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Hi, this is Joel and Victoria.
Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry. If you enjoy today's message, why don't you be a blessing and share it with a friend. We appreciate you and pray for God's very best in your life.
Well, God bless you. It is always a joy to coming to your homes.
We love you, We know God has great things in store for each one of you. If you're ever in our area, I hope you'll come out and be a part of one of our services.
We give you a personal invitation. I promise you it.
Will make you feel right at home. But thanks again for coming out, Thanks for tuning in. I like to start each week with something kind of funny, and I heard about this elderly couple that were having a terrible problem with their memory. They went to the doctor and he instructed them to start writing down.
Everything they had been forgetting.
One night, they were watching TV and the wife said, I sure would like a bowl of ice cream.
The husband said, I'll go get it for you.
She said, honey, you know what the doctor said, you better write it down.
He said, I'm just going to the kitchen. I'm not going to forget it.
He came back in a few minutes and handed her a plate of bacon and eggs. She shook her head and said, I knew this was going to happen. You forgot my toast.
All right.
Hold up your Bible. Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name, God bless you. I want to talk to you today about staying open for something new. Successful people know how to change with the times. They don't get stuck in a rut doing the same thing the same.
Way year after year.
They're constantly evaluating where they are and what they're doing.
They make adjustments so they can improve.
And just because something worked five years ago doesn't mean it's still going to work today.
We have to stay open for change. We can't get so set in our.
Ways that we won't try anything new. This is why many people don't have any enthusiasm. There's no freshness in their life. Every time an opportunity comes for change, for promotion, for increase, because they're not used to.
It, they shrink back.
They don't realize that's what's keeping them from going to the next level. And in the coming days, don't be surprised if God brings new opportunities across your path. Some of you are going to be offered a position that you feel is over your head. Others you're going to have an opportunity to change careers and get into a different field. Or maybe you single people, God's going to bring somebody new into your life, a divine connection.
You'll be tempted at first to.
Play it safe and think about all the reasons why you can't do it. You've been hurt in the past, you can't get into that new relationship, you're not qualified for that new position, or Joel, I couldn't try a different feel what if I fail?
But if you're going to experience.
God's best, you gotta be willing to take a risk. You can't get stuck thinking that it.
Can only happen one way. God likes to do new things.
I read where up until World War Two, the Swiss Watch Company was the largest watchmaker in the world. They controlled ninety percent of the watch market. They were very good at what they did. They made these beautiful, precise watches. No one could compete with them. But in the late nineteen sixties, researchers presented them with a new concept of watch.
It was the electronic watch.
Instead of having the traditional hands that tick, it had a battery on the inside, known as the Court's Watch. Those managers looked at it and didn't think twice. They said, this watch will never sell. Nobody wants to wear an electronic watch. They didn't give it the time of day. Why it wasn't the traditional thing that they were used to.
They were closed minded.
They didn't realize just because something was great for a time doesn't mean it's going to be great forever. Those researchers took that same invention to the International Watch Fair and two companies that had nothing to do with watches at the time saw the potential of this new Court's watch, and they quickly bought the rights to it, and before long they controlled the market share of watches sold around the world.
What am I saying?
We have to stay open to new ideas when something comes across your path that you're not used to. Don't be closed minded, don't just rule it out and say that's not for me. Be open for new opportunities. God wants us to stay fresh. We are not supposed to live off of past victories. I know some people they're always talking about the good old days, and that's fine.
I've had a lot of good old days.
I hope you have too. But can I tell you something. God has some good.
New days for you.
Your greatest victories are not behind you, they are still out in front of you. Now. I want to light a new fire on the inside. Some of you have lost your passion. You've gone through a disappointment, things didn't work out, and now you're in that rut, just doing.
The same thing, the same way. But this is a new day.
God is getting you prepared for the new things He's about to do when those opportunities come across your path. Don't you dare think I can't do this. I don't have those skills. This is not what I'm used to. I'm too old. No, shake all of that off and say I am well able, I am a quipped I'm annoying that I am in powered. I'm going to step into a new level of my destiny. I saw documentary on television about this professional thief. This man was incredibly talented. He was one of the most brilliant people I'd ever seen. Just his strategy and the way he thought and planned out his burglaries was so fascinating. He had burglarized homes for twenty one years without getting caught.
He never heard anyone. He'd only do it.
During the daytime if no one was there. The police were so frustrated. They knew in general where he was going to hit, They had figured out his pattern, but he would always outsmart them, and they brought in federal agents and some of the most brilliant detectives around.
But still year after year he continued to elude them.
