A Clean Heart - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, October 9th. Salvation offered to you by God secures a home in heaven and provides the means to live a life of eternal significance. With that in mind, let's find out how to reach your full potential. Are you excited about your life or do you find yourself just sort of existing and sort of drifting along and no sense of purpose and no sense of direction? Maybe there was a time when you were excited, but somewhere along the way it all faded away. And sometimes you wonder, what's it all worth anyway?

Why should I keep on going on this way? Well, there is a reason because, you see, there are reasons we feel stuck and there are reasons we feel plagued and the reasons we feel that we've lost it. That somewhere along the way, the excitement and the joy and the happiness that maybe you once had or maybe you've never had it and you've wondered why.

Well, there is a reason. And what I want to talk about in this series of messages is how to reach your full potential. And you see, there's more within you than you realize.

And I'm going to show you in a few moments in the Scripture. And when I think about people that I know who've lost it, who have no joy, no real peace, no happiness, and for them life is just one big long bore. And they keep looking for something to change and yet oftentimes they settle down for what I call a settle for life.

And that is they just sort of settle for what they have, where they are in life, and they've grown very negative in life. What I want to remind you of is this, if you could see yourself today exactly the way God sees you, you wouldn't feel that way at all. You say, well, how does God see me?

I can tell you exactly. He sees you through eyes of love and forgiveness, and He sees you not only for what you are. He sees you for the person He made you to be. He sees you with the potential that He's placed within you. He sees you for the possibilities that you have. Once you line up with His will, once you begin to live for His glory and His honor, He sees the awesome potential within you. He sees the radical change that would take place in your life. He sees the restored joy, happiness, peace, contentment, sense of accomplishment and achievement that you could have in your life.

And yet many people live their whole lives and never experience that. And I want you to turn, if you will, to the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, and I want us to read just a few verses of this Psalm. And you'll recall this is the Psalm where David, for example, is speaking, and he talks about the Lord having searched him and how intimately acquainted God is with all of him, all of his parts, and how God is with him, that you cannot escape God, there's no place to flee from him. And he talks about the presence of God. And one of the things he speaks about in this passage is he speaks about how wonderfully God made us.

And so beginning, if you will, in the thirteenth verse, listen to what he says. For you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you. When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, your eyes have seen my unformed substance. And in your book were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. Here's a wonderful passage describing David's understanding of how wonderfully God has made all of us. Now when we talk about potential, for example, what do we mean by potential? That means we're talking about your possibilities. And you see, the truth is, you don't know what your potential is. And not only that, only God knows what our potential is. Only He knows what the possibilities are that lie within you because He's the one who's placed them there. And all of us have potential.

All of us have possibilities. And you see, they become a living reality in our life when you and I line up with the will of God for our life and seek to live a life that brings honor and glory to God. Now there are many people out there who accomplish a lot of things.

Let's face it. You have never reached your potential until you live your life in such a fashion that ultimately you bring honor and glory to God. Now we may accomplish a lot of things as far as the world is concerned.

And the world may give you lots of approval and lots of praise. But ultimately God looks on the inside. And you see, only He knows what the potential is. And whereas we may perform well and someone may do a fantastic job here, but the question is, what was the real potential? And until we line up with the will of God and seek to bring glory and honor to Him, we'll never fulfill that potential.

Now you say, well, I look at my life and I don't see that I have all that potential. Remember, you're looking through your eyes and notice what He said in this passage. He said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works and my soul knows it very well. Skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, He says, you've made me that way, skillfully, wonderfully, awesomely made. Now the truth is this, every single one of us, no matter who we are, every single one of us has within us the adequate potential to become the person God wants us to be and to achieve and accomplish the things that God wants us to accomplish in our life. And if you'll think about this passage for a moment, when He says He's made us fearfully, that is, awesomely, wonderfully made, would God make us, as He says here, wonderfully, skillfully, would He make us in such a way that we would not be complete? Would He make us inadequate? If He's made us to bring Him glory and honor and to walk in His will and His way, would He be a God who would make us in such a fashion that there would be something missing? Did He make us only partially?

