Taking Care of Caregivers, Part 1 (cont'd)

Givers tend to be better at giving than receiving. Givers tend to be really good at giving. It's second nature, they love giving. Giving is just, they don't even have to think about it, they just give. Most givers are pretty poor at receiving. Don't let caregivers fool you. Sometimes they need people to take care of them.

Hello and thanks for joining us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. Well it's true, people who spend much of their time helping don't always get taken care of themselves. They're not good at asking for help.

They're not good at receiving help even when it's offered. Today Pastor Paul encourages you to offer it anyway because whether they admit it or not, people who do a lot of giving need to do some taking every now and then. So stay with us here or visit PastorPaul.net to listen on demand. That's PastorPaul.net.

Also be sure to subscribe to the podcast at Spotify, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now from the life of the prophet Elisha, here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Taking Care of Caregivers. Most givers are pretty poor at receiving.

Think about it. Some of you know if you're in this caretaking giving category that I'm talking about, you know I'm telling the truth because that's you. You get real self-conscious when it's time to receive. Your tendency is to give. No self-consciousness there.

But when it comes to receiving, you get self-conscious. That's not familiar territory for you. And so this woman acted on the good God put in her heart for this prophet, for this man of God because he would have never said to anybody, wealthy or not, can you give me somewhere to stay? He would have never said it. It wouldn't have even crossed his mind. He'd have just found somewhere to stay. If he had to go to a place where you could just, wayfarers would be able to pay a little bit and stay there, you know, these days we would call it bed and breakfast or whatever. He would do what he had to do to accomplish the will of God. But he was never looking out for himself. He would have never thought, I wish somebody would just make me my own sweet. He'd have never thought that thought. Man, wouldn't it be nice if I just had the bomb sweet. Every time I come to shoot him, I just got this place.

I just go in there. That's not the way givers think. Even if the thought crossed their mind, it would be a silent wish.

They would never let it out. And the fact is God had to look out for the man because he wouldn't look out for himself. And so this woman heard the Lord whisper in her heart, dropped that desire in her heart to use her funds for the kingdom.

And that's what drives this. This man served well. Elisha served well.

Just think back over what we've seen about him. He served his family. We know that because when he met up with Elijah and Elijah put his mantle on him, which meant I'm calling you to be my successor, he said, before I go with you, I got to go take care of my family because he'd been serving them the whole time. He had a calling, but he knew until now he hadn't been released into his calling. And so he's taking care of his family. I mean, that is God's way. God blesses us to take care of our family so that they're our first ministry. A lot of people don't even understand that.

Let me help you with that real quick. Some of y'all want to be a wonder in the world and you're a blunder at home. Ooh, I just said something, didn't I? You want to be a wonder to the world. Everybody's thinking, ooh, that woman is something. Ooh, my God, I don't know what I would do without her.

Oh, my. Yeah, that's fine. You can go out and be a world. I mean, just go out there and just break off with the anointing and just pass it out and bless the whole world. And you go home and you don't know what to do.

That's not God's will. Elisha, as a young man, served his parents, served his family before he decided he was going to go out there trying to be a prophet. That's what all of us are supposed to do. Handle home first.

Don't be raggedy at home and then a mighty wonder out in the world. So he was doing that. We know that Elisha served his family well. Then when the time comes, the mantle is put on him, he's called to be a successor.

And he goes back and serves one final meal to his family. What he is saying is, I'll always look out for y'all. If you ever need anything, I'll check on you from time to time. I'm your boy. I got you covered.

I won't leave you in the dust once I start getting out there. That's the way you're supposed to be. If your parents helped you when the whole family was poor, most of us, our parents took care of us when they wouldn't take care of themselves.

Come on, somebody. Your parents took care of you. Some of y'all didn't see your mother eat much at the table.

Why? Because she made sure y'all ate everything you wanted first. And whatever was left, she ate it.

Sometimes you'd see her sitting somewhere in a corner with a little plate. That's just the way caretakers do. And so you got to understand that this man said, I'm always going to look out for y'all.

I got you. When you don't have much, you can share what you have. But when you have a whole lot, that's the time to seriously take care of the folk who took care of you.

I don't like seeing somebody getting all broke off and their parents are still somewhere living raggedy. Oh, no, that's not the way it's supposed to work. No, no, if I'm blessed, my mama going to be blessed, my daddy going to be blessed. Come on, somebody. That's just the way that goes. You take those bills and you say, hey, give me those bills. I got it.

It's just what you do when you have the mind of a person who does this. Elisha took care of home first. Then when he got with Elijah, he served Elijah. There's one passage that says he poured water on the hands of Elijah. That was a way of saying he was a servant. When Elisha needs clean hands, he can get ready to eat or do something, the servant is there to pour the water on his hands.

And that's what you got to understand. When you have the heart of a servant, there's nothing you won't do. That's what servants do, they serve. What's wrong with today's brand of Christian leaders is a lot of them think leadership is who they are rather than leadership is what they're called to do. No, no, servant is who we are. We are servants of God and we serve God by serving his people. And a lot of us leaders have confused our activity with our identity. My activity is leadership. My identity is servant.

