Possessing Our Destiny – Part 6 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. We are talking about possessing our destiny. We found out that our destiny is in our creator, our destiny is in Christ. But what does it take to walk in that? It takes faith to walk in a relationship with our creator through our new identity in Christ. Blessings. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today, and I’m so glad to have Barbara with me. And we’re sharing today on possessing our destiny and we’ve been talking about how we possess our destiny through our relationship with God, through our relationship with Jesus Christ but it takes faith. “And without faith,” the Bible says, “it’s impossible to please God because he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So we’ve been talking about some examples of faith. We talked about Noah, and now we’re talking about Abraham, and not only Abraham, Sarah was a person of faith. And right here in Hebrews 11, as we talked about Abraham, it says, “He went out into a place that he would afterward receive for inheritance.” You know what? If you don’t live by faith, you’re not gonna get what God wants you to possess. But when he faithfully moved into that, it says, “He obeyed and went out.” He didn’t even know where he was going. But then it says in verse nine, “By faith, he sojourned in a land of promises, in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans. Most scholars believe that when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans, the current city of Iraq. We know it as Iraq in the capital there of Iraq, but that it had running water, it had underground sewers. So he left a very prominent place, you know, in life and society to go out and live in a tent, and tents with his wife and with their family. And so this wasn’t any easy task, but that took not only Abraham’s faith, that took Sarah’s faith.

That’s right. So that’s exciting, isn’t it?

Yeah. You know, we left some things when we started out in the ministry and we left some stuff behind, but we’ve never cried about that or whined about that. But faith is a journey.

Enjoy the trip.

Praise God. So as we look at this, it says, “He looked for a city who had foundations whose builder and maker is God.” And then it says in verse 11, “Through faith Sarah herself.” So not only was Abraham a person of faith, and we talked about in our last broadcast that God changed Abram’s name from Abram to Abraham. God changed Sarah’s name from Sarai to Sarah, and Sarai means princely. Sarah means mother of princes. “But she also herself,” this Sarah, “had personal faith, received strength to conceive seed.” It takes strength to conceive the seed of the word of God. The word is a seed. But if you’re going to move by faith, it takes spiritual strength to conceive that seed of the word of God so that you can bring forth what God wants you to possess.

It takes faith too to identify with what God is calling you to do, rather than identify with the struggle or the challenge, but identify with what God has called you to do.

Amen. What God has called us to do ultimately is greater than anything. You know, God’s plan for our life is better than our plan for our life any day of the week. But it takes faith and it takes spiritual strength to move into that. And many times when you begin to move into it, there’ll be a battle because the enemy doesn’t want you to go there because he knows if you get there, not only it’s gonna affect you positively and your family positively, just like it did Abraham and Sarah and their children, but it’s gonna affect other people around you and the destiny really of maybe generations of people.

I know you’re talking about, you know, Abraham and Sarah, but as you’re sharing, what really just keeps jumping out at me, and I’ve talked to you about this before, is in Numbers 13, Joshua and Caleb. It says in, I believe it’s Numbers 13:1, the Lord says, “Go spy out the land which I’m giving you and pick the leaders among each tribe and go and sent them all to spy it out.” So you had this group of people who are all supposed to be the leaders, but yet only two came back with the vision, and the identity of who they were. They said, “We can possess this now. God is with us.” But everybody else said, “No, it’s too hard, it’s too difficult.” They got the whole group, the whole multitude of people crying and whining how it couldn’t be done. And the Lord said, “This is the land I’m giving you. Go spy it out. This is the land I’m giving you.”

