Here's an important announcement from Meredith Shepherd. Hello, Destined for Victory family. This is Meredith Shepard, Pastor Paul's wife. This is the first time you're hearing from me since my beloved husband went home to be with the Lord. And I want you to know your prayers have carried me.
Your letters, your messages, cards, books, the ways you've reached out during these months, they've strengthened me through the shock and the grief in ways I can't fully express. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, Paul often said that he wanted to be the black J. Vernon McGee. He'd say it with that grin of his, but behind the humor was something deeply serious.
A vision to create a teaching library that would outlive him, that would keep speaking biblical truth long after he was gone. And that's what he did. For decades, Paul poured himself into buildings destined for victory. not just as a radio programme, but as a legacy. He wanted to make sure that timeless truth would be available to help people live victorious lives no matter what generation they're in.
That's why I'm talking to you today, because what Paul worked so hard to build needs your help to continue. Recently, we experienced a change in one of our major funding sources, and for the first time in this ministry's history, we're at risk of losing radio stations, of having to pull back from communities where people depend on this teaching. I don't want my husband's voice silenced. I don't want the work he dedicated his life to building to disappear because of funding. We need to preserve what Pastor Paul poured himself into creating.
So I'm coming to you, this family that's already been so supportive, and I'm asking, will you help us? If destined for victory has encouraged you, Challenged you, or helped you grow in your walk with God, would you consider giving today? A monthly gift would especially help us stabilize our funding and keep Paul's teaching on the air in every community that needs it. You can give at pastorpaul.net. And as our thank you, we'd love to send you Paul's hardcover book, Becoming an Excellent Steward, a collection of his last year of teaching that our family just finished editing.
It's a beautiful reminder of his heart and his wisdom. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for standing with us. And thank you for your generosity in helping to preserve this legacy. God bless you.
All right. Thank you, Meredith. Friends, if you value the teaching of Pastor Paul on this station, I hope you will be as generous as you can when you give today. When you give that best gift of $25 or more, we'll send you the hardcover book Becoming an Excellent Steward is our thank you. All gifts received or postmarked by midnight tonight are still tax deductible for 2025.
You can give by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a secured donation online. And you can also mail your gift, just make sure it's postmarked by midnight tonight, destined for victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. No. God loved us just as we are.
In our sins, He died for us. He loved you as you were, but He never had any intention of leaving you as you were. Never, never, never. God doesn't save you to keep you the same, He saves us to change us, to make us like Himself. Believers in Christ have been called to let go of the old self.
To put it off and lay it down. That's the first step in becoming new, but there are others. And you'll hear all about them next on today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. The message is called The Process of Becoming New and it starts right now.
Now, I want everybody to understand: putting off the old self is the crucial first step toward becoming new. We've all got some stuff we got to let go of. We've been saved by grace. God loved us just as we are. In our sins, He died for us.
He loved you as you were, but He never had any intention of leaving you as you were. Never, never, never. God doesn't save you to keep you the same. He saves us to change us, to make us like himself. And therefore, since the goal is for him to recreate us and make us like himself, the first step is going to be getting rid of the old stuff.
So I want to ask you some questions. We're going to be intensely, this is an in-your-business message. It's in your business. Yes, it is intentionally in your business. I want you to understand.
That you're saved, and God in saving you, the first thing He did was He changed your status. These are days of social media, so everybody on social media knows about status. First thing you do when you get saved is he changes your status. I go from Dead spiritually to alive. That's a status change.
You were dead in trespasses and sins. He changed your status.
Now your status is alive. You were a sinner, old status sinner. He changed it, now you're a saint. Before you get your act together, you're a saint. He makes you that positionally.
Positionally, I am a saint. Possessionally, I have to learn how to drop off the old sinner stuff. Come on somebody You can still, I know you're saved, know you've been in church a lot of years. You can still act like quite the sinner. Oh, see, there y'all go, there y'all go.
I know what you're talking about. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. You have had sinful moments. Sinful episodes. And so, what we're trying to do is learn how to get rid of the old God's way so He can introduce into us the newness of life.
that he has ordained for us.
So the first thing is you get your status changed. Your status is already changed. Don't let the devil condemn you and don't let hypocrite Christians condemn you. I'm saved, and my status is saint before I get my act together. I thought you were saved.
I am saved. He changed my status. You don't get to say whether I'm saved. The Lord said I'm His. He gave me the Holy Spirit.
The moment you got saved, He gave you the Spirit. The Bible says the Spirit comes into your heart crying, Abba, Father, meaning he establishes a father, son, and daughter relationship between you and the Heavenly Father. I'm his kid automatically before I learn how to live, I'm his child. And so you got to get this straight. Status change first.
Now that my status has changed, he said, all right, now we're going to go to work on your positionally alive. You're positionally a saint.
Now let me work with you to teach you how to possessionally be a saint, possess saint tributes, saint attributes. And so that's what God is doing in all of us now.
