Press the Battle On! (cont'd)

I came to tell somebody, do not allow the way you feel now to dictate what you do.

If you allow your feelings to dictate it, you are going to cave in, you're going to check out, you're going to say, never mind God, I guess you'll have to do this for somebody else because I can't make it. It's not the path of least resistance, but of most persistence that leads to your destiny in Christ. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. If you want to live a life of fulfillment, one in which you experience a divine joy that cannot be explained, you need to persevere through some difficult challenges and some tough times, but it's easier to cave into your feelings than to step out in faith. That's why today's message from Pastor Paul can be so helpful because we often need to be reminded to put our trust in what God says instead of what we feel.

Today's message is straight ahead. Stay right here or visit pastorpaul.net to listen anytime on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

You can also listen or download the podcast at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get yours. Now here is Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Press the Battle On. Here's point number two, counter negative emotions with proactive faith.

Counter negative emotions with proactive faith. What do I mean in the context here in Joshua chapter one? Look at verse five and I want you to notice how God gives him the information he needs so that he can have proactive faith since God is already letting him know constantly be strong, be courageous, don't be fearful, don't be dismayed. How is God helping him?

I don't want you to keep telling me what to do when you're not going to give me some handles on how I can pull that off. Well, look at the handles God gives him as he keeps telling him be strong and courageous. Look at verse five, note the phrase, I will be with you. God said in the same way I was with Moses and you see what happened with Moses, he crossed the Red Sea.

You see what happened with Moses, he got away from a Pharaoh that was determined to keep him and the people of God bound and in slavery forever. And he's showing him, I was with Moses, you saw me bring Moses and all of you people out of Egypt, you saw me allow you all to cross the Red Sea on dry land, you saw me drown Pharaoh's army, you saw me do so many mighty works and he says, Joshua as I was with Moses, I'm going to be with you, I will be with you. You see what I mean by countering the negative emotions of fear, of doubt, of dismay, of oh I don't know if I can do this. Joshua you're going to experience those things, foes are going to stand in front of you but remember Joshua, every step of the way as I was with Moses, I'm going to be with you. I came to tell you my brother, my sister, God is saying that to you right now.

The one thing that guarantees you victory, the one thing that guarantees you fulfillment of my will in your life is that I will be with you. Do you know the Lord is with you in your worst moments? He's with you when you feel horrible, he's with you when you don't know if you can make it another day.

I don't know if you've ever been there, I've been there. I've had those times where I say, God I can't, I'm done, just come on get me. I'm so glad that God reminds us in his word, I'm with you and even when you don't feel my presence, I'm still with you. Even when you don't feel great, I'm still with you. Even when you don't wake up with a song and a dance and a praise, I'm with you. Even when you feel down and discouraged, I'm with you. And I came to tell you my friend, what's going to get you to the place of fulfillment is the presence of the Lord in your life.

You don't have to feel him all the time to know he's there. You don't believe me, just remember Elijah, the day after a great triumph on Mount Carmel, remember Elijah, that very next day Jezebel puts out the contract on him, he gets word, Jezebel says she's going to kill you, you're going to be dead by tomorrow. And what did Elijah do? That great man of faith, he took off and ran. I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but all of us, you can have a great moment of faith one day and a lousy state of emotional depression the next day.

So you can't walk by your feelings. You've got to walk by faith and by the assurance that God is with you. Verse five, he said, remember Joshua, I'm with you. Look at what he says to him in verse six. He says, you will divide as an inheritance the land that I promised your forefathers to give you. God said to him, you're going to face foes, they're going to scare you to death, but just remember you will inherit the land. You are going to move into that land and he says, and you're going to divide it up among the people.

What's God telling him? Whatever you run into, no matter how scary, how impossible it looks, remember Joshua, one of these days you're going to be standing in the promised land, dividing to the various tribes of Israel. Sometimes the way you have to be persistent is you have to remember the end that was spoken to you while you're in your moment of greatest challenge. You got to remember, well, here's where God said I'm going since I'm not there yet, even though I'm challenged right now, here's where God said I'm going, I'm going to keep on moving forward. I came to tell somebody, do not allow the way you feel now to dictate what you do.

If you allow your feelings to dictate it, you are going to cave in, you're going to check out, you're going to say never mind God, I guess you'll have to do this for somebody else because I can't make it. God said remember I'm with you and will be with you and in verse 6 he said remember Joshua one of these days you're going to be dividing as an inheritance the land that I'm giving to my people. In verse 7, look at verse 7, look at what God says to help him practice proactive faith. Verse 7 he said you are to observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you, don't turn from it to the right or to the left. What is God saying? Don't focus on how you feel, focus on what I've told you to look at which is you are to observe to do everything in the law.