And you read about that in Joshua 1, and God says, “I’ve given you this land.” Then he says, after that, “By the way, there’s a few giants there.” Generally, when God gives you the land, there’s a few giants in it, you know, but he says, “You go possess it, be of good courage.” And so in Numbers 13, where you’re talking about, God spoke to Moses and said, “Pick out leaders.” So Moses picked out 12 of the best men that he had, 12 from each family of the tribes of Israel. And he picked out 12 leaders, 12 of the very best that he had. And he told them very specifically what he wanted a report about. And so when he sent them to spy out the land after he chose out, you know, this was 12 out of two million, right? And he says in verse 17, and he says, “I want you to go up southward, go up into the mountain, see the land, the people, whether they’re strong or weak, few or many, what the land is, whether it’s good or bad, what cities that are there in, whether in tents or strongholds and the land, is it fat or lean? Is it wood or not, you know, trees or not.” And he says very specifically in verse 20, “And be of good courage and bring the fruit of the land.” And so he tells them exactly what he wants a report on. And exactly, he tells him, “Be of good courage.” But they didn’t come back with a very encouraging report.

No, they didn’t.

Joshua and Caleb did, but not the other 10.

Right.

So faith kind of make you one in a million. And this kind of shows us this. A lot of people are not gonna possess what God has for ’em. God has an amazing good plan for your life, but it takes faith to believe it and receive it to enter into what God has for you by grace.

And again, I like what it says in Numbers 13:30. It says how “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession for we are well able to overcome it.'” It’s amazing how some people, just a few, saw themselves with God. That they were well able, they were overcomers where the others really took on that victim mentality.

Everybody else said, “Hey, it’s a beautiful land. It flows with milk and honey, it’s a good land. But there’s giants in the land.” Caleb and Joshua said, “Hey, it’s a beautiful land and God’s with us. Let’s go get it.” Because Caleb and Joshua focused on the word of God, focused on what God said rather than focused on, you know, all the problems. But a lot of people have their focus on the wrong things. And because they focus on the wrong things, they get the wrong results.

Well, and it goes on in Numbers 14:8-9, it says, “If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give to us a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land for they are our bread, their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”

Yeah. So they saw things totally different. You know, these other 10 spies came and they discouraged the people, and they said, “Hey, you know, the land’s good, the land’s beautiful, but there’s giants in the land.” And when we saw these giants, it says in verse 33, Numbers 13:33, I’m gonna go back for a minute. “The sons of Anak, which come of the giants.” In other words, I’m sure there were a few, you know, giants that weren’t as big as the other giants. There might have been some dwarf giants or something, but all they could see was how big the giants were. I’m kind of a little person, I was a little kid, scrappy kid. But my dad told me, “Hey, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” And you know, my dad helped develop in me, and we were talking about this last week, an attitude of faith. And what faith is is a major attitude. And the way it’s released is with words. When the Bible says, “Having the same spirit of faith,” that’s talking about we have a major attitude of faith. You know, Mark Hankins is a good friend of mine, and he says this, “The spirit of faith that make you swing out over hell on a cornstalk and spit in the Devil’s eye.” Praise God. We got a spirit of faith. We have the same spirit of faith as Jesus, as God, as David. Hallelujah. And we can move into what God has for us. But you’re not gonna get there as long as you’re focused on the giants and you have a grasshopper mentality. And it says, “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so were we in their sight.” You see, we’re talking about faith will change your identity. And the way you see yourself determines many times what you receive. And this is a great example, Barbara, that you brought up here in Numbers 13 and 14, because Joshua and Caleb entered in. They had to wait 40 years in the wilderness for all those people who would not believe to die off to where God could raise up another generation that would believe him.

Well, again, in Numbers 14:9, it says, “Only do not rebel against the Lord.” In other words, to not put your trust in faith in him and to, you know, have fear. And because it says over and over, “Be of good courage, do not fear.” And he’s like, “Don’t rebel. Like let’s follow after the Lord’s plans because again, his plans for us are only good and not evil.”

Amen.

To give us a hope and expect it in. That’s in Jeremiah. But you know, praise the Lord. We’ve gotta understand that God has good things in store for us. And don’t rebel, don’t walk in rebellion, but trust him, believe in him.

Praise God. Amen. And so they said, “Hey, we can do it.” And did you know what? You can do whatever God has called you to do.

That’s right.

