There's Power in Fulfilling Your Purpose

And you know what? A lot of people spend their lives wanting to be fulfilled, but they have no idea how to do it. Well, I'm here to tell you, you will be fulfilled as you fulfill your purpose. That is, once your will syncs up with God's will. Are you longing to be fulfilled, looking for joy and a sense of purpose in your life?

Today your search might just come to an end. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. One of the keys to fulfillment is to set aside your own will in favor of pursuing God's will for you. Coming up next, Pastor Paul shows you how to discover God's will and encourages you to pursue it faithfully.

That's when you'll find the fulfillment you're looking for. Stay with us now or visit pastorpaul.net to hear any recent Destined for Victory message on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. Now, with this Destined for Victory message, there is power in fulfilling your purpose.

Here's Pastor Paul. God has got a purpose. Everything God creates has a purpose. Not every purpose is known to us. You know the things you will know, the things you need to know. That's what he'll make sure you know, what you need to know to fulfill his purpose.

Everything else is going to stay a mystery. Number four, where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. So many things and so many processes and so many people are abused because their purpose is not known. Where purpose is unknown, you abuse things.

What abuse mean? Look at the two words it's made of, abnormal use. Where purpose is unknown, you will use something abnormally because you don't know why it was created. So you use it wrong, in the wrong way.

Everybody understand that? Powerful principle, where purpose is unknown. And that's why some of y'all don't have any business trying to get married because you don't know the purpose of a husband or a wife. So if you got one, you would only abuse it.

I just went deep. Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. Number five, if you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing why it exists. It doesn't know it was created. So don't ask the thing why it exists when it was created outside of itself. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing. Number six, purpose is only found in the mind of the creator of a thing.

That stands to reason. If I created it, then and you want to know, well, why does that exist? Why did you create that? Where do you get that information from me? Because I created it. Don't ask it. Why did he create you?

That's the third part. What are you talking about? Why did he create you?

You got to get that info from me. That's why even around in the staff, I tell folks, when people want to know what I think, don't you tell them. You're asking a staff pastor, well, what pastor does something?

Ask him so he can tell you. I've had more folk in my lifetime try to speak for me and the nonsense that came out of their mouth. Purpose is only found in the mind of the creator of a thing and seventh and finally, purpose is the key to fulfillment. Purpose is the key to fulfillment. Just put those seven up one more time. Somebody might still be trying to finish them up.

Just put them up on the screen one more time. Purpose is the key to fulfillment. What are the seven things? God is a God of purpose. Everything God creates has a purpose. Not every purpose is known to us.

Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing. Purpose is only found in the mind of the creator of a thing and seventh and finally, purpose is the key to fulfillment. Don't try to leave this earth till you have fulfilled your purpose. Fulfill your purpose and you know what? A lot of people spend their lives wanting to be fulfilled but they have no idea how to do it.

Well, I'm here to tell you. You will be fulfilled as you fulfill your purpose. That is once your will syncs up with God's will. Now, if you stay in rebellion of God's will, then you get to define what's going to fulfill you because at the end, it's still not going to matter because only what we do for Christ, that's going to last. But you need to learn that purpose is really the key to fulfillment. Now, I've talked for years about how to discover God's will or God's purpose. In this context, let me call it God's purpose.

It's God's will, same thing. And for years, I've given keys using the letters A through G. These are my keys to discovering God's purpose for your life. Since you buy in, okay, yes, God created me for certain things, I want to do those in my lifetime. Pastor, how do I discover what His purposes are for me?

I got some keys. A stands for ask. Ask God why He created you. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing.

Purpose is only found in the mind of the creator of the thing. God's your creator. So you ask Him, Lord, why did you create me? I know you used my parents through the process of procreation, but why actually did you create me?

What do you want me to do? Ask Him. Don't ask all your friends.

They don't know. Ask God. B, burdens. That's the second key, burdens. Look at your burdens. Burdens often indicate where, how, and who you are called to serve. Look at your burdens.

What do you mean by that? Look at the things that not depress you in the clinical sense, but that bring you down. Look at the things that when you see them, you have such pain and compassion as you look at some heartbreaking situation in the world or in a family or whatever the case might be. You look at something, and you kind of can't be content by just leaving it like it is. It's what Nehemiah experienced when he realized the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people are vulnerable. Their homeland has been messed over, and he could not live with the idea of Jerusalem having a broken wall, broken gates. He couldn't.

And though he lived far away, he was serving a king, but he couldn't handle the homeland being in such disarray. Burden. What burdens you? What do you see in your life, in your community? What do you see in the world? What do you see in the business world? What do you see anywhere that you can't live with that reality not being addressed in some way? Burdens often are an indication of something you're supposed to do.

Don't be one of those people who has a burden and talk to everybody about it trying to get them to do something. Oh, I spend my life getting people, you know, pastor, and they write me these emails, my listeners all over the world. I was right there, and they say, and I was just praying, and it seemed to me that you could. I said, hey, you went wrong. You praying, and God put me on your mind for something he told you to be burdened about?