So, this message comes to just ask you to look at the areas of your life where there's some stuff that needs to be put off. Are you already aware? I think I asked this question at the close of the last message. Let me ask it again. Are you already aware of things in your life that need to be put off?
You should already be aware of some stuff. Because your heart should be tender enough where the Holy Spirit can convict you. I don't want that. I don't like that. That's not my plan.
We're not doing that. If you've never heard any of that. You've never heard the Holy Spirit ever say, uh-uh, uh, nope, this ain't it. If you've only heard congratulations and never conviction.
Something wrong with your experience. The God we serve loves you enough to correct you. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens.
Some folk think, you know, just because you didn't do something right, that means you don't have a right relationship with God. No, no, the Bible says he loves his kids, so he chastens his kids. Who he doesn't chasten is other folk, they're already under judgment. He's trying to get them together before judgment comes because they're already in trouble. You don't go around disciplining other people's kids.
But your own I'm talking about I'm talking about Proper parenting. I'm sorry. Proper parenting. Cause I I grew up in the days of proper parenting. Where they say you my child Don't tell me about what Jimmy and them can do.
Well, over at their house I you you don't live over there? Not your family. What you telling me about them? Let them do whatever it is they do over there.
So, you've got to learn that's the way our God is.
So, you should have already experienced some conviction. If you're just skating the whole day, every day, all day with your nastiness, something wrong.
So, you ought to already be aware. But if you happen to not be aware, and if you happen to have muted out the Holy Spirit's voice. Another way that the Lord wants to get to you is through some truth tellers in your life. Do you have some folks who love you enough to tell you the truth? See, some of y'all only have fans.
You need friends. A friend loves at all times.
Some of y'all only surround yourself with your friends, with your posse. With your gang, with your clique. We roll together. No, God wants you to have some people in your inner circle who love you too much to leave you lying to yourself. You need some people who will tell you what you need to hear, even when they know it's not what you want to hear.
Do you have any of them? Do you have any of them in your life group? That's why we have life groups here at Destiny. It's about life. We do life together.
Life means when I hear you say something, I say, wait, wait, can I ask you about that? Tell me a little bit more about what you just said. Life, we're doing life together. They shouldn't just let you just say any old thing, do any old thing. Have any old priority, and no one says anything, that's not doing life together.
Let's take a quick timeout, but don't go away. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message featuring Pastor Paul Shepard. If you missed the important message at the beginning of this broadcast about the financial deficit that this ministry is currently experiencing, please visit pastorpaul.net for more information and to find out how you can help. When you give today, we have a special gift reserved for you, and the details are available at pastorpaul.net or by calling 855-339-5500. God can't give you anything new if your hands are already full of the old.
Let's get you back to the rest of today's Destined for Victory message: the process of becoming new.
So Are there truth tellers in your life? People who have permission to say things like, Can I see you for a minute? And they pull you to the side 'cause they're not trying to embarrass you in front of other people. They pull you to the side. This isn't an embarrassment session.
And you need some folks who will tell you, you know what? When you said this, when you did this, your attitude is, et cetera. They get down into your business. And you need to thank God for them. A friend loves at all times.
A brother's born for adversity. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Told you many times before, you need some folk who can cut you. See, you're only familiar with the folk who cut you because they're enemies with a knife trying to stab you to death. No, you need somebody else who has something sharp, but their job is not to stab you to death.
Their job is to do surgery to life. A surgeon has something sharp, but they're not your enemy. A surgeon has a sharp instrument because they're trying to cut something out of you that if it doesn't get cut out, that's what's going to kill you.
So, you gotta have some folks who have permission. to handle the scrapel. See, some of y'all have you never met anybody that you never even considered anybody getting in your business like that. You already you ready to buff up on somebody first chance you get Nobody disrespects me. I'm not disrespecting you.
I'm telling you the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not disrespecting you. Your feelings are hurt cause you're wrong. That's all your feelings are hurt when you're wrong.
Don't get mad at me because you're wrong. I was offended. Apologize to me, and I'll forgive you.
Now we're taking care of it. I offended you by telling you the truth. Apologized to me. I'm so sorry. I was tripping, got mad at you, and all you did was told me the truth.
Apologize to me. I said, oh. I'll forgive you. If it was a pastoral relationship, I'll be like a priest. My son, I forgive you.
But you need to do that with your friends. You need to do that with your inner circle. People, don't have an inner circle of liars. Don't have an inner circle of enablers. Have an inner circle whose job is to help you get to heaven.
And help you get God some credit on your way. That's what your inner circle needs to be. We all go into heaven together. That means we want to tell each other the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. And if you don't like it, If the cat is being rubbed wrong, let the cat turn around.
Because I'm not changing the truth for you. All right, there are four areas. Four areas, I got 28 more minutes. Four areas we should examine. I want to make sure that you are putting off your stuff.
So, I want to give you four areas to examine. First, let's look at your assets. Your assets. The stuff You have in your life. Whether it's from material assets.