Now you and I are New Testament followers of Christ, we don't observe the statutes of the law but we observe the leading of the Holy Spirit and the word of God as it's rightly divided in our experience as New Testament followers of Christ. So what God is saying to us is rather than focus on how you feel, focus on how I told you to live. Focus on the decisions I told you to make because if you're not careful sometimes your emotions can make you justify wrong behavior or poor choices. Poor choices my brother, my sister, don't derail anything but your promise, your journey to your promised land. Poor choices will make you take a detour instead of the straight route to what God has for you. So it's not in your best interest or mine for us to say well I'm feeling bad so I might as well journey over here, I might as well take this exit, it's really not in the navvy right now but let me just go on off and do my thing for a while.

Don't do that, you know why? Because God's not going to change his mind about his plan for your life and if you find yourself off course because of some poor choices you made you know what you're going to have to do? You're going to have to journey back toward the thing God wanted you to do in the first place.

So it's not in your best interest to take the scenic route. Stay on God's navigation plan for your life. Observe to do everything he's called you to do and he says here, Joshua don't turn to the left or to the right, stay focused on what I've given you to do. What God is doing is he's saying Joshua you got to be persistent, stay the course, don't get off course because I've got a great plan for your life. I love that in the New Testament Jesus did the same thing. When he was preparing his disciples because he was going to leave the earth in a matter of days he said to them in John chapter 14, some of you know it, the Gospel of John chapter 14 opens with these immortal words, let not your heart be troubled.

I love that. God said to his disciples he's getting them ready for the fact that Jesus is about to leave the earth and ascend back to heaven but he says let not your heart be troubled. If you don't know it Jesus was doing the same thing there to his scared disciples or soon to be scared disciples that God did to Joshua. God said don't be afraid, don't be scared Joshua and Jesus said to his disciples let not your heart be troubled. Do you know why he said that to them? Because before too long they were going to be scared, they were going to see Jesus arrested, tortured all night and ultimately crucified on a cross.

They were about to see that for themselves and they were going to feel like if they did this to our leader what are they going to do to us? So Jesus is out ahead of them, he knows what they're going to face when they don't know it and he says let not your heart be troubled. You know what that says to you and me? That means it's up to you whether your heart's troubled. If God says don't let it happen you have volition in the matter.

It's not like it's inevitable for your heart to be troubled. He said don't let it be troubled and then well how's that practical passage? You always say God gives us practical direction, keep reading the rest of the sentence. Let not your heart be troubled then he gives them the call to proactive faith.

What does he say? You believe in God, believe also in me. Believe that I started this, you all have been experiencing my leadership for the past couple of years as my disciples, I'm getting ready to leave and when you see me leave the earth you're going to feel moments of panic and moments of fear because you don't know what they are going to do to persecute you. But I'm telling you right now Jesus said don't let fear rule the day, believe in God and believe in me. So you and I have to learn how to face our foes because they're coming in every area of your life where you plan to do better than you're doing right now. Foes are coming and Jesus is giving us that word don't let your heart be troubled, put your faith and trust in me.

Meaning if I am partnering with you that this is my plan of fulfillment for your life, you're going to be successful if you put your trust and your faith in me. You're listening to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California and he'll be right back with the second half of today's message so stay tuned. If you haven't already be sure to download our free mobile app and listen to Destined for Victory wherever you go. The app is easy to navigate, you can even take notes on Pastor Paul's messages so they'll be there next time you tune in.

Search Destined for Victory at the app store and download it today absolutely free. Now let's rejoin Pastor Paul for the rest of today's message, Press the Battle On. Let me give you one more example here in the scriptures. Go to 1 Samuel chapter 17 and I want you to see how this principle of persistence in the midst and in the face of foes, how it played out in the life of a young man named David. In 1 Samuel 17, let me give you the context, I don't have time to read the whole thing, but the context of course is the Philistines are ready to go to war with the army of Israel and so both armies are in their places and they're prepared to go to war and then here comes the word, tell you what, let's just have somebody in Israel face our fiercest warrior guy named Goliath. Goliath steps out and he's a giant of a man and he comes out and says, bring me whatever you got, I'll kill him and we'll be done and we will be the victors. You know the story, everybody in Israel's army was afraid, nobody was going out there to meet this opponent. David shows up on the battlefield, he's not even in the army, he's too young to have been inducted into the army, he comes out to bring supplies to his brothers and as he comes out and he looks at this, David said, that guy's out there cursing God, the God of Israel, he's cursing y'all, talking about your mama's everything and none of y'all are going out there, what in the world is the matter with y'all?

