Khalid Latif – Restore Your Life’s Purpose Joshua 1 9 Be strong and courageous.
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There are moments that try the human soul
so violently
and so perplexing
that if the truth were told, all of
us
have had moments
that we wanted to throw up our hands
and walk away.
Particularly
painful
is
discouragement
in the life of the believer.
Because as we travel from season to season,
it is not just the perils
that we face,
but it is seeing the wicked
go forward
while the righteous are held back.
Discouragement
can creep in secretly.
Hide
behind clothes,
makeup,
hairdos.
Discouragement is so bold
that it will even hide behind a smile.
It will always ride to work with you.
And if it doesn't catch a ride going
to work,
it'll catch a ride
on the way back home.
Discouragement
will go into a tent.
It will walk right into a section 8
neighborhood,
but don't think that it stops.
Discouragement
will walk right into a middle class house.
It won't just stop there. It'll go in
a mansion
and sit on the side of the jacuzzi
and tell you life is not worth living.
If you listen at discouragement,
it will cause you to make bad decisions.
It will cause you to think that life
is not worth living
And secretly,
behind
the facade of a smile and a good
morning and a praise the Lord and a
how are you,
you will wonder
if you're ever going to get out of
what you're into.
One of the things that we know about
life
is that it is always changing.
Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.
Sometimes you're happy
and sometimes you're sad.
Now that's that thing called
life.
And when we begin to understand and know
that, accepting that reality
that we will never ever have things just
on an even keel all the time, that
you're gonna have some ups and you're gonna
have some downs.
But during those down moments,
that's where the growth takes place.
That's where the work is. Anybody can feel
good when they have their health, their bills
are paid, they have happy relationships,
the children are acting normal, business is successful.
Anybody could be positive then.
Anybody can have faith under those kinds of
circumstances.
See, but the real challenge
the real challenge of growth mentally, emotionally and
spiritually
that's where
that's where the growth takes place.
Sometimes I I see people
succeeding
who didn't pray nearly as hard,
worked nearly
as long,
and it seems like they
seemingly have moments of victory in close proximity,
so I could see it. Not while I
am having a similar experience,
but while all * has broken loose in
my life,
and I am going through agony and tragedy,
seemingly they are having
victory and triumph.
And if you are not careful, the very
sight
of their prosperity
becomes your agony.
And seeing them go forward will be a
source of such continued frustration
that it is not your test that baffles
you,
but their success
agonizingly
displayed before you makes you despair of life.
And so David says in 37 and 1,
fret not thyself
over evildoers.
How they prosper
in their own way,
they shall soon
be cut off.
He says, in other words, don't make a
permanent
decision
over a temporary
circumstance. He says, don't allow
a moment of agony to make you draw
a conclusion
about life prematurely
because if you just keep on walking
with God,
God has a way
of making everything
alright.
I was going through a major challenge in
my life that was wearing me out, that
was using me.
And one of my students told me in
a class that I was teaching lessons in
truth, she said, lest, until you handle it
with grace,
it will stay in your face. And it
stayed there a long time. Are you going
through it or are you growing through it?
Are you bigger and better because of it?
Because it's not going to leave you until
you grow through it. Are you learning anything?
Are you doing it over and over and
over again?
Insanity is doing the same thing in the
same way, expecting a different outcome. I find
so many passive Christians
who have been taught the type of faith
that anesthetizes
your dream,
originally given to us as a tranquilizer
to make us content
for
heaven while others possess
earth. My faith is a radical faith. It's
not a passive faith.
It's not an indifferent faith.
It's not a faith that will take down
on what the scriptures has promised me. You
can't just sit on your couch and wait
on the Lord.
Can I tell you, you cannot sit on
your couch and wait on the Lord?
Life will pass you by.
You're not waiting on the Lord, the Lord
is waiting on you. The next thing that
is important
is that expect things to get better for
you because they are. See, life is cyclic.
You're not what is whatever experience you're having
right now, it has not come to stay.
It has come to pass.
Not to stay, just to pass. It's just
going through.
The biggest challenge is is to know what's
happening. This is a part of this thing
we call life. This too shall pass.
And maintaining perspective, putting it in perspective,
how do we get stuck?