But it takes faith to enter into that. It doesn’t mean there’s never gonna be a challenge. It doesn’t. And generally, the higher you go, the more that you’re believing for, the more challenges you’re going to face.

We just have a few seconds, but I just remember when we moved to go to Bible school, that rental truck broke down every other mile. And you know, we could have gave up before we even got to Bible school.

Yeah. And we see that here working with Bible school. There’s people that moved to town to go to Bible school, never even get there. There’s other people that get there and don’t ever finish, complete what they started. And so, you know what? I believe, you know, there’s different aspects of what God wants you to do. God doesn’t call everybody to go to Bible school. But at the same point in time you wanna be able to finish by faith the journey of grace that God has given you. And it takes faith to move into the plan, the purpose, the destiny that God has for you in your life. We’ll be back right after a short break. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching today. We’ve been sharing on possessing our destiny. We have a lot more of this teaching available. It’s on our website, it’s free of charge, downloadable audio, downloadable video. So go there to our website at charischristiancenter.com and take advantage of this and many other teachings, blessings.

I got a word from God. A lot of believers want shazam. And a lot of times the things of the kingdom of God aren’t shazam. Jesus said, “Everything operates according to the parable of the sower, the kingdom. How many of you know the Devil is the enemy of the word? Because he knows if you get ahold of the Word of God, the word of God is literally gonna change your life. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us and we’re talking about how it takes faith to possess your destiny. It takes faith to enter into the grace of God. It’s not automatic. And you know, a lot of times, people think, “Well, if this is what God wants, this is what’s gonna be done.” Well, you know, it’s what God desires but that doesn’t mean that just because God wants it. God’s given us a will and it takes faith. And I know something your dad used to tell me. He used to tell me, “Well, if it was easy, everybody would do it.”

That’s true.

And you know, that’s just the way it is. Not everybody’s gonna possess what God promised them, but we can possess what God’s promised us if we’ll live by faith.

That’s right.

Praise God.

And just don’t quit.

Amen. Good things happen when you don’t quit.

Yeah. Don’t grow weary, and the Bible tells us that too. Don’t grow weary in well doing.

Yeah.

You know, praise God.

There’s a of people that give up before their harvest. Just before a breakthrough, they’ll give up. And so don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t quit believing God. Don’t quit believing Jesus. Don’t quit believing the promises of God, but keep standing. Amen?

That’s right.

Now, earlier in the broadcast, we were in Hebrews 11, and then we went and looked at a couple examples of faith in Numbers chapter 13 and 14. But we’re back here to Hebrews 11 where we left off. And not only did Abraham have faith, but Sarah had faith. And when you talk about Abraham and Sarah, God changed their name because a change of identity is required to possess your destiny. And when we look at this, it says in verse 11, “Through faith also, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed.” It takes strength to conceive the seed of the word of God, “And was delivered of a child. She was 90 years old, about 90 years old when she brought forth Isaac, when she was past age because,” why? “She judged him faithful who promised.” I love this, it says, “By faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, through faith.” And it’s talking about Sarah through faith.

And I like what you just read, this is in verse 11. Hebrews 11:11, it said, how “Because she judged him, God, faithful.”

Yes.

Who promised

Yes, we’re not talking about faith in your faith. We’re not talking about faith in, you know, whoever’s, you know, in the governmental role that you’re looking at. We’re talking about faith in God.

We know the Bible is full of promises. And again, I like what it says about her that she judged God faithful.

Amen. Hallelujah.

And that’s how we need to get, that we understand that God is faithful and praise God. I know both you and I really can… You know, we talk about this all the time. You know, there is evidence to God’s faithfulness.

Amen. All around us, praise God. A lot of people talk about faith, but not a lot of people really live faith. The Bible says, “The just will live by faith.” Faith is not a movement; faith is a lifestyle.

Amen.

