If you want to know God's will, re-examine your gifts. If you want to know what God wants out of you, look at what God put into you. Because those gifts are a deposit. and God wants a return on his investment. Hello, and welcome to another great day on Destined for Victory, where we feature the teaching and preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard.
Well, from time to time we all struggle with the question, why am I here? And if you're one of millions who wants to know your place in this world, Pastor Paul has a word of encouragement for you today, taken from the life of the Apostle Paul. Remember, visit pastorpaul.net to listen to Destined for Victory on Demand, pastorpaul.net. And subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcast.
Now here's today's Destined for Victory message. Praise your way through. If you want to see God grow your faith, you got to get with people who can help your faith grow. You're believing God for things you never believed Him for, or in ways you never believed Him. You want to get around faith-walking people.
I intentionally hang out with ministers whose anointing and whose scope of ministry dwarfs mine because I want to remain exposed to their faith because I know that God's only doing what He's doing because they've allowed Him to grow them in the area of faith. And so I get around them.
Sometimes I feel really silly, but I hang out with the right folk. Because if you want to be an eagle, you got to quit hanging with turkeys.
Now you can hang out with turkeys to help them. Do turkey stuff. But you gotta hang out with eagles to learn how to fly. And some of you, God is challenging you to take your prayer life to the next level, to believe Him for bigger and better things. And you got to get with people who know how to pray in faith, believing.
If you're believing God for healing, you've gotten a bad report, and the physicians don't hold out much hope for you, but you just have a sense that God's not through with you yet and that He might choose to heal you, then you gotta get around folk who know how to believe God for healing. You're fooling around with these folk who are telling you they have an uncle who died with what you have. That's not going to help you right now. Yeah, child, hunt. Oh, that's a shame.
They told you that, huh? Yeah, my uncle died with the same, and he went quick, too. They're not gonna help me right now. I don't need that right now. I need somebody who can say, I'm going to believe God with you.
Let's stand in faith. Let's see what God will do. God telling you to go into a career and you don't have the money and all of that. You don't need to talk to these folk or God's telling you to launch a business so it can bless some other people and can generate funds for the kingdom of God, but you've never started a business before. Quit hanging around with these folk who go get the statistics.
Well, you know, they say 78% of the businesses that start fail in the first 12 months. You're talking to the wrong folk. If God told you to do it, that's not what you want to look at. If God told you to do it, you want to talk to somebody who says, I had nothing but a word from God. And I saw him turn it in.
to his will. And so you got to grow your faith. Feed your faith, starve your doubts. And G stands for gifts. Gifts.
If you want to know God's will, re-examine your gifts. your natural abilities and your spiritual gifts. And all of us in the body of Christ have both natural abilities and also spiritual gifts. And all that God has given you in the way of resources. Can be used for his glory.
So, if you want to know what God wants out of you, look at what God put into you. Because those gifts are a deposit. And God wants a return on his investment. in your life. And so you have to begin to say what Has God gifted me to do?
I've told you before, you never have to pray about whether or not God wants you to make C D's if you can't sing. We don't have to pray there. We don't have to spend prayer time there. Oh, God, do you want me to record CDs? No.
No, in Jesus' name, no. Don't torture the people like that. Because they love you and they want to support you, but here you come with a CD and you can't sing. They don't want to buy that. You can tell what God wants out of you by what He put into you.
Well, anyway, Paul was doing the will of God. And it is in the course of doing the will of God that we will find interesting things beginning to happen in our lives. Because things get stirred up around people who do the will of God. Just as sure as you get in the will of God, you'll see activity begin to stir around you. You don't have many dull days in the will of God.
And one day, while they're in Philippi, a Roman province, which was a key center, and he wanted to go there and preach the gospel, and God blessed him to begin to minister to Lydia and others there. And the Bible says that while they were in that region, a girl began to follow Paul and his companions around. She had a spirit by which she told fortunes or predicted the future. Please understand that fortune telling, when it operates, is a work of evil spirits, according to Scripture. And it is meant to give you information from the wrong source.
And so the Bible is clear. These days, Christians feel so free in grace that they're free to do anything. I beg to differ. There are some things you need to stay away from. And going to fortune tellers and calling 900 numbers trying to find out where your watch is is not the will of God.
You need to stay out of that stuff. It's not God's plan for you to get information from an evil spirit.