A friend of mine working on a job,
loved the company very much, expected to retire
there, and one day they call him in
the office, ask him for his badge and
identification,
told him he was fired and he had
to leave then. He was devastated.
And if you came anywhere near him, he
would tell you his story
as we all have stories. Even when he
got a job, he went on the job
telling anybody who would listen how they fired
him unjustly. And he always ended with, it
wasn't fair.
Life isn't fair.
It's not fair that birds eat worms, and
they do. Don't deviate.
Don't procrastinate.
Don't become frustrated.
All you have to do to win this
battle
is stay on track. Where there's a will,
there's a way. In fact, we are often
tormented
by vision
because the visionary sees what shall be
and wakes up to deal with what is.
He warns us
and declares to us
that the steps
implies process. Inspiring habits.
Means it's gonna take a while.
Means that you can't get to the destination
just because you want it,
just because you saw it,
just because you like it,
just because you need it. You know when
you go into a service station to get
gas, you don't go in there and just
start pumping. When you push the lever up,
it clears
the previous
bill. By the same token, if you wanna
begin to move, you've got to clear your
mind
of all the unnecessary
luggage and baggage that's weighing us down.
All of us have experienced some tragedy, and
if we haven't, we will. Sometimes your life
will be in a slump
and you can either let it destroy your
life or you can build upon it. I'm
not gonna let this destroy. You can permit
it to let it hold you down or
you can decide, I'm not going to let
that happen to me.
I'm bigger than this.
I don't care how good you are. I
don't care how talented you are. I don't
care how much you work on yourself. There
are some times when things aren't gonna go
right. There are times when anything that can
happen will happen.
Make a declaration to yourself.
Declare all out war that you're going to
get out of this rut. I suggest to
you that if you are facing a challenge,
don't stop.
Stay busy. Work your plan.
Continue to do those things that you know
that work for you after you have evaluated
yourself in the situation.
Sometimes you have to back up and go
within
and pray and meditate and recharge your batteries.
Go away, clear your head, and then come
back and look at it from a different
vantage point. I was thinking about Hebrews 11
and it says,
now faith is the substance of things hoped
for. It is evidence of things not seen.
By it, they ought to obtain a good
report.
See, we got all of this teaching about
faith, faith, faith, faith, faith.
But we're talking to people
who have settled.
All around me, I see people who've settled,
who've settled with less than what God promised
them, who've just made do out of their
life. All around me, I've seen people who've
stopped swinging.
I've seen people who've gotten 40. 40, you
quit at 40.
Well, if it was gonna happen, it would
happen until I'm getting older now and I'm
just gonna let myself go. I'm I'm not
doing it.
I refuse
to
settle.
I'm not picking out no caskets.
Surprise me. I know you get a discount
if you buy early but I am not
planning to die, I'm planning to live. Surprise
me,
I will not
settle.
It may take longer.
It may be harder.
I may have to go this way when
I thought I could go that way. That's
the kind of people I like to run
with.
I like to run with people who will
not take no for an answer.
I like to run with people who refuse
to settle
on less than the best for what God
has in your life. Next thing is that
you've got to activate the thinker in you.
Don't allow your emotions to control you. We
are emotional, but you wanna begin to discipline
your emotion. Your mind goes on automatic. You
know, weeds don't have to have any encouragement
to grow. You don't have to water them.
They don't have to get sunshine.
They don't have to have fertile ground. They
will grow through the cracks of a sidewalk.
But if you wanna grow orchids or roses
or any kind of exotic flowers, there are
special processes and procedures you must go through.
Well, by the same token, you don't have
to force yourself or motivate yourself to think
negatively,
to be depressed,
to hate somebody, to want revenge, to wanna
get back at somebody,
to beat yourself up over the head, to
feel loaded with guilt. You don't have to
make any effort to do that. Your mind
is on automatic. It will do that by
itself.
But if you wanna begin to move into
your own personal greatness,
if you wanna begin to really enjoy a
happy, successful, healthy life, you've got to be
willing to go against the tide. You've got
to be willing to harness your will and
say in spite of this,
I'm in control here. You have got to
make a declaration Don't stop. That this is
what you stand for.
You're standing up for your dreams. You're standing
up for peace of mind. You're standing up
for health. You want it and you're gonna
go all out to have it. It's not
going to be easy. You've got to make
those kind of declarations to yourself.