Praise God. And so we wanna be consistent in our faith, consistent in our relationship with God, with Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now he goes on in verse 12 and says, “Wherefore, sprang there even of one, Abraham, and of him as good as dead, so many as the stars and the sky, as the multitude in the sand, which is by the seashore, innumerable.” I love verse 13. It really kind of tells us the process of faith. It says, “These all died in faith not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. You gotta get a picture on the inside. In fact, I believe every one of us have a picture on the inside that comes from God. If you get that picture on the inside that comes from God, you can begin to move into it of where God wanna takes you on the outside. So he says, “They saw them afar off. They were persuaded of them.” Are you persuaded of the promises? We gotta get persuaded. You know, a lot of people don’t make it through in the realm of faith. They start out, right? Jesus said, “Everything in the kingdom works like the parable of the sower and the seed.” Well, the first ground was what? The wayside soil. And Satan saw when the word was sown in their heart. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. And he came and stole that, ate that word because he didn’t want to produce a harvest. Then the next type of soil, Mark 4, is the stony soil. And that came up and it looked pretty. There’s a lot of people, they look real pretty. But because, you know, they don’t get really rooted and grounded in the word of God and their relationship with God, their relationship with Christ, their relationship with the Holy Spirit, their relationship with the word of God, they might grow big old flowers, but they have little bitty fruit. I had that happen here in Colorado Springs. You know, I grew up in southeast Colorado, and you could plant squash and they’d come up year after year and they’d be great big. And so when we came here to Colorado Springs, lived on the southwest side of town when we first moved here, I found a nice sunny place out in the front yard. You know, we had a circle drive and we had some scrub oak trees, but there’s a place where you could park a car. I dug a ditch and I planted some of those yellow summer squash. I just love ’em. Slice ’em thin, boil and put butter on ’em, and salt and pepper. Ooh, they are good. Boil ’em, nine minutes. Praise God. But anyway, I grew this big squash plant and it had big old blossoms. And the squash were only that because the soil there is just decomposed granite and it didn’t have roots to grow good fruit. And there’s people that they might look pretty, but they don’t produce a lot of fruit because they don’t have roots. Right? And then he says, “The next type of soil is weedy soil, the cares of this life, the less other things. The deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.” But then there’s good ground. You need to say, “I am good ground.”

Amen. That’s good.

And the good ground brings forth fruit, some 30, some 60, some hundredfold. And I believe a hundredfold faith is a person who’s walking in 100% of what God called them to do and anointed them. Praise God. And so it’s a process to walk this out. Faith is a process. So they saw them afar off. They got persuaded. You gotta be persuaded.

That’s right.

Amen. We started this series just a week ago, and we were sharing on, you know, Paul said, “I’m persuaded,” in 2 Timothy 1, “that he is able to keep those things which I’ve committed to him against that day.” Are you persuaded? I’m persuaded that God is true. I’m persuaded that his promises are true. I’m persuaded Jesus is Lord. I’m persuaded that the Holy Ghost is real. Hallelujah. Amen, praise God.

That’s right. That’s all exciting. That’s all good news.

And they embrace them. Have you embraced? How do you embrace the promises?

You just believe it.

You believe it.

And hang on, hang on to those promises and hang on to God’s word no matter what.

And what happens if you really embrace it and you really believe it, it’s gonna cause you to talk differently, isn’t it?

It is.

It’s gonna cause you to walk differently. You’re not gonna be able to walk around singing this victim song. You know, you can’t get the victory singing the victim song. So quit using that victim language. Quit singing the victim song and start singing the victor song, “Faith in God.” Faith in God will change your life. And they confessed. See, that’s what happens. When you see that promise, when you get persuaded of it, when you embrace it, you begin to confess it. You can’t help but say some things.

That’s right.

Faith that caused you to say some things.

That’s right.

Amen.

Again, I mean, we just talked about Joshua and Caleb, how they came back and said, “We’re well able.”