That is, would a God say, this is my will and plan for your life, but you have these limitations in your life, skillfully, wonderfully, awesomely made. God has made us, listen, with potential within us that we will never discover by simply looking within us. We will only discover it when we line up with His will and begin to walk in the will of God. Then we discover the potential. You see, it's not that we're going to be able to sit back and say, well, here's the potential that I have and God's told me what it is. No, we're not going to ever discover it until we come to the end of our life and look back. And what will happen? We will look back in awe and surprise and wonder that God could take you, just as you are, work in your life the works that He works, allow you to possess things that you never felt you would possess, become or achieve things in your life that you never even began to dream of.

What is that? That is the awesome work of the hand of God working in you to do what? To bring you to the reality of the person He made you. When God made you and He formed you, you say, well, I was an accident.

No, you weren't. You were not an accident. God formed you. He made you.

He gave you the gift of life. He does not give the gift of life without purpose and without plan. Every single person, there is a purpose for your life. Every single person, there is a plan that God has in mind when He made you. Now you say, well, what is that purpose?

I don't know all the purposes, but I do know this. His ultimate purpose for your life, no matter who you are, it has nothing to do with your education. It has nothing to do with your race, your color, your culture. It has nothing to do with your finances. It has nothing to do with your personality.

It has to do with this. That God is a God of love who created you with a purpose in mind, and He created you with a plan in mind. The ultimate purpose is to bring Him glory and honor by the life that you live. And the plan that He has for you is a plan that will bring you contentment and joy and happiness and peace, troubles and trials and difficulties, which makes character within our life, but also He's provided everything within you to see that He sustains you through all of that, to bring you to become the person He wants you to be and to achieve those things He wants you to achieve in life. And you see so many of us are so negative about our life, and here's the reason we are. We look at ourselves and we compare ourselves with someone else. Well, their talents and their gifts and their skills and my poor little self, and they look at someone else and say, well, their education and look at the gifts that God has given them, I don't have that. You know what God has given you?

He's given you exactly what you need. Listen, He says that you and I are skillfully, wonderfully made, that is, awesomely made. That is, when you think about the human body and think about what God has given you. He's given you a heart where we think and think in terms of the seat of our emotions, where we have feelings and desires and intentions in our life and interests. We talk about the soul. We talk about the conscience, the consciousness. Our minds, our will, our emotion. We think about our spirit that God has given us. We think about these human bodies. We are awesomely made. And therefore, listen, we are precious in God's eyes.

And if you'll think about all of the creation God's created, whether it's, listen, the galaxies with all the stars and the suns and the moon, all that God has placed up in the heavens, all that He's placed in this earth, everything so beautifully proportioned, everything working in proper order, this beautiful land, this whole planet, everything revolving just the way God said. You know what? None of that. Listen to this. All of that together does not match in the mind of God the value of one single you.

And I'll tell you why. Because, you see, none of that can express their love toward God. None of that can receive the love of God.

These are inanimate things. You say, what about animals? God makes animals, but animals cannot receive the love of God. They do not talk to God.

They do not love God back. He made you the crown of His creation. The crowning touch of God's creation is a human being. And He says we are wonderfully, awesomely, skillfully made. That is skill from the hands of an awesome God who makes no mistakes.

Skill from the hand of a God who is absolutely perfect in every single thing He does. You may not like the way you look, the way you shape, the way you this, that, and the other, but you know what? God's made you a certain way. Now, you and I can alter maybe the way we look to some degree, but, you know, He's given you a personality.

He's given you a heart. He's given you a personality that's unique. No one else in the whole world has the same personality you have.

There may be some categories of personalities and we may be similar in some ways, but nobody has the personality that you have. You think about the abilities and the talents that you have. Somebody says, well, are these God-given or is this something that we do? In other words, our gifts of skills and abilities and talents and there are some people who are so skilled in so many ways and when I think about how smart some people are and the things that they can do and the things that they know makes me feel very ignorant. For example, I can work the computer and I know what to do as far as what I need to do, but if you take the top off of it and ask me to look inside, you know what? I don't know anything about that. I can look at something that's totally inanimate, a little drop of, it seems a little drop of solder here and a little wire here and you look at that and you think, how in the world could anybody have thought such an idea and something that is totally inanimate and now I can sit down and you can sit down at a keyboard and you know what, we bring up the whole world before us.

You can see it, not only in living color, but in action. When you think about the awesome potential of just a computer, you see somebody, somebody had the idea one day, what would happen if? Would it be possible if?