Whatever, your body is an asset, your material goods and possessions are assets, your money, asset, your influence, an asset. Let's look at your assets. We belong to God. Every one of us belongs to God. Who are saved by grace.
Well, technically, even all humanity belongs to God in that, you know, if I miss you in Jesus, I'll catch you in Adam. I get that. But the fact of the matter is, I'm not talking about you as a human being being a child of God by creation and procreation. I'm talking about those of us who are in Christ.
So we belong to God because we are in Christ. Let's establish some things in the scriptures. Psalm 100, verse 3, you already know it. Know ye that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His.
King James says, and not we ourselves, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. He made us, we belong to him. You're his child. Go to 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20. Do you not know that your bodies, one of your assets, are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?
You, watch this, are not your own. It's my body. No, it's not. It's his body. He's letting you live in.
Verse 20, you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Nobody tells me what to do, God does. Amen. God does.
He gets to tell you what to do with your body. That's why you'll read your Bible and you come across fornication, adultery, and lasciviousness, and all this. He gets to tell you: that's not what I made you to do. He gets to tell you stop it. Because it's his body.
that you're living in. You just saw it right in the word. Don't get mad at me. You, I didn't write it. Why are you getting mad at the mailman?
All he did was drop something off. He wasn't the author.
So every asset we have belongs to God. Not only our bodies, not only our material possessions, your what three major assets you have are your time, your talent, and your treasure. Your time belongs to God. He gets the call time. One of these days, he's gonna call time.
You're out of here. The alarm clock doesn't wake you up. Whole lot of folks' alarm clock went off this morning and they laid right there. Because time got called. And so time belongs to God in your life.
So the question is, what do you need to put off from your current lifestyle in the way you're misusing time? There's some things you're doing with your time that God has not endorsed.
So, how does he want you to use the time he gave you?
So, those are the kinds of questions we have to consider. Look at all the hours in a given week. How many of those are you using for things that are not God's will for your life? And it's not just sinful things, not just sinful.
Sometimes it's not sin, but it's unproductive and it's not God's will because you're not doing what He has told you to do. If you sub what you want to do, and instead of what God has called you to do with some areas of your time, then those are things you've got to put off.
So it's not, and it's not a matter of, well, not everything in life is spiritual. Of course, it's not. Work is necessary in most of our lives just to earn a living so that we can have a life.
Some of y'all still don't get it. Earning a living is not life. You can earn a living and not have a life. God wants you to have a life, but earning a living allows you to do it.
So are you earning your living in such a way that honors and glorifies God, your use of time? You want to glorify him. I don't work for God. I work for the man, and I don't like his policies anyway, so I just do what I want with the time. You can't do that, you're going to get fired in Jesus' name.
God didn't call you. Don't worry about it. Your boss is not even saved. Don't even worry about it. Just go ahead and spend your whole time doing stuff your boss didn't tell you.
That's not God's will. You work for Caesar, give to Caesar what belongs to him. You got to work, you know, you got to understand. I have to honor God wherever I am. Look at Daniel, look at the three Hebrew boys.
They're in Babylon, they're in heathen country. That's where they live. But they honored God even among the heathen. That's what you're called to do. Every day, some of y'all get to do that.
You work around a whole bunch of heathens. And God isn't throwing off on them. They need to get saved. No, no, uh, how are they gonna get saved? And they see you, you won't even honor God by treating your time right.
I don't want a Jesus that lets me flake off on somebody else's dime. That's not God's will. Ooh Lord have mercy. Your talent. What are you doing with the giftings God has given you to do?
What are you doing? Why are you sitting on gifts God told you to use? What did He give you the gift for except to use it? Giftedness is a responsibility. It's not a privilege.
It's not something to gloat about. It's not something to brag about. It's something to use for God's glory. When you have a gift, you have a responsibility. It's not something that's optional.
God gave you the gift because He wanted a return on that investment.
So you got to look at your gifts. Which are your gifts just laying around doing nothing? God said, I gave it to you for a reason. How come you're not using it for my glory? How come you're not using it to honor me, to bless the kingdom, and to help people in life, wherever they are, however, you can help them?
Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory message: The Process of Becoming New. Remember, we have a special gift reserved for you when you make your generous year end gift, which helps Destiny for victory through the current financial deficit and keeps Pastor Paul's teaching on this station. And it's not too late to do this. All gifts received today or postmarked by midnight tonight are still tax deductible in 2025. More details are available at pastorpaul.net.
That's pastorpaul.net or Or you can make your best year-end gift now by calling 855-339-5500. Once again, 855-339-5500.
So you gotta look at your gifts. Which are your gifts just laying around doing nothing? God said, I gave it to you for a reason. How come you're not using it for my glory? How come you're not using it to honor me, to bless the kingdom, and to help people in life, wherever they are, however, you can help them?
That's next time in our Destined for Victory message: The Process of Becoming New. Until then, remember. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