Amen. You know, talking about saying some things, Jesus said some things, Mark 11. They were on the way to the temple. He was hungry. He saw a fig tree; it didn’t have any fruit. He went over there and it didn’t have any so he cursed it. The next day, the disciples and him come by. They say, “Hey, Jesus, the tree you cursed, it’s dead. It’s dried up from the…” Now, this thing looks like all the leaves fell off. I could see the branches broken and falling off, the bark’s falling off. It looks like it’s been dead for 10 years. And they’re marveling. Jesus said, “Have faith in God. Have the God kind of faith, for whoever will say to this mountain, ‘Be thou removed.'” You gotta speak to the mountain. Quit talking to God about your mountain and start talking to the mountain about your God.

That’s good.

See, because if you’re talking to God about your mountain, your focus is on that mountain instead of on your God. But take your focus off of the mountain. Put your eyes on God and start talking to that mountain. “Whoever shall say to this mountain, ‘Be thou removed and be thou cast in the sea,’ and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe those things which he say it, but shall have whatsoever he says. Therefore, I say to you,” verse 24, Mark 11:24, “what thing soever you desire.” When you pray, when you pray, what do you want?

Believe.

Amen. Believe that you receive them and you shall have them. Praise God. You gotta believe that you receive it before you see it. Amen.

I love what it says in Isaiah too, that he answers our prayers even before we pray them.

Praise God.

In other words, he’s a loving, good, heavenly Father. Just like we know the things that are important to our children or our grandchildren, he’ll do things without them asking to surprise him or just to have some fun and be good to ’em. But God, our heavenly Father. Isn’t that amazing?

Amen. God has a good plan for us. It’s an amazing plan. And God’s plan for our life is better than our plan for our life any day of the week. But if you’re gonna get what God planned for you to have by grace, you’ve gotta receive it by faith. Amen. It takes faith, and faith is released by words. There’s no way you can separate your faith. And I’m not talking about when you’re looking pretty at church, I’m talking about, you know, what are you saying in your bed when you’re laying there at midnight in the middle of the night, what is coming out of your spirit? You see, Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Praise God.

You know, I was talking earlier about my mother, how she really encouraged me in faith. But I love that my mother, if I could just say it this way, give a little illustration, my mother was probably one of my best cheerleaders. She was always telling me, “You can do it.” And yeah, really encouraging me. And that’s what I see God. And in the word, the word is telling us, “You can do it because I have sent my son Jesus and the victory’s already been won, that through him, these things can come to pass, that it’s already been done but just believe in him.” Isn’t that good that God is always saying, “It can be done? It can be done when you are with me, in me.”

Amen, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

That’s right.

That’s what Philippians 4:13 says. And Paul says, “Listen, I’ve learned how to be abased. I faced lack. I’ve learned how to be abound. I’ve had good times, I’ve had challenging times, but all together I know that whatever situation I’m in, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

It’s not on our own.

Amen.

But it’s with him, in him.

Praise God.

We can do it.

Yeah. And that’s what we’re talking about tomorrow. I’ll be sharing on the broadcast a part of a message about the way that we possess our destiny is through our relationship with Jesus Christ and identifying with who God says that we are in Christ. And man, when you identify with who God says you are, you’re getting ready to go on a great journey of faith.

Amen. It’s exciting, isn’t it?

Yes. Praise the Lord. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this broadcast. I wanna let you know that we have trained prayer ministers. They’re right here, right now, ready to receive your calls. If you need prayer to receive healing, to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to receive Jesus or to receive any of the promises of God, just give us a call today. We’re ready to receive them and thanks for helping us. Blessings.

To understand your destiny, you must first know your creator. In order to step into the good plans that God has for you, it is essential to have a relationship with Jesus. You’re not here by accident. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of “Possessing Our Destiny,” a $20 value free of charge. You can download your copy today by going to charischristiancenter.com.

Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and I want to invite you to attend services with us at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. The atmosphere is amazing. Recently in one service, I had people from 10 nations and several states. They watch us on a regular basis online and they said, “This is amazing.” So if you can’t come physically, come and attend online at Charis Christian Center or YouTube. Blessings. Friends, I invite you to pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died for my sins, and you raised him from the dead on the third day and made him Lord. And right now I surrender my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. Thank you so much for being with us today. Blessings.

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