Perspective Is Everything (cont'd)

People of vision often do not see what's right in front of them.

They're too busy looking beyond it. In just a few moments on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, Perspective is Everything. But before we start, he joins me from his studio in California. Talk to our Destined for Victory partners. They are the lifeblood of this ministry, aren't they? And we appreciate it. And I want to encourage those donors who can to step up to the next level and become partners. Those are the people who are the lifeline of our ministry because they give month in and month out. $20, $25, some of them give more to make sure that we can continue to bring these messages your way.

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Request it when you make a generous gift this month. I came to tell somebody God's getting ready to give you a net-breaking miracle. But you are going to have to get your thinking out of it, telling God you did this before and it didn't work and I know somebody who tried it and they made a fool of themselves. You got to get all of that out of your mind and you got to say this is what God's telling me to do. If you're facing obstacles to your destiny, if you have a promise from God and something or someone is standing in your way, today's message is just for you. Pastor Paul wants to remind you how important it is to maintain perspective, to see things the way God sees them.

The first step in changing the way you see is changing the way you think. So here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Perspective is Everything. God uses the Word, God uses the Holy Spirit. God will speak to you and he will say something to you that's not in the Bible but it doesn't contradict. It lines up with the precepts and principles of the Scripture. To give you an example, in my last former pastorate, after years of working hard, sowing faithfully in ministry, into this vision where the Lord had said to me, I came to California because the Lord said to me through this passage and others, I have many people in the Bay Area and I've called you to reach them, called you to win some of them and disciple some of them.

The Lord used the word thousands. I still have a recording of a meeting I had with about 40 people in 1989. I came to town to figure out whether I was going to accept their invitation to be their pastor. To this day I have a recording of that meeting and you can hear me talk in 1989 to about 40 people about the Lord saying we were going to reach thousands. We're sitting in this little teeny church. They're sitting there all happy because they think I'm going to be their next pastor.

And I said I may, but I need to know how you all are going to respond to this word I have from the Lord. So I shared it with them. And they said, hey, we've always been a little church. If God is saying we're going to become a big church, cool.

And they embraced it. Now the thing is, the Lord gave me the vision, but he didn't tell me when the thousands were coming. And you have to learn that about God. God will give you a vision and you have no idea when it's going to come to pass or what you're going to have to go through between now and later.

God has an MO. He give you the good part. He show you the reality and the vision. That's where it's going to be. He gets you all excited. Ooh, look at that. Because he know if he tell you now you're going to have to go through this kind of hell and you're going to have to go through that and they're going to do this to you and you're going to do that.

Are you still interested? He know not to do that. So he give you the end before you ever get started. And so I told these people about thousands. They rejoiced. Praise God.

Don't be good. Seven years in, seven years in, we've gone from 34 to 250. That's great growth. By average church standard, great growth.

Most churches never get past 100. We went from 34 to 250 in seven years. Amazing. But I was disappointed, confused, bewildered. God, you play too much. I was sitting pretty in Philadelphia, heir apparent to my daddy's ministry. We already had a thousand members in Philly. Some of them couldn't wait for my dad to resign so that I could come and take the church to the next level. And you send me out to California to 34 people and tell them thousands are coming.

And all of us for seven years wondering where the thousands are. I'm giving altar calls. I'm preaching my best sermons, doing everything I know to do.

The best I could come up with is 250, seven years in. I had to decide at that point, am I going to keep the perspective God gave me and keep on preaching? Don't be silent. Don't leave. Or am I going to follow my thinking? My thinking told me every Sunday as my wife and I drove home from church. My thinking said, you need to get out of here. You need to go back to Philly, told them you made a mistake.

Oops, I'm sorry. They would have embraced me all the more. All passed apart. We were praying because some of them have been praying ever since. Most of them are going to be with the Lord by now. But the ones that were still praying back then that God would send me home, every now and then when I go back to Philly, they still say, you coming home? I said, I've been home over a quarter of a century now.

Home is in California because that's where the will of God took me. They don't like that. But year eight, we built out a little warehouse. And after sowing in tears for seven years, we began to reap a harvest.

Reap a harvest. We started growing by leaps and bounds. Went from one service to two. Now, don't be that impressed. We were in a little building.

But we did. We went from one service to one service and overflow. Two services, two and overflow. Three and overflow.

Finally, four and overflow. And we needed another building. And we started looking around and we found a beautiful industrial facility that we could lease and convert into a worship center. The city gave us approval. We said, okay, we're going to do it.

We'll finally have a nice large facility where we can keep growing. And as we're in that process, by the time the building is beginning to be under renovation and we're looking forward to moving in months from now, I had two experiences within a week or two of each other that God used. One was I spoke at the Crystal Cathedral in its heyday. I was a speaker in a successful church institute conference. And Dr. Schuler had asked me to come. He had heard me speak. We were both speakers in another conference. I didn't even know he was sitting in my session, but he was. And he was impressed with what he heard.

