulfillment. Look at Caleb's attitude.

His passion is quite obvious when he said, let's go right now. What he's saying is I'm not trying to spend the rest of my life in this wilderness. I didn't come out of bondage out of Egypt just to hang out in a desert.

Now, granted, living free in a desert is better than living bound in slavery. But it's not the same as living free in the promises of God. Here's the problem a lot of us experience in the church. A lot of us are saved. We got our blessed assurance and we are ready to go to heaven.

And if you are, God bless you. But there are some of us who have decided until the Lord comes and gets me. I want to experience fulfillment here and now. I hope some of you are experiencing that right now in your heart, even in the midst of this time where we're dealing with challenges worldwide. This is a time for us to say God's going to get us through this. But more importantly, when we come through it, what are we going to do differently than we did before we went into it? And I want to challenge you.

You need to decide right here, right now. I am going to be a person of passion. I'm going to believe God for what I've never believed him for.

I'm going to believe that he is going to do exceeding abundantly above all that I can ask or even imagine. So I want to just help you focus right now. Look at the current state of your heart, of your mind, of your vision. Are you living in survival mode or are you willing to journey toward something that will fulfill and bless not only your life but bless the lives of many other people that you come in contact with? I don't know about you, but survival is not a goal worth pursuing.

Survival is better than dying in slavery, but survival is not as good as fulfillment. And if you're like me, you've decided that survival is not success. I want to be successful. Do you want to be successful in your life? What is success? Success, I believe, is knowing God's best for my life and experiencing it for myself.

And I want just that. I want the success of knowing I'm in the center of God's will. I'm doing all that he's called me to do.

And I am being blessed because the Lord has brought fulfillment into my experience. So I want to encourage you, don't just survive. Decide for the rest of your life you're going to thrive. Surviving is good.

Thriving is better. And I want you to take on the attitude of Caleb. He was inspired to claim territory. He was inspired to defeat giants. He was inspired to live in the blessing of the Lord.

Do you have any of the spirit of Caleb in you or are you satisfied with what you've always done? Because let me tell you, my friend, you can go to heaven just like you are. If you don't want any more than you have, then God will let you do that.

Just like he let that first generation die in the wilderness. The Lord will let you die sitting on your blessed assurance. But if you are like me, you say, no, no, I want to experience God's best for my life.

I want to see some new things. In fact, some of us are getting older. But Caleb was so passionate that when the Lord said, I'm going to kill off this whole generation in the wilderness. And he said, Caleb, that means you're not going to be able to experience fulfillment now. But I'm going to keep you alive and I'm going to keep you strong. And I promise you, Caleb, you are going to experience.

In fact, you're going to live in the land you spied out. Don't go away. We're only about halfway through today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, who is Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Be sure to subscribe to Pastor Paul on YouTube to watch some of his best video clips. For more details and links to all of his social media, be sure to visit us at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you can listen on demand to recent messages or find a variety of resources in our online store. Now, here's Pastor Paul once again with the rest of today's message.

Moving on with passion. And when you get a chance, read Joshua Chapter 14 and you will see that's exactly what happened. That in Joshua 14, we're talking decades after what we see here in Numbers 13.

I don't know what year it was when you get to Joshua Chapter 14, but they've already conquered a significant amount of the land, not all of it, but a lot of it has been conquered by Joshua 14. And when Joshua came to Caleb and said, OK, it's time for you to get your inheritance. I love what Caleb told him. He said, listen, I want to remind you that the Lord told us way back when that this day was coming. And he promised that I would experience the land I walked on when we were spies. He said, and here I am today, 85 years old. Caleb was 85 when he experienced fulfillment.

Here's the good news. You and I, because we don't have to fool with the generation of unbelievers and doubters, we can experience fulfillment far earlier than 85. So I'm looking forward to experiencing fulfillment in the coming months and in the coming next few years. I don't want to wait until I'm all the way at old man. I'm getting there, but I don't want to wait till I'm all the way there. I want to experience God's best for me right here and right now. And so I'm hoping some of you, like me, have the spirit of Caleb alive in you. And you have decided I want to experience God's best in my life. He wanted to claim territory. I hope you do, too.

He wanted to defeat giants. I hope you do, too. He wanted to live in the blessings of the Lord.

And if you do as well, I'm here to let you know God's going to bless you to experience fulfillment. But let's just get it straight. If complacency, if average living is OK with you, God will allow you to experience that.

I said that in the previous installment in this series. You know, some folks are OK with average, but for me, average has now become my arch enemy. And I don't plan to ever settle for average again in my lifetime. I want to see God make some differences through me, for me and in me. And I'm believing for fulfillment. So if you have the same heart, I want to help you on your journey toward fulfillment.