Now, some folk are phony when they do that and they're just playing games and taking your money. But other people, like this girl, have a legitimate work that they're doing, but it's illegitimate because of its source. In other words, they can tell you some true facts. But you've got to look at where the information's coming from to find out whether or not it is something you need to participate in. And there are people right now you could go to and they could tell you.
The Bible says they operate in familiar spirits. Those spirits are familiar with you, your family background. They can go back generations and tell you information, but that's not from God. And you steer clear of that. That's not God's will for your life.
Anything you need to know, learn to walk in faith and let the Spirit reveal it to you. And read your word, which will give you a lot of information. But if anything God doesn't reveal to you through his word or by his spirit, you just don't need to know it. And you just go on and walk by faith and see God do his will. But this girl began to follow them around, and it's very interesting what she was doing.
She was saying, They're men of the Most High God. They're telling us the way to be saved. And that was a true statement. The devil knows how to tell the truth. But even when he tells the truth, there's a lying motive.
There's a lying motive. She was doing this. out of a lying motive. She either wanted the people in town to believe that the spirit that operated in her was compatible with the spirit that operated in them, so that when they left town, she'd be seen as even more legitimate. It was either for that reason or she was doing it with the hope of appeasing them so that they wouldn't bother her.
You know, sometimes demons got very agitated when men of God came around. Whatever the reason, whatever the motive for her doing this, it grieved Paul, and he knew this was not of God. And these days, we've got to be careful because there are a lot of people who love to act like all of us are in the same business. Everyone who is spiritual, really, all spirituality goes back to the one source. Burke, wrong answer.
All spirituality does not go back to one source. There is the work of Satan and demon forces that opposes the will of God. And so don't buy into this notion that all everybody who is spiritually minded these days, we all serve the one God. And there are many different ways to God. And the problem with you evangelical Christians is you believe there's only one way to God.
And as soon as you broaden your perspective, you'll understand that there are many ways to God. No, there are many ways to Los Angeles. Want to catch the scenic route from the Bay Area, going to LA? And you want to see good scenery? Go down one and you can go down by the shore and see Big Sur and all that stuff.
Have your good old time. If you want to go to Missions Route and go through a lot of nice towns and see some interesting facts of years gone by, then go down 101. If you're in a real hurry and gotta get there, jump on fire. Or you do like I did in January after I got in my car. I said, Oh, I want to test this puppy out.
I took it out on five. We had to go to LA, my family and I. And I said, Y'all fly down, and I'll meet you in the car. I had a message to my madness. I wasn't trying to convenience them.
I didn't want to hear my wife because I wanted to drive. I'm just being honest, a little confession, good for the soul. And so I said, baby, y'all get on the plane to the southwest. We get you some cheap tickets. Y'all fly down and I'll meet you that way.
You don't have to sit in the car for five, six hours. You just fly, you'll be there in an hour. She said, oh, that sounds good. I said, thank you, Jesus. Man, I got on five.
I said, all right, let's see what this old thing can do. I started to ask God to blind the cops, but I realized that that What? I realized I couldn't pray that in real faith. You know what I mean?
So I just sort of took some chances along the way. All right, y'all mess number message. Where am I? All right. Only one way to God, the Bible says that.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Not one of them. He said, I'm the way. And then he said, no man comes to the Father but by me. And so we have to take that stand.
And Paul took that stand, rebuked that spirit, and it came out of that girl.
Now as a result of that, her ability to predict the future now is gone. 'Cause it was a spirit operating in her. And once those who owned her, she was a slave girl, saw that their means of income. was gone, now they got mad. See, a lot of time our stand for truth doesn't really bother a whole lot of folk till it gets in their business.
And as soon as it impacts their life, then that's when you'll find out how supported you really are not. And they were suddenly facing an angry crowd. And the magistrates caving in to the fears and the hysteria of these people, ordered them to be stripped and beaten. The Bible says they were severely flogged. Severely flogged.
Now That means they were beaten until they were wounded, until they were bloody, until they were a mess. All they had done is the will of God. and they find themselves in that situation. Don't go away, the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, featuring Pastor Paul Shepard, is coming right up. Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father unless they came through Him.
That's why Destined for Victory is here, to share Jesus Christ with the world, and to show as best we can that He is exactly who He claims to be. You can help us teach this Timeless Truth by sending a generous gift today. Stop by Pastor Paul dot net to make a safe and secure donation online. That's Pastor Paul dot net. Or call us at eight five five three three nine five five zero zero.