Well, there was a fluke incident and he got caught after twenty one years. They were interviewing him on this documentary. He looked like a typical middle class businessman.
He did not like a thief.
And the man asked him, why did you choose with all this skill, all this expertise, why did you choose a life of crime. I'll never forget the way he answered. He said, this is all that I know.
How to do. He told how he was raised in a.
Dysfunctional family, didn't have anyone really given him guidance. And as I watched, I thought to myself, how limited we become in our thinking.
We get so one dimensional.
I wanted to say to him, if you could successfully steal for twenty one years, out smarting some of the brightest minds around, don't you think you could run your own business. Don't you think you could do something equally as successful, being productive with your life. I had a young man tell me one time after the service how all he knew how to do was sell drugs. He came from a very rough neighborhood. He said, Joel, I don't like what I do, but I don't have any I've never been to college, and this is the only.
Way I know how to make a living.
I said, listen, if you can sell drugs, don't sell yourself short. You're a lot smarter than you think. That's not the only thing you can do. Think about it like this. If you can sell drugs, you have to know how to market your product.
That's marketing.
You have to know how to get the word out, that's advertising. You have to take care of your clients. That's customer service. You have to know when to sell and when not to sell. That's a management decision. Don't fool yourself. If you can sell drugs, you can sell medical equipment, you.
Can sell electronics, you can sell stocks and bonds.
You need to reinvent yourself, get a new vision for your life. Maybe nobody's ever spoken faith into you, but let.
Me tell you. You have a gift.
You have something to offer. Don't use your God given talents for the wrong purposes. If you'll put yourself in the right environment and not get stuck with this mindset. This is all that I know how to do for the rest of my life, then you'll see God begin to open up new doors. It's not too late to start right where you are. You're not too old, you haven't made too many mistakes. You wouldn't be here if God didn't have more for you to accomplish. Keep looking for new opportunities, be willing to get out of your comfort zone. And some of you today you just need some freshness in your life. Start stretching yourself. You have to stir up what God's put on the inside. If you don't have a dream, you're not really living, you're just existing.
You have to have a reason.
To get out of bed each morning, something that motivates you, something that you're passionate about. Maybe at one time you had a dream, but you went through some disappointments things didn't work out. But here's the key. When one dream dies, dream another dream. Just because it didn't work out the way you had it planned doesn't mean God doesn't have another plan.
You cannot allow one.
Disappointment, or even a series of disappointments, to convince you that it's not gonna happen. You may have tried and failed, but understand, a failure is not a denial, It's just a delay.
These thoughts will come saying it's.
Over, you're too old, you blew it, you had your chance. All these thoughts will try to convince us to give up on what God has placed in our hearts. You've got to dig your heels in and say thanks, but no thanks. It may not have worked out my way, but I know God has another way. Now, I'm not gonna sit around and live my life defeated. I'm gonna rise up and dream a new dream. This is what Joshua had to do. He stayed open to things happening a different way. After Moses died, he was chosen to lead the people of Israel. They were headed toward the Promised Land. They came to the Jordan River. They needed to get across, but there was no bridge. Joshua remembered how his predecessor Moses had held up his rod and parted the Red Sea. I'm sure he thought God would tell him to do it the same way. I can even imagine. He goes on top of the hill, holds up his rod and says, God, please part this river. He's praying, he's hoping, he's believing. This is the first real test of his leadership. Everyone is watching closely, thinking, let's see if he has what Moses had, Let's see what Joshua is made of. He holds up the rod, But wouldn't you know it, nothing happened. The waters didn't budge. He could have easily thought I must not be the right one. It worked for Moses, but it didn't work for me. No, Joshua understood this principle. He stayed open for something new. God told him to tell the pre to march toward the waters, and the moment their feet touched the waters it would begin to part. The priests started walking toward the water. The closer they got, the more people tried to talk them out of it. You better not keep going, better not listen to Joshua. You're gonna get out there and drown. Didn't phase them. They just kept walking, doing what God said, and sure enough, as soon as their feet touched the water, it began to pull back, and just like they did for Moses, the people were able to go through on dry ground.
What am I saying?
God chose to do it a different way than he did with Moses. Had Joshua been set in his ways, closed minded, he would have missed out on God's best. But Joshua's attitude was if it didn't work one way, I'm not gonna get defeated and give up. I know God has another way, So I'm gonna keep trying. I'm gonna keep believing. I'm gonna keep pressing forward until I find that right way. Could it be that we've been too set in our ways and we've given up after the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time, and we've missed out on seeing our water's part.
I found.