Because you got that mixed up. He doesn't give you a burden for me to fulfill. All right.

I'm moving on. C stands for conferral. Conferral refers to others speaking or otherwise imparting God's will to you.

There is a proper way to confer. The wrong way is when you call me and say, God put you on my heart, and you're supposed to do this. No, but the right way is God does use other people, usually people who are prayerful, to show you something you're supposed to be doing.

In fact, guess how Elisha, the subject of this series, came to be the prophet because God used Elijah to confer the calling on him, and I'll show you that in a moment, but let me finish this list of keys. D stands for dreams. Dreams, and it includes visions, can indicate what God has called you to do. Not every dream you have is significant, but some may be. Not every dream, some of y'all wake up, and you describe the dumbest dream, and the people in your house are looking at you, and you're acting like it's significant. No, you're probably just ate too close to bedtime.

Come on now, you ever ate too close to bedtime, and the stuff you dreamed was straight up scary, like what? So don't try to make it all significant, but some of it is. Some of it is, or could be. Sometimes God gives you a dream or a vision.

Say, what's the difference? Dreams are what you have while you sleep. Dreams are what you have when you're awake, and sometimes God will give you a dream or a vision in your heart, and it's real.

You can all but physically see it. It's real. I've known people, God gave them a vision of a business they later built, and it was very, very profitable, a church, a ministry. I came to California because there was a very big vision in me, and I told my daddy, I was his associate pastor, and at a certain point I said, I got to leave because there's something God wants me to fulfill.

It's not here. I'm not to be your successor. I remember telling my dad, God has shown me I'm not to succeed you. I'm working with you to help you and to learn from you, and I spent seven years being my dad's associate pastor doing everything he needed me to do because I knew it was preparation for me going out. Dreams and visions often indicate God's purpose.

E stands for exposure. God will often expose you to the right people who can make you aware of a divine calling. Sometimes your whole life changes because you got exposed to one thing or one person or one business or one ministry, and it woke up a new world to you. Exposure is so important.

If you're not exposed to the right things, you will be limited. Roll ahead the second half of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd. As always, you can hear any of Pastor Paul's recent messages on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

You can also subscribe to the podcast at Spotify, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get yours. Now, we'd like to thank all of you who sustained Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support, gifts that help Pastor Paul share the gospel all over the world. Destined for Victory is a listener-supported ministry, so as God leads, please perfectly consider making a generous gift to Destined for Victory today. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to give securely now. Looking for your divine calling? Pay attention to the people God puts in your life because they can often help you find it. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message, There is Power in Fulfilling Your Purpose.

Exposure can take the lids off, can take the ceiling off. Exposure can change your perspective. This pandemic exposed me to a reality that I wasn't even open to, that I could shepherd people when they didn't have to be here physically. I could shepherd them.

I learned I can counsel you just as anointed on Zoom as I can sit in the office because I've been doing it the whole pandemic. I mean, people who made your life issues got to talk with their pastor, and now that I got members all over the world, we'll hook it up. Just coordinate the time, and I can minister to you.

The anointing travels, wisdom travels, and so we're getting it done, and people just as blessed, they don't have to be sitting in the room. Some people say, I just need, no, I need the pastor. Pastor Kevin is fine. I need Pastor Paul. Fine, pastor.

If he can counsel you, let him counsel you. I'm not insecure. Oh, they running to Pastor Kevin. Good. Wonderful. You know, you're crazy to be jealous of the folk who helping you get where you trying to be. Some folk get old and insecure.

The older I get, the more secure I get. I am so good. My ego is not involved at all, but you got to know sometimes God will expose you to certain things and certain realities, and suddenly I figure, okay, I can pass to these people across the miles, across the oceans. If God has synced us up and I have the word of God in my mouth for you, then we'll make it happen, and so that's what's happening.

Exposure is everything. F stands for faith. Faith is acting on what you believe God wants you to do. At the end of the day, you can have all the vision in the world till your faith activates the vision.

It'll stay unfulfilled. I could talk all I wanted. God's calling me to California. He said he's going to make me a soul winner and a discipler of a lot of people in California. I heard that in 1988.

Very clearly I knew it in 1988. I'm still an associate pastor in Philadelphia, and God showed me I was going to be a soul winner and a discipler, and it turned out it was in Northern California. Guess what?

None of that would have mattered till I got in the car and came. You can sit in Philly all you want. Oh, man, I'm going to be something in California. Oh, man, I'm going to be something in California. Oh, souls going to be saved. Lives going to be changed. Oh, God's going to do a work.

That doesn't matter if you're sitting somewhere you're supposed to be moving from. Now, the only reason I said that is to put you on blast because some of y'all are threatening to start a business, threatening to start an industry, threatening to start a business. Threaten, threaten, threaten. Oh, one of these days. One of these days. One of these days.