He said, I've got to have him for my institute. They invited me and I came. You know, I'm there starstruck. Wow, the Crystal Cathedral.

Looking at all that beautiful glass and pipe organ. Oh, man, I knew I had made it. After I spoke, Dr. Schuler's people came. Doctor wants to meet you for lunch up in the tower. They had a tower. We went up in the tower looking over Orange County. I could hardly eat. Look at this. Look at this.

Oh, this is wonderful. But while I was there, I went to another guy's session and I had come back for that session from my hotel and I ran out so quickly I left my wallet. They were taking the offering and they passed the offering around at that time in these little bowls that were not completely transparent, but you could see through them somewhat enough to know when a dollar's laying in there and when it's not. And the bowls were coming and I went to my... Oh, I left my money. And I wanted to give, but I didn't have my wallet. I really wanted to give. Plus, so I felt bad that I couldn't give. Then I felt even worse that people are going to see that I don't give.

You know, because I'm feeling self-conscious. I'm one of the speakers. I just spoke earlier in the day. Now I'm back for the evening session and I'm a speaker. I don't want them saying, man, he didn't give anything.

But I had to pass the bowl when it came my way and I felt so bad. Then within a week or so of that, a group of pastors and I who have this habit of once a year we'll go visit, do a site visit on some church that has a really great ministry or really great building or whatever, and we spend some time sharpening each other and learning from other models. I went to a church in Fort Lauderdale. Had about 15,000, 16,000 people in weekend attendance.

Beautiful campus. But as we walked through their building taking the store, I noticed these tied-in offering boxes. And I said, I asked the guy, what's this about? He said, oh, that's the way our people give. I said, you mean like when they're late and they missed the offering? He said, no, no, that's the way we give. I said, so y'all don't take offering during the service?

No, no. They can give before. They can give during. They can give after. Wherever a box is, we give.

I said, man, because I come from a mindset where if you're going to get people to give, you better watch it. We'll be right back with more of today's Destin for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepherd, senior pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net or watch some of Pastor Paul's best video clips by subscribing at YouTube. You can find more details on that and all of Pastor Paul's social media at pastorpaul.net, where you'll also find a host of great resources in our online store. Now, let's rejoin Pastor Paul for the rest of today's message. Perspective is everything.

Can I just be honest with y'all for these last few minutes? That's the world I come from. I come from a world where preachers, my preacher friends don't even let you pass it in their churches. They have a walk-in. Y'all ever been to a walk-in offering church? You got to walk, and they do marching music, singing music, praising. You got to come around so that they can see you come bring the money right there where they're standing. That's all I had ever known.

And then, of course, people build. I know pastors who to this day say, you better watch the people, doc. You got to watch them.

They're not going to give if you don't. Where you get that from? But that was the mindset I came from, the world I came from, so we passing, offering bags. So it's time I got here. And after I got home from those two experiences, one morning I'm laying in my bed. God began to speak to me. The best way I can describe it is the Holy Spirit began giving me a download of His will. It was a mental download.

He's just downloading information. And what I saw is, you remember how self-conscious you felt at the Crystal Cathedral because you couldn't give? Remember how that felt, how almost humiliated and disappointed you felt that you couldn't participate? I said, then do you remember those boxes I showed you in the other church? He said, that's the way I want you to have people give when you move into your new facility. We were months from moving. It was under construction at the time.

And I said, say what? Because let me be honest with you, at that point in our ministry, we needed $75,000 a week to meet budget. That's how much we had grown from the 250. We needed $75,000 a week to meet budget.

And all my financial people had projected, based on what the overhead is going to be at the new facility and based on the staff you're going to have to hire and based on blah, blah, blah, they estimated we were going to instantly need $100,000 a week. And here I'm laying in bed and God is telling me, I can't watch him give. You get it? That was scary. That was scary. But I listened to God. They asked the people to send me the dimension of their boxes from that other church. They sent it to me.

I gave it to one subcontractor over here and said, I need you to build these for me. And we placed them all over that building. And I was a scared brother. And the next Sunday, so I'm laying in bed during the week and here it is, next Sunday, I got to proclaim this to the church. And I get up. I had pictures from the church in Florida.

I put them up on screen. We were having four services back then. Put them up, all four services, explain just a small version of what I told you about that the Lord said, this is the way we're going to give. We're no longer going to pass anything. For the rest of my pastoral ministry, there'll be no offering baskets and stuff. We're just going to give.

You just place it where the basket or the box is. And every time I made that announcement, the people broke out in loud applause. All four services that day. And the devil said, you know why they applauding, don't you?

They applauding because if you think you're getting $100,000 every week from these people who you don't get to watch give. One of the scariest things the Lord's ever said to me. Here's why I'm saying that to you.

Because sometimes your vision is going to get real scary before it becomes a reality. But if you're following God, you leave all of that to him. You just do what he told you to do. I couldn't create 100,000 a week.

But if God said it, then the bills are his problem. Let me tell you what happened. We moved in and instantly attendance went up 700 people a week.