Now, here's the first thing I want us to kind of think through. If you have a passion to experience fulfillment, watch this. Then that means you also need to have a passion to change. To experience fulfillment is going to require some elements of change in your life. In the same way that those first two million people were not willing to change by pressing on, going through the obstacles and believing God to help them defeat giants and all of that. They weren't willing to change.

So they preferred to stay in the wilderness than to push through and to experience change. If you want to experience fulfillment, my brother, my sister, you're going to need to decide I'm willing to change. Now, typically, when we change, I preached about this before.

If you've been with my ministry for some time, you've heard me say it before. But I need to say it in this context again, and maybe you'll hear it with fresh ears. Typically, when we change, it's for one of two reasons. We either change because we are compelled by pain, or we change because we're inspired by vision. Some of us, unfortunately, only change when we're compelled by pain.

What do I mean by that? Some folks only change because the pain that they're experiencing is an increasing pain. It is something they can't continue to live with, and eventually that pain will make them say, okay, I've got to make this go away, whatever it's going to cost me. There are some folks, especially some of the brothers, who only go to the doctor, for instance, when pain drives them there. That's sad, but there are many people for whom that's their reality.

They really don't want the inconvenience or, in some cases, I think they're a little fearful of some of the procedures, and they say, let me just, you know, I'm not dying, so let me just not go. But I promise you, if the right thing happens, if the right pain hits you, you might be forced to go to the doctor and let them deal with it because you will conclude, well, the pain I'm experiencing is increasing, and I've got to get rid of this at all costs, even if it means I'm going to have to experience the unknown at the hands of the physicians. A lot of people only change when they're compelled by pain.

What about you? Are there some areas of your life where you're experiencing pain, whether it's financial pain, whether it's relational pain, whether it's pain of unemployment, or your job has laid you off or something like that, and you're experiencing some pain? What areas of pain might be speaking to you, and if they're speaking to you, you really need to take the time and listen to what they're saying. Some of us are experiencing pain right now in our families. Some of us are experiencing pain in circumstances. Some of us are experiencing pain physically. Whatever it is, God might very well be using the pain. I'm not suggesting God made the pain come, but he might very well be using the pain to help you understand it's time for you to make a decision. Are you going to die in a wilderness of mediocrity, keep things as they are, and just simply hope for the best, or are you going to proactively move in the direction of doing something better, more fulfilling in your life? If pain is what is driving you to be willing to move toward fulfillment, so be it.

I don't think that's the best motivator, but if that's what you're experiencing now, and if that's what it's taking for you to decide, you know what, I need to make some changes in my life, then let that pain take you in the right direction. But I want to speak especially to those of you who would say, no, I'm not motivated right now in my life so much by pain because everything's going pretty well. But I've decided I want to take it from pretty well to very well.

If anybody is listening, watching, and that's where your heart is, this series is for you. Pretty well is good. Pretty well is better than doing poorly.

But at this point, I need some of you to join me in deciding pretty well has got to give way to very well. I'm inspired by a vision. I see something I want to go after in my finances, in my relationships, in my educational pursuits, in my physicality, in some area of my life. I see a vision of better, of higher, and I want to go higher. I want to do better in my life.

Don't just be compelled by pain. Be inspired by vision because that's the spirit of Caleb. Caleb said, yeah, I can live in the wilderness, but why in the world would I live in a wilderness when God has promised me a land flowing with milk and honey?

Why would I settle for average when God has promised me extraordinary living in a land He has personally promised to give to His people? Be inspired by a vision in your heart because that is going to drive you to fulfillment. And if you have the spirit of Caleb, that means you have the spirit of faith because remember, Caleb saw the giants just like the other 10 saw the giants.

Caleb saw the walled cities just like the other spies saw the walled cities. But his faith told him, I'm not worried about them. If God promised me the land and he knew the giants were there, he's already got a plan to get us past the giants, to defeat them, and to give us that land.

And so he left that with God. That is the spirit of faith. I want to call you, if you, like me, want to journey toward fulfillment, I'm calling you now in Jesus' name to decide I'm going to be a faith-walking, faith-talking person for the rest of my life. No more doubt, no more unbelief, no more skepticism, no more pessimistic attitude.

I am going to believe God and take Him at His word. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Moving on with Passion. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory ministry or this month's special offer, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. The enemy of fulfillment is past achievement. You missed that. I got to say it again. Sometimes the enemy of fulfillment is past achievement. Sometimes we sit back and kick back and say, well, you know, I've done pretty good to this part of my life. Well, pretty good is not going to get you to fulfillment if you dwell on it. So Paul said, you need to let go of what's behind you. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Moving on with Passion. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.