I came to tell you that day has got to be now. You've got to take a step toward it. It might feel like a stupid step. What's the point of this step?

But take a step because you won't get the second step till you take the first one. Faith is acting. Peter said, Lord, if that's you out there on the water, bid me to come out there with you. He said, okay, come on. Now, guess what? Now you got to act.

He stepped out and he was good at first, but then he started thinking about it. If God speaks to you, just do. Don't think because the more you think, the more you're going to mess yourself up. I'm talking about starting a business. I don't know nothing about no business.

I hadn't been to business school. And you start sinking just like Peter did. And G stands for gifts. Look at the ways God's gifted you. You want to know what God wants out of you? Look at what he put in you. Your spiritual gifts, your natural abilities, your learned skills are all in the realm of possibility for you to fulfill his plan and purpose for your life. You've got to know it's already in you.

The miracle is already in the house of your life. And so you've just got to activate your spiritual gifts, your natural abilities, and some of your learned skills are going to be sanctified and used for God's purpose. Even if you learned it in a secular school, you can use it in the school of faith.

So you got to understand, stop making these distinctions, but that's natural. That's not spiritual. I only do things that are spiritual.

Know your natural abilities. If you give them to God, he can utilize them. He'll energize them with the Holy Spirit. That's what singers do. Singers are, you know, anybody who has a singing voice can sing well, but one who gives that voice to God can now use that voice to transform the lives of people. And so you got to understand, these are the ways that we discover our purpose. So what did Elisha do? He encountered the man who was going to give him his purpose.

There's power in fulfilling your purpose. Look at verse 19 of 1 Kings 19. Elijah departed from the mountain. I told you he was up there with God and God told him, I'm not finished with you. You got three people to anoint. One of them was Elisha. So he departed from there. Verse 19, found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him and he was with the 12th. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him.

What's that mean? In Bible days, that means when a prophet throws a mantle on you, he is saying, you are my successor. God has chosen you. You are my successor. Implication is, so now you've got to come be my apprentice, my mentee. You've got to learn as much as you can from me. The day is going to come when I'm handing the baton to you.

All of that is in the mantle. So you got to know, God has conferred on some of you already. Sometimes your parents spoke into you what God wanted you to do. Some prayerful person spoke into you what God wanted you to do. Sometimes you heard about it and it didn't seem like it was coming from God, but now when you start pulling things together, you say, you know, God's been pushing me in this same direction. And you have got to understand there's power in fulfilling your purpose. You got to understand, some of you need to know nothing else good is going to happen toward the fulfillment of your purpose until you now take another step.

Understanding is one thing, but now another step. Now Elisha has the mantle cast on him, then Elijah keeps walking, meaning, you better follow me. I'm not chasing you down.

You better follow me. That's what I told my dad. Seven years working with him, I said, my job is to learn as much from you as I can, to learn how to be a pastor, to learn how to fulfill somebody else's vision, because I learned well and he taught well principles like God will never give you your own vision until you help somebody else fulfill theirs. That's a really important thing. Some folk don't know that. Some folk just think, oh, it's my, it's my, here's what I see, here's my silence.

What'd you do to help somebody else? Let me put it another way. You ready to operate, God wants you to cooperate.

Some folk love operating. Oh, did you see me? Oh, I was so anointed. Oh man, I was anointed. The power of God was on me real strong. Oh my God. Oh, I was in that place and God was just all over me. I just looked at people and they just fell out.

No, boo. You got to learn to cooperate. Before Jesus learned to function on earth in those three years of ministry, the only way he learned to do that is he learned how to submit to an earthly father before he had to submit to his heavenly father. He spent 30 years in Joseph's house and he went out there telling Joseph what he wouldn't do. That wasn't going to prepare him for what God had for him. So he submitted. Joseph was a carpenter. Guess what Jesus did the first years of his life? He was a carpenter.

He submitted. Some of y'all got to learn cooperation is vital to operation. That's in God's economy and so you got to learn how to operate by cooperating. And so bottom line is God will bless you as you actively fulfill your purpose. Want to be a good leader?

Learn how to be a good follower. As Pastor Paul said today, it's often true that before God will let you operate, he wants you to first learn to cooperate. Well, the last thing Jesus told his disciples was to go out into the world and make more disciples and one of the best ways to take part in that great commission with Pastor Paul Shepherd and all of us at Destined for Victory is by becoming a Destined for Victory partner for as little as $20 a month. In light of some severe challenges these past two years or so, people are eager to hear about the hope we have in Christ and many are getting that message through the Destined for Victory broadcast.

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He's Alive offers several compelling reasons why Christians believe in the reality of the resurrection. Request your copy today for your generous donation. You can't wait till you get everything together to start your business, to start your ministry, whatever God's speaking to you. You can't wait until convenience comes.

Convenience isn't showing up anytime soon. And that's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, there is power in fulfilling your purpose. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.