Well, it's not always easy to praise God, especially during dark and difficult times, but He asks us to praise Him anyway. Here's the second half of today's message. Praise your way through. I want to tell somebody: you find yourself in a situation, and all you've been trying to do is seek God's will for your life, and yet you find yourself in some set of challenging circumstances, whether it's persecution like they faced, or trial after trial in your life, or whatever it is, you're facing a challenge, you're facing financial trouble, you're facing family trouble, you're facing some persecution, any type of trouble that's coming into your life. This is an excellent case study.
What did these men do? They didn't say, Now, God, why would you treat us this way? We're serving you, doing your will. Why would you let these people beat us up like this and throw us in maximum security jail and treat us like criminals? No, no, they didn't take that attitude.
They didn't question God. They didn't say it's unfair. I deserve better. A lot of us have an inflated idea of our own importance, and somebody told us somewhere along the line that we deserve to always be happy, that we deserve to always have sunshine and no clouds, no challenges. I don't know who you've been talking to, but you've been talking to the wrong folks.
Because if you ask the wrong question, you always get the wrong answer. And the wrong question is: do I deserve what I'm going through? They didn't say any such thing. What did they do? The Bible says about midnight, they're in the thick of the dark of their life.
They're in the thick of the darkness of their situation. See, midnight, we don't understand it really because of our time system, because we say that midnight begins a new day. And 1201, we call that the next day. In Bible time frames, you would have 6 a.m. beginning the day and 6 p.m.
beginning the night.
So if the night begins at 6 p.m. and day begins at 6 a.m., then midnight is in the thick of it. And some of you are in the thick of it right now. In the thick of trouble, in the thick of controversy, in the thick of trial, in the thick of disillusionment. I don't understand what's going on in my life.
Take a look at Paul and Silas. At midnight, when it is pressing in on every side, they prayed and they sang praises to God. I want to tell you, it's time to tune up. To sing praises to God, to shout praises to God. You say, Well, why would you praise God at midnight?
Because you don't praise Him just for what He does. When you don't like the circumstance you're in, and you can't find something in the circumstance to praise him for, then you praise him because he's the God who holds your life in his hands. You praise him because he's the only one who can do something about your problem, anyhow.
Now, when you are in maximum security jail in the inner cell and then fastened to the stocks in the inner cell. You're not getting out on your own. You understand that? See, some of us think we are ingenious. We think we can get some things done.
And that's probably why God allows certain sets of circumstances to come into our lives so that you can realize: I don't care how smart you think you are, life is going to hit you with some things you can do nothing about. And when you reach that point where you can't do anything about what you're going through, the Bible says learn how to turn your attention to God and to give Him praise because greater is He who is in us than anything we're going through. And at midnight, in the thick of their trouble, They gave God praise.
Now, here's what I want you to see. They praised him because they understood he holds their life in his hands, and if they're going to get out, he's the one to do it. And that if they're going to suffer for his name, he'll give them the grace to do it.
So, whatever God's will calls for, they know they've got to be in touch with him. And so they praise him because praise invokes his presence. Praise brings God's manifested presence into a situation. You gotta understand the difference between God's omnipresence and His manifested presence. God is everywhere.
The Bible makes that clear. He is everywhere. There's nowhere in the universe God is not. He is everywhere. David said, If I make my bed in hell, God's there.
If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the heights, God is there. Wherever I am, God is there. That's his omni presence. But the Bible talks about God being present in certain situations, which tells you there's a distinction to be made between God being there and God showing up to get something done. And when you praise him, it invokes his manifested presence.
When you praise God, you're asking God to come and dwell with you. Hang out with me, Lord. I'm here in trouble. I need you with me. And David said, he inhabits the praise of his people.
Which means God will come and dwell with you when you praise Him.
Somebody needs to make up in your mind when things are going not your way, you want to invite His manifested presence, and you do that through praise and through worship. Lord, I adore you. I magnify you. When we say we magnify the Lord, we're saying, God, I choose to blow you up. When I complain, I blow up my trouble.
When I complain, I blow up my circumstance. But when I worship, I blow up the God I serve. And I magnify your name, Lord. I need you with me. I can't get through this night without you.
and you invite his presence.
Well, I love it because God not only showed up. God got so happy, he said, Let me get these fellas out of here. God got so happy, you won't know what God will do in your life till you invite him in. And even if he lets you suffer through a long night, he'll come and get with you and he'll minister to you during that night and grow your faith and grow some things in you so that when he brings you out, he'll bring you out in a good place. But in this case, he said I'm busting them out early.