I'm unstoppable.
This will not get me down. The challenges
of life. You need some kind of trophy
that proves that he that is in you
is greater than he that's after you. Glory
to God. We're not gonna live and die
and shout and fall out and talk in
tongues and not produce anything.
When Jesus came down to the seashore and
saw the disciples who had been fishing all
night, he didn't ask them how long had
they been fishing. He said, have you caught
anything?
He didn't ask them how old are you?
He said, have you caught anything?
Hope is an expected end.
I'm gonna build something. I'm gonna make something
happen. I am not going to live and
die and not leave anything in the earth
as a sign that I was here. I'm
gonna build something.
I'm gonna leave stones as a memorial.
I'm gonna leave an ark on a hill.
I'm gonna leave some sort of sign that
my children
and my children's children
will know that when I pass through the
world,
the Lord was with me.
I will not settle
even if I have to start over, even
if it took longer than I expected,
even if I have to make payments,
even if I have to crawl on my
belly.
So when you begin to look at your
past,
give an interpretation that empowers you. That's where
I used to be. That's not where I
am now. I'm growing. I will not settle.
I will not settle. I will not do
it. I will not do it. I will
fight you every morning.
You whipped me on Tuesday, you will have
to whipped me on Wednesday.
You whipped me on Wednesday, I'll see you
Thursday afternoon, I will fight you every day.
I will not settle.
It's how you tranquilize your hope
because you don't wanna deal
with the pain
of having not attained.
So you move the goal
to line up with where you are. See,
a lot of people wanna exempt themselves from
taking responsibility.
All they wanna do is talk about the
problem. Every time you see them, they'll tell
you their story.
You wanna take responsibility
for your life. I got me here. I
can get me out of this.
I'm not gonna be a volunteer victim.
George Bernard Shaw said there are 2 kinds
of people in life. He said those that
make things happen and those that don't know
what happened.
Accept where you are and the responsibility
that you're gonna take yourself where you want
to go. You wanted a good husband, but
you wasn't a good wife.
You wanted children, but you wasn't a good
parent. You wanted
a good wife, but you wasn't a good
man.
I measure the value of a man
by how hard he presses.
That's how you can determine
who you're fighting
by how hard they press. How hard you
press tells me how hard you hit.
You can be all big and muscle bound
and still not have no force behind your
punch.
Force,
kinetic energy,
energy in motion.
You can't have energy sitting Move. So you
can Energy is measured by motion. So you
can get on with your life. That's why
the devil wants you to sit,
sit down,
and shut up, and feel sorry for yourself.
But try to blow the devil's mind this
morning.
I feel a pressing spirit in here this
morning. I feel a determination
in here this morning. I feel a fight
in here this morning. Look at the neighbor
and say, get on up them steps. Don't
you get 40 and get tired? Don't you
get 50 and get tired? Don't you get
60 and get tired? Don't you get 70
and get tired? Don't you get 80 and
get tired? Get all up the steps.
Understanding and knowing
that we can move from where we are,
that we can begin to
design the kind of life that empowers us,
that gives us happiness,
that enable us to be on top of
who we are,
knowing that as we begin to explore new
horizons
and new vistas in life, that as we
begin to to focus on developing ourselves,
as we begin to elevate ourselves and not
to follow the crowd,
activating the thinker in us and disciplining the
emotional part of ourselves.
It's not easy, but through practice and practice
and practice, practice makes what?
Absolutely not. Dismantle that belief system.
Practice makes improvement.
You can always better your best. You can
always go beyond anything that you have ever
done. You never hit a state of perfection
and so all you're looking for are new
breakthroughs through practice and practice, you'll get better
and better. And there's still some things that
will happen to you that will catch you
on the blind side that you did not
anticipate.
Sometimes a visionary cries out on the inside
and says God don't
even show me
what shall be. Because every time I shout
and dance over what you showed me,
I go home to a harsh and painful
bleak dark reality.
And the fact that I am torn between
what shall be and what is,
creates agony in my life. The Bible said
hope deferred
makes the heart sick.
There are moments that I'd rather not know
that I'm gonna be king if you're gonna
send me back out into the field to
take care of sheep.
Why didn't you just hide that I was
gonna be king
so I could be satisfied
taking care of sheep. But because you told
me you had more for
me, I I I wanted to hasten the
process
to get to my destiny.