We didn't even know where they came from. Instantly attendance jumped up 700 people. The devil said, yeah, but that don't mean that's 700 people who give.

He's always trying to discourage you, always trying to get you to walk by sight. But instantly as the bills went up, the attendance went up, the income immediately went up. And in the five years I pastored in that building before leaving that church, in the five years after I left between moving in and leaving that church, we never had a financial close call. Never. There was never a week where we had to say, well, I don't know if they're going to get their paychecks this week. We might have to wait. Never happened. Every bill paid, and I didn't even get to watch it. These days, budget isn't that high. I don't need that much yet. That day might come back.

But these days, most of our people give online. I really can't see that till it pops in the account. Oh, thank you, Jesus. But you know what? Now I love it because I've learned how to walk by faith.

Nobody's sweating this. God knows how to pay bills. You all see what we did, didn't you? After hopping around for three and a half years in hotels, five different buildings, five different towns, my pastor friend said, there's no way my church would have stayed around, stayed in existence if I had to tell them to go to five different places to go to church. They look at us in amazement all over the country. They say it's not supposed to happen like that, that they stay together.

And in this short period of time, they have identified a building, leased it, had to pay double rent for God knows how long, and now they've renovated it, two and a quarter million dollars cash, and now they're looking to buy it. Not supposed to happen. But God, you got to have his perspective. You do what he tells you to do. You walk by faith and obedience. You don't try to answer questions you're not qualified to answer.

The questions I have, the questions you will have are way past your pay grade. You'll never figure out the stuff, but you'll just do it. I tell you, some of you all are going to be doing things. You're amazed yourself, because it's not going to be you.

It's going to be God in you, God through you. And you got to change your perspective. Don't be like the blind person who goes back to comfort. Be okay with being scared. Gideon was scared when he, with 300 people, were called to go up against 130,000 of the enemy. He's scared. It's okay to be scared. We always try to fear not. Well, that's the ideal fear not.

But sometimes you can't help it. Your leg is just shaking. You try your best to fear not, but you're just shaking. I've been there, done that.

I know what that's like. Quit waiting until your fear runs out. Just do it scared.

Do it scared. Bishop Jakes told us one day, he was at his house on his laptop doing some work and his grandson came in the room, wanted to play, and he came up close to his grandfather. He said, boo! Boy went running, screaming, ah! A few moments later, he'd come back. He said, boo!

Ah! He said, after I did that a couple of times, I needed to finish doing my work on my laptop. He'd keep coming back. So I decided to ignore him. I kept on typing, made sure he got right in my sight. But I ignored him. Finally, he said, papa!

I said, what? He said, scare me again. That's what God's going to do to you. He's going to scare you again.

You might have had some close calls in your life, but when you go after that vision, you're going to get scared again. You'll have to do things that don't always make sense to the carnal mind. But if we just learn to walk in faith and obedience and see it from God's perspective, don't put your timeline on God.

Your timeline might not matter. Joseph dreamed of being prominent when he was 17. Remember, he had the dreams that said his family would bow down to him. You know the day that they came to Egypt and bowed down to him? He was 39. And most of those 22 years between vision and reality were hell.

Slavery, long imprisonment for a crime he didn't commit, a felony, attempted rape, didn't do it, went through all of that. God will do what he said, but he probably won't give you the timeline. So you have to stay focused. And again, listen to what he says and don't create your own version of it. Do what he said. Make your vision a reality by walking by God's perspective. This is what the Lord put in my heart.

This is what I'm going to do. I promise you, brothers and sisters, I'm a living witness that if you just follow God, keep your raggedy friends' opinions out of your head. If I had listened to a lot of people, I'd have never even moved to California. But God said, go west, young man, go west. Great opportunities in Philly, but I haven't called you to stay there. I called you to go there.

There are thousands in the kingdom because I said yes. There are people who hear me on the radio and podcasts all over the world. The Lord showed me a radio ministry in 88 when I was still in Philly. And I came saying, I'm going to be on the radio, y'all. And today we hear from people not only throughout the country, Africa, Asia, Europe listening, saying God is using you to change my life.

Why? Because I decided one day to follow God and make the vision a reality. That's what you've got to do in your life, about your business, about your career, about your family, about whatever's in your heart to do for you.

One day you will see that vision come to reality. It's not always easy to push through life's challenges, but one thing we know for sure is that with God, all things are possible. If you've already received God's purpose, maybe now is the season to gain God's perspective, not only in the challenges in front of you, but on the victory that lies beyond them. Thanks so much for joining us for this message. Perspective is everything. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory program or this month's special thank you gift for your support, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. God wants to bless you like never before, but you have to position yourself to be blessed by making better choices. Often life calls for each of us to make choices, and when it calls for us to make them, it's up to us to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to us. Stop talking about who's holding you back. Stop crying about, you know, this is an unfair world.

It's been an unfair world. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message examining the choices we make. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.