I like what I hear down there. And who knows, you might get through what you're going through sooner if you'll get into praise and worship. And so they began to praise God, not knowing how he would react, but he chose in this circumstance to say, Let me show these folk my power. Because there's somebody I want to save.
So you got to understand, God's always thinking about more than you. Did you notice the verse that said the prisoners were listening to them? The reason why you want to learn to praise and worship God is because God has put you on display. And there's some folk looking at you to see how you're going to go through, what you're going to go through. And the way you go through will directly impact their lives.
And the Bible says that the other prisoners were listening to them invoke the presence of their God through worship and through praise. And God shook that place with a mighty earthquake. And it loosened them from the stocks. Threw the jail door open. And here's what I love, because it's a work of God, they didn't go running out.
When God is at work, you don't have to be in a hurry. They just sat there. Because Paul and Silas sense God is up to something here.
So we need to know what's going on.
Well, the jailer woke up. My man was working that late shift, kind of tired, you know. And he's sleeping. Bob said when he woke up, And Saul That the doors were open. He drew his sword.
Because he knew the orders he was under. Guard these people with your life. And he figured they're going to kill me. 'Cause he assumed they had all run out. He said, They're going to kill me.
I might as well kill myself because I'll do it quickly. They might kill me slowly. And he got ready to kill himself, and Paul said, Don't do yourself any harm. Watch this, I love it. He said, We're all here.
The other prisoners, the heathen prisoners. Had so been impacted by what God did. I know something in them said, you know, we really need to get out of here. But something else in them said, Well, no, whoever shook this place might not want us to go.
So maybe we just want to sit tight, see what's going to happen, you know? They were all all sitting there. The saints, the heathens, all of them just sitting there. Paul said we're all here.
Well, the jailer was so impacted. that he took Paul And Silas Holm. They shared the word of God with him and his family. In the middle of the night, They baptized him. You want to go through your night right because God might let you win, folk, in your night season.
They baptized him. His family got saved. And then they went back to jail. Yeah. Read it.
When you get a chance to Russell chapter 16, they went back to jail. Because when the magistrate sends the order, release them. The jailer said, look at this, now you're really free to go. And they left. Listen, at midnight.
Your flesh says complain. Bellyache, ask why, get mad at God, go on a strike. I'm not going to church anymore. But the right thing to do. is to say, Lord, I worship you.
I praise you. And when I can't. Praise you for what I'm going through. I can praise you in what I'm going through. And I can trust you that you are going to bring me through, and you're going to bring me out.
In case you missed part of today's message, I want to make sure you hear this important piece of advice Pastor Paul gave us. If you're curious about what God wants out of you, take a look at what He put into you.
Well, all of us at Destined for Victory are so grateful to you, our listening friends and partners, who help us share the gospel of Jesus Christ every day through our media ministry. And so today, our dear friend and the executive director of Destined for Victory, Alicia Greer, has a few words to share with you. Alicia, take it away. I just wanted to take a moment during this Thanksgiving season to extend our sincere gratitude to all of our faithful listeners and supporters of Destined for Victory. 2025 has been a difficult year, but we're so incredibly grateful for your ongoing support.
There is no way that we could do this without you. And we're so grateful for the way that you give, the way that you pray for the ministry, and the way that you offer support in the various ways that you do.
So during this Thanksgiving season, please know that the Shepherd family is so grateful for you. We praise God for you. God bless. Thank you, Alicia. All of us that destined for victory echo those sentiments.
Please know how much we love and appreciate each one of you. Before we finish today I want to tell you about a great resource we've reserved for when you give your generous gift to Destined for victory. It's our booklet, Give, Bless, Repeat. If you want to make giving a lifestyle not only a periodic act of generosity, you want to get your hands on a copy of this outstanding resource right away. Pastor Paul Shepard will challenge you to make doing good deeds a regular part of your life, and he'll give you some helpful keys to doing so.
That's Give, Bless, Repeat our gift to you today for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500. or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destined4Victory.
Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. See, we actually owe God thanksgiving and praise. The Bible directs us as to how to live a life that brings God glory. And one of the features of that life is to give God the praise and the thanks that He deserves. That is next time in our message.
Have you paid your praise bill? I hope you'll join us. Until then, remember. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