Somebody need to go out there and take care of him and you know Israel, especially his brothers who he came out there to bring stuff to, why don't you go on back home, mind your business, go back to those sheep you got. David instead went to Saul, the king, and said, I need to go fight for Israel because none of your army is willing to face their giant and Saul said, well, nope, you can't do that, you're too young, you're not even in the army and David in effect said, well, you don't have a choice because nobody else is willing to go and you know the story, Saul realized, yeah, well, let me let this young man go, he feels like it's God's will for him, it's part of his plan of fulfillment, let me let it happen and you know Saul tried to put his own armor on David, Saul was a tall man, the Bible tells us, so you can imagine how David, a young man, looked in a tall man, grown man's armor, he looked crazy and David had the wisdom to say, no, no, no, this is not the way God uses me, took that stuff off, said, let me just do this the way God uses me, that's a word for somebody, you might have learned some lessons to how to have fulfillment from people who had fulfillment a different way but don't try to adapt their way if it's not what God has put in your heart, find what God is saying to you and do that and God will give you success with you just being who he called you to be, so David said, God uses me with this slingshot, well we call it in modern vernacular slingshot, I'm pretty sure in his day it was more like a rag and a rock than a sophisticated slingshot but however he was going to defeat this man, he used the resources he was comfortable with and Saul approved him going out. Now look at what's said, begin at verse 42 of 1 Samuel 2nd 17, when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him for he was only a youth, ready and good looking, so the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks and the Philistine cursed David by his gods and the Philistine said to David, come to me, I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beast of the field, come over here little boy, I'm going to kill you and I'm going to leave your body out here so that the beast and the birds will devour your remains. Look at verse 45, if you want to see what persistence looks like, look at verse 45, David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword, with a spear, with a javelin but I come to you not based on what's in my hand, I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. Do you see what David said, he said look you think this is man to man combat, that's not the case, this is combat between you and the God we serve, I'm not out here because I can defeat you, I'm out here because God will defeat you, he has already said we're his people and he's given us the victory, I'm not standing here because I'm a great warrior, I'm standing here because I'm a young man who knows that God will do everything he promised, I came to tell you my brother, my sister, everything God has promised you, he said he will do, you might be the vessel he uses but God himself is the one giving you the victory, that's why we have to learn to walk in faith as we face our foes, don't look at this as though it's you against your foe, the foe comes to you on a fleshly basis but you are responding saying no no, this is God's plan for my life, God began to work in me and he has promised to bring it to completion and you foe, you got to move and be defeated because anything God starts, he brings it to pass and you're going to see that happen in your life if you will press forward in persistence and so look at David as he continues, verse 46, he said this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, I will strike you and take your head from you and talking about feeding somebody, I'm going to give your caucus to the birds of the air and the beast of the field, he said yeah, there will be a dead body out here that the beast and the birds will feast on but it's not going to be mine buddy, it's going to be yours, why?

Because God is going to use me to defeat you, you think it's about you and me but this is about you and God and nobody has ever boxed with God and won that match, you all remember some of you all old school folk like me, you remember decades ago there was a play that came out that said your arms are too short to box with God, I came to tell somebody that the devil thinks you're never going to be anything, you're never going to experience fulfillment but don't listen to him because he's just talking what he knows but our God has said if he began the good work in you, he is going to bring it all the way to pass, don't worry about it my brother, my sister, I don't care if nobody in your family has ever done what God is calling you to do, I don't know if the case is you've never experienced this in your circle of influence, if God is speaking to you, here is my plan for you, here is fulfillment to you, you are going to reach your destination. You know God never promised us a rose garden, only a risen Savior, the one who is there to take us through the valleys so that we can reach our destiny in Christ in due season. Do you need prayer today? If so our ministry team would be happy to join you in prayer.

From the pastorpaul.net homepage, click contact us and share what's on your heart, that's pastorpaul.net and while you're there be sure to ask for Pastor Paul's monthly letter of encouragement, yours at no cost or obligation, we'll send it right to your inbox each month. And here's something else, for your best gift to Destined for Victory in December, we'd like to send you Pastor Paul Shepherd's DVD message, Refocus. In a year like 2020 with so much chaos and confusion, it can be easy to lose sight of our primary mission.

We may begin to focus on social issues, political issues or the pandemic. Good things when done in moderation, but our primary focus should be on worshiping God, enjoying the gift of his salvation and sharing that gift with others. In Refocus, that's exactly what Pastor Paul encourages you to do, offering you three practical steps for addressing the events of this year and moving ahead into 2021 with your faith intact knowing that God is moving you ever closer to your destiny in Christ. Again that DVD message is called Refocus and it's our gift to you by request for your best gift to Destined for Victory in December. So just call 855-339-5500 to give over the phone or mail your gift to Destined for Victory post office box 1767 Fremont California 94538. You can also make a safe and secure donation from our website pastorpaul.net.

Thanks in advance for helping keep Destined for Victory on the air. Living right matters to God. He's the one that calls us to a standard and he is the one who wants us to live according to that standard so that he can bless our lives as he is ordained to bless them. And so we need to make it our aim to please God. Don't prepare to go into yet another year with the same old mess. It's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message It's a Wonderful Life. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ you are Destined for Victory.