Now now I'm not happy doing what I
used to be happy doing because I'm tormented
by what shall be. I wanna hasten my
process so that I can get to an
expected end.
But that cannot be done
because a blessing given too soon
is not a blessing at all.
I can give my son the car keys
now
and tell him to go to the store.
But had I given it to him when
he was 5,
it would not have been a blessing at
all. Same car,
same son,
given too soon. He can't handle it.
Sometimes my goodness is proven
by my ability
to say not yet.
The younger brother of the prodigal son teaches
us emphatically that if we get what is
ours too soon,
we cannot handle it.
That the same thing that should make us
praise the father will drive us away from
the father if we get it too soon.
The Bible said, he said give me the
portion of goods that followed to me.
The father gave in and gave it to
him and the blessing drove him over the
edge.
He ordered you to go up the steps.
He wouldn't let you bypass the process.
All those people who offered you quick deals,
the reason the deal went down is because
God ordered you to go up the steps.
He didn't intend for you to go up
the elevator. He knew if you got there
too fast, you wasn't gonna be ready for
it. He slowed down your process. He let
the deal go down. It wasn't time yet.
What you are
and what you become
depends on how you use your time. You
can decide
that you're gonna stand up to life.
You have the power to make that decision.
You have something that you brought to the
universe
and that if you decide that my life
deserves my developing this what I do well
And seeing what I have within me. And
becoming the best at it and mastering myself,
I grant you, you'll never ever be without.
The thing that I'm thankful for is to
know that God orders
the steps.
It it helps me to understand that I
am not wandering
aimlessly,
that I'm not just moving on my own,
that there is a course
for me to take,
and that I can't graduate
till I take it, that there is a
path for me to prod, that God
isn't making this thing up as he goes.
I thought he was making it up as
he went. That's why I prayed
so he could make it up my way.
I prayed to abort the process. I prayed
to speed it up. I prayed to get
out of things that he wanted me to
stay into. I prayed that I wouldn't have
to endure some things that he wanted me
to endure. I I was working on the
destination, but he was working on me.
And sometimes
he made me wait. He made me slow
down and said no, you skipped that step.
Go back.
Do that again. If if you skipped it
with
Jimmy,
I'm gonna send it back with Freddie.
If you skipped it with Willie, you're gonna
have to go through it with Roger. If
you skipped it with Sally, you're gonna go
through it with Susie because all of these
are tools that I'm using to work on
you.
I'm not preparing the blessing for you, I'm
preparing you for the blessing.
The blessing is already prepared. Oh my
God. The blessing is already prepared.
Eyes have not seen, ears
have not heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things that God have
prepared for them to love it. Did did
you know your blessing is already ready? That
it's that it's already in place? That God
isn't fixing it up right now. It's already
done, that the work doesn't have to be
applied
to where you're going, the work has to
be applied to you
so that when you get where you're going,
you can handle what you gotta handle. And
so, God help me preach the steps, the
steps, the steps Touch 3 people and say,
the steps the steps the steps.
So part of beginning to get unstuck, you've
got to decide that the behavior pattern that
you have adopted doesn't work for you. You've
got to change your strategies and changing your
strategy means reinventing
your life,
recreating you and you have the power to
do that. You can decide that you're going
to change, that you're not gonna be a
wimp.
So as you're in the process of reinventing
your life, write a description of the kind
of person that you want to be.
What are the things that you must overcome?
What qualities about your personality
you know that you're gonna have to change
because those particular characteristics are liabilities to you.
What are your assets? What are your strong
points?
Go for walks, do some things
for you. Just go for a stroll so
you can engage in some reflective thinking on
life, on yourself.
Listen to upbeat music, music that inspire you.
I had a program for myself. I have
books that I read that inspire me, tapes
that I listen to that fire me up
because you're gonna have sometimes low moments when
you won't wanna get out of bed,
at times you won't wanna come out the
house. You just wanna stay there. It's called
life.
God has ordered steps. My prayer has always
been, steps. My prayer has always been, Lord,
don't give me more than I
can handle. I knew better. You know when
to bless her. I would have done better.
You know how to bless
You know when I'm ready to be blessed.
Teach me patience
with the process.
Go through the process.