I will never graduate from being a servant. And I'm scared of these folk who are too high to speak to people, too high, too lofty, too anointed, too well-known for some average person to walk up to them and actually have a conversation. Sometimes you can't even get to them because the armor bears cut you off. I'm scared of people like that because they don't get it. It's one thing if you can't be left alone because literally people, you know, loving on you, people can love you to death. They really can just run your raggedy. I get that. So you got to have some reasonable boundaries. But I'm scared of people who think boundaries is normal. If I'm a pastor, for instance, I got to find ways to connect with people.

I don't care how big. I have had the privilege of pastoring a church that became a megachurch. I've had thousands of members. But every Sunday, I was found at the base of the stage where anybody could walk up and say something and have a little time of fellowship or just let me know what's going on in your life, even when the thousands were there. Why? Because a shepherd has to take care of sheep.

It's about the sheep. And so it's not just, yeah, but you don't know how big my ministry is. Then find a way. If you can't make yourself available all the time, figure out a way. You're so creative with all your ministry ideas. Find a way where there's 50 people at a time, whatever. Let's just go in a room and let me just talk to folks, shake hands and find out what's going on. You can figure something out.

You're smart. But I'm scared of you people who are fabulous in the kingdom. Well ahead, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. We want 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 gift to Destined for Victory today.

You can give that gift securely online at pastorpaul.net or call your gift to us at 855-339-5500. Well, from an early age, Elisha was a caregiver. He took care of the people in his own house. He served Elijah the prophet.

Then he succeeded Elijah and began to serve God and help others. He may not have known it yet, but he needed some care of his own. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message, Taking Care of Caregivers. Now, caretakers are people who need other people. They don't just need to take care of other people.

They need other people sometimes to look out for them. So when you see caretakers, according to God's priorities, you will see that all of them who had it straight and knew they needed people built relationships accordingly. For instance, our savior, Jesus Christ, he loved everybody. He ministered to the masses. He ministered to them so much that sometimes you find him going away from the people. The multitude, he said, I've given all I got. I got to go somewhere and pray. He would go off to a mountainside and pray.

And the masses said, oh, where Jesus? He couldn't give himself 24-7. He knew that. Some of y'all need to learn that. You're giving yourself literally to death. And I keep telling y'all, don't let people kill you because they will kill you, then cry at your funeral. And y'all are the ones that killed me.

Why? What you doing crying? And you just got to know. And Jesus knew he had to have people who looked out for him. Thus, his relationship with six people, Peter, James, and John, who he was going to leave as key apostles to take the church beyond his lifetime. So he showed them certain things, and he spent certain time with them, and he poured out his heart to them. He didn't want them to just have the anointing. He wanted them to have his heart. So he shared his heart. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he leaves the eight, and he takes those three. Judas is already going to betray him. And he takes the three, Peter, James, and John, and says to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death.

I feel like I'm about to die. He poured out. He wanted them to know who he was. Don't just let the people you mentor see the greatness about you. Let them see your weakness. Let them see how you're hurt, what you're hurt about. Let people see. Do your kids a favor and let them see a little bit of you as they get older and can handle more things.

As your kids move into adulthood, let them see the adult side of you that is needy because if your kids never see you handle your needs, how are they going to know how to handle theirs? They got to see you when you're hurting, see you when you're down. Don't just wait till the anointing's all over you. Oh, I got so much power, I just look at folk and they just fall out.

That's fine. When you come down off that mountain, let somebody see you when you are not necessarily anointed at the moment. You're tired, you're hungry. You know anger and hunger is hanger. And that's a bad place.

When you're angry, you angry and you hungry, oh man. But somebody needs to see because you're a human being. Quit trying to be something you're not. We're all going to be delivered from this life together. In the meantime, we're all stuck here and we're just as human as we know how to be.

I don't care how sanctified you are. If you don't balance your life and all that and you let that anger and all that and that living all out of balance, you let that keep going after a while, you're going to have some sort of explosion. I've seen holy people say some stuff that you say, ooh. That don't mean they suddenly back slid.

They still say, but when you don't handle things with balance, it's going to catch up with you. And so this man served Elijah well. Elijah was one of the greatest prophets the world has ever known. But Elisha served him. He served his parents. He served Elijah.

Now that he is the successor, now he's serving people. He worked far more miracles than the Bible tells us. It just gives us certain miracles to give us certain highlights of his ministry. Don't you think we know everything these people did? We do not. We don't know everything Jesus did.

In fact, John said if we were to try to write down everything, he said all the books couldn't contain it. So quit thinking you've got people pegged. You don't know what they do. You don't know how God uses them. But you can know that we all have needs that should not be ignored. We've got to figure out God wants us to be a blessing.

And some ways that you are a blessing is you find people who are blessed, are used, and you bless them intentionally. Jesus had his Peter, James, and John. Then he had his Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. They weren't apostles. He wasn't grooming them for ministry. Say, well, why was he down with Peter, James, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? Because they were friends who loved him enough to take care of him.

That's not all the reason I'm sure they just had a connection. Sometimes they just have a connection with people. You've got to be okay when you have a connection with people and it's not rooted in spirituality. See, I'm trying to help church folk just be normal. Some of us have difficulty with normalcy.