Is that a possibility? And somebody said in their mind, yes it is and I think it's possible. And their possibility thinking and their thinking and rationalizing and evaluating and discovery and now every single one of us can be blessed as a result. When I think about the possibilities, listen to what God said.

When they were building the tabernacle, God said of this gentleman, I filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom and understanding and knowledge and in all kinds of craftsmanship to make artistic designs for work in gold and silver and bronze. God is the one who gives these talents and these skills and so somebody says, well, but you know, I don't have any of that. Let me ask you this, do you really know what your potential is?

No, you don't. Well, most of us probably know some things that at this point in our life we don't think we would be very good at, but you know what? None of us know what our potential is. And you, all of us have discovered at some point in our life that we could sustain, be sustained through things that we thought we could not. We have endured things that we didn't think we could endure.

We've been able to achieve things that we never would have believed we could have been able to achieve. You see, you don't know what your potential is and whether you are sixteen or ninety-six, it doesn't make any difference. You have potential. There is possibility within you.

God has placed something within you. And so when you look at this passage and he says we're fearfully, wonderfully, skillfully made by the hand of an omniscient, omnipotent, listen, God, that He's made every single one of us exactly for His purpose to bring Him glory and His honor in ways that what? Fit our heart, our personality, those abilities and talents and skills that He's given us. And so don't compare yourself with someone else. For the simple reason He didn't make anybody just like you.

There may be people who may be, who may favor you, people who have skills either less or better than you, but you know what? He made you. You have possibilities. You have potential within you that, listen, that He's made just for you. Is it not worthy of discovery to ask the living God, God, what could you do in my life? What are the possibilities that lie within me? What is the potential I have that maybe I've never thought about? Maybe I've never even been willing to risk the thought of discovery. Maybe for fear of failure.

Maybe for fear of disappointment. God, what could you do in me? What could you accomplish in me?

What could I become? What did you have in mind when you created me? God has something very specific in mind. And I think one of the reasons that so many people live a settled-for life is they never stop to ask the question, what could God do?

What does He want to do? And when I think about so many young people start out their life and they look at their lives and think about what they want to do and what they want to be, never giving God any thought whatsoever. What a horrible mistake. What a horrible waste to begin your life early with all of your life before you, never stopping to ask the question, what is my potential? What could God do with me if I gave Him my whole life? If I line up with the will of God and surrender my life to bring Him glory and honor in whatever way He chooses to bring it to pass, the awesome potential. What a fascinating, exciting discovery to discover what God could do in your life.

You say, well, but now you know what? I'm at this particular age. It has nothing to do with it. The issue is this.

What is your potential now? And you see oftentimes a person goes through life and they miss it because they have a wrong concept of why they're here. Oftentimes it's a result of a poor self-image.

Sometimes it's fear of failure and sometimes they're just lazy. Sometimes it's because we're just ignorant of the promises of God. You have before you possibilities, potential that God has created. If you waste your life, if you're lazy, if you're slothful with your life, unwilling to take the risk, unwilling to walk, listen, line up with God's will, unwilling for God to use you and choose to live a life of indulgence, you go on sinning, wasting your life when you could have the most awesome, listen, discover the most awesome possibilities about yourself. God says you're wonderfully, skillfully, awesomely made. Why does, why would He do that?

Because He has a fantastic plan for your life, one part of which is to bring Him glory and honor. Is that what you're doing? Are you passionate about life? Are you excited about life? Do you even want to discover what you could do and what you could become?

Does it really make that much difference to you? Are you sort of satisfied where you are? I can tell you this. If you're not living lined up with the will of God, if you have no desire to bring Him glory and honor in your life, you're, listen, you're not satisfied. You may attempt to be satisfied, but there's a big hole, there's a big gap, there's a big empty spot there. You are not going to fill it with anything, whether it is money, praise, position, power, prestige.

Not anything can fill that place that God has for you. You have this awesome potential. And I see people putting themselves down all the time. Well, you know, if I could and if this and if that and so forth and deep down inside, if they just stop and think. You see, it's one thing to be ignorant for a season of time, but when you hear the truth, you are then responsible. And for every single one of you who is listening, from this point on, you're responsible to God. You're hearing the truth that you're wonderfully, skillfully, awesomely made. And that God has placed within you the potential, the possibility of becoming what He had in mind when you were born, before that. What He had in mind when He decided to create you. It's all there if you will allow God to work it out and work it into your life. Thank you for listening to A Clean Heart. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.