Do you know the type? I'm talking about church people who they lead with strangeness. You see, I've been around church folk all my life. Some of them are just strange. They don't smile when regular people smile.

They don't laugh at regular jokes. They're just strange. They don't relax.

They don't let their hair down. They're always tense, always holy. Something is wrong with that. You say, what's wrong with holiness? Let me tell you, because Jesus was holy, but he hung out with sinners. Did he just say Jesus? Yes, it's in your Bible. I don't care which translation you use. Jesus hung out.

He didn't just minister to them and he certainly didn't go around telling them they were going to hell, like you holy people love to do. Yeah, go on. Y'all wait, find some parade because you don't like somebody's lifestyle and you're holding coming down, they're on my street. I'm going to, and you go make you a big holy sign.

And then you go running out of the street, get up, get on top of something. Yeah, go on to hell. Where is that in your gospels? Jesus came so they wouldn't have to go. His emphasis was on, let me show you a better way. Not where you are. I don't want to talk about where you are.

I want to talk about where you need to go. That's what Jesus did. That's what we who are kingdom focused, we got to get our focus from our savior. And so Jesus loved people who were unlovable by their actions and that most religious people didn't deal with them. Jesus did.

And to have power to do that, he found folks who he could just hang with. I call them fillers. All of us, especially caretakers, need fillers. You need fillers because you have drainers. We all live with drainers.

That's what caretakers are. You don't even like to think of them as drainers because you love them so much and you help them. But truth be told, they drain you.

They drain energy. It's not a negative thing. Don't feel like I'm, yeah, don't throw off all my children. No, I'm not saying I'm not. I know your kids are wonderful and lovely, but they're wonderful drainers.

They drain you just with you having a follow-up, and from stage to stage, they drain. Now you got to help them with soccer. Now you got to do this.

Now you got to do that. And you do it out of a heart of love. It doesn't even feel, but you are running yourself raggedy.

It's a good work you're doing. You're raising wonderful, balanced kids, but they're drainers. They're supposed to be. When you treat parenting right, you're supposed to be giving. That's what parenting is. You who want to be luxurious parents, God didn't give you that job.

Your kids don't serve you in luxury. They are there to drain the life out of you. And some of them are anointed to do it. Oh, some of you all know, oh, if that's an anointing, my kids got that.

Oh, they sappered, oh, my strength. Well, good. Then you're doing one of the things God's called you to do. You're serving them well. You're taking care of them well. So all servants, all caretakers need fillers. They not only need people to look out for their financial and material needs, they need people to fill them.

No bank account can be withdrawn on so endlessly, and you'll be all right. At a certain point, you're going to go in the red, because nothing's coming in. Everything's going out. And so I need you to understand he found fillers in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Remember that time he was at their house eating?

His disciples were with him, and Mary was sitting at his feet. Martha's fixing a meal. Martha comes bursting out of the kitchen. I'll just bring it up to modern time. They didn't have a kitchen door with the person, but just picture it in a modern house. She come bursting out the kitchen.

Why don't you tell my old raggedy, lazy sister to get up and come in here and help me? Write in your Bible, not with those words, but it's in there. Why don't you tell her to get up, sitting down there, listening to you?

Watch what Jesus said. He said, Martha, Martha, you are troubled about many things. He didn't rebuke her. He's just helping her see herself. Say, you are so in this mode of serving, and you're all over the place. And he said, she has chosen something good.

It's not going to be taken from her. In other words, Jesus is saying, I'm not going to make her stop and go help you because you want it. And we just have to learn to bring our lives into better balance. Some people have a God-given gift of service, but all of us have been called to serve. As you seek to follow in the steps of Jesus by helping and serving others, remember the people who need you most are often those who seem to need you least.

Well, the last thing Jesus told his disciples was to go into all the world and make more disciples. And a great way to take part in this mission is by praying for death and for victory and sending a special gift today. As our way of saying thanks for your generous gift, we'd like to send you Pastor Paul's booklet, Caregivers Need Care Too. You know, everyone needs a little care from time to time, even those you least expect it. In Caregivers Need Care Too, Pastor Paul reminds us that caregivers are often the last to receive the help they need.

This booklet goes hand in hand with the message you heard today exploring the life of the prophet Elisha to show us how to find a healthy balance between giving and receiving, a balance that caregivers in particular need to practice and maintain. That's Caregivers Need Care Too, a booklet from Pastor Paul and our gift to you by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. So call 855-339-5500 to make your pledge 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. And if you need prayer today, visit pastorpaul.net and use the contact feature to share your request with us. Our ministry team can join you in prayer.

While you're there, be sure to sign up for Pastor Paul's monthly letter of encouragement, yours at no cost or obligation. And some of y'all need to learn the importance of the sharpen the soul concept. Now, sharpening the soul requires two things, self-care as well as receiving care from other people. Put that in your notes. Sharpening the soul requires self-care as well as receiving care from other people.

That's what I want to talk about in the remaining half hour or so, and then I'll be done with this part of the series. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message taking care of caregivers. Until then remember, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.