You have to get to your closed doors before you'll ever come to your open doors. Don't get discouraged and give up and settle just because it didn't happen one way. Keep knocking, keep believing, keep hoping, keep dreaming. You may have to have ten people tell you no before you come to that one yes, but that one yes will make up for all the other nose. You may have a dozen things that you tried that don't work out, but if you'll stay in faith, you'll come to that one thing that does work out. It's like this little boy I heard about. He was five or six years old, and he had a baseball and a bat.
He looked at that bat and he.
Said to himself, I am the best hitter in all the world. He threw the ball up, took a swing, and he picked the ball up and said it more determined, I am the best hitter in all the world. He threw it up, swung strike too, missed again. He picked the ball up. This time he straightened his hat. He said it with even more intensity, I am the best hitter in all the world. He threw the ball up, concentrated the best he could, took a swing.
And he missed strike three.
He simply laid his bat down, picked the ball up, and said, what do you know, I am the best pitcher in all the world. If we're going to be successful, we've got to stay open to new ideas, be willing to reinvent yourself.
The scripture says God's ways.
Are not our ways. They are higher and better than our ways. That tells me God's dream for your life is so much bigger, so much greater than your own. When a door closes, something doesn't work out, don't sit around in self pity, thinking poor old me. Now, we may have a reason to feel sorry for ourselves, but we don't have a right. God is still on the throne. He still has a plan. You would not be alive if God didn't have something great in your future. God knew every disappointment we would go through. He knew every closed door, every person that would do us wrong. None of that is a surprise to God. The good news is God has it all figured out. He had the solution before you even had the problem. If something didn't work out the way you had it planned, let it go and get ready for the new thing God's about to do. I read the story about a lady by the name of Mary Bethune. She was the youngest of seventeen children. She was born in South Carolina back in the late eighteen hundreds. Her parents were slaves, and in spite of all the odds being against her, she was able to get a good education and even go to college. From the time she was a little girl, she had a desire to go to Africa one day and teach children.
She had this dream year after year.
She just knew one day she would be teaching those students. And she got close to graduating from college. She sent her application in to a well known missions organization. She was a straight a student, had an impeccable reputation. You couldn't meet a finer young woman. Week after week went by and she was waiting, hoping, praying, believing that she would get accepted. But one day she got the word back that she didn't want to hear. For some reason, she had been turned down. She was devastating. She told how it was like something died on the inside that day. That's what she had always wanted to do.
With her life.
But remember, when one door closes, if you will stay in faith, God will open up another door. Instead of sitting around thinking about how bad life had treated her and what didn't work out.
She put on a new attitude.
She said, if I can't teach the students over there, then I'll teach the students here. She decided to start her own school. She didn't have any money, no building, no equipment. But where there's a will, there's a way. She found cardboard boxes and used them as desk. She would get red berries and drain the juice out of them so her students could use that as ink in their pens. The way they raised money for their books is every week, she and the students would haul thousands of pounds of garbage down to the local duck.
Several years went by.
A college nearby noticed what was going on and asked them to join forces with them. It became known as the Cookman Bethune College. She went on to become the first African American woman to be a college president. In nineteen thirty two, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her as an advisor to his cabinet, making her the first woman African American presidential adviser. Ever, what am I saying, if things don't work out the way you had hoped, don't sit around or defeated dream a new dream. God is still in control. He would not have allowed the door to close unless he had something better in store. Life may not be fair, but know this, God is fair. Nothing you've been through has to keep you from your destiny. If you didn't get the job you wanted, go apply for another job. If you can't teach the students overseas, teach the students here. Put on a new attitude. God has you in the palm of his hand. He has already planned out your.
Days for good. He holds victory in your future.
Some of you today you're not really living, You're just existing.
You got to stir up.
The dreams that have been pressed down. The scripture says in Isaiah sixty, verse one, a rise and shine, for your light has It doesn't say that your light will come.
It says your light has come.
If you knew the great things God had in your future, you wouldn't go around discouraged negative.
You'd go out each day.
With a smile on your face and a spring in your step. I think about my father as a young man, he sold popcorn in the Isis Theater in Fort Worth, Texas. He was raised in extreme poverty. At the age of seventeen, my father gave his life to the Lord. God called him to preach. He started ministering in the prisons, the rest homes, on the streets, anywhere he could find.
My dad was married at.
An early age, but unfortunately that marriage didn't work out.
His dreams were shattered. He left the ministry.
He didn't think that he would ever preach again, and for several years he went into the insurance business. He was very good, he excelled at what he did, but down in here he the call of God was still on his life. He didn't feel worthy, he didn't feel like he deserved it. Everybody was telling him, you'll washed up, you'll never be in ministry again, you'll never have a family. It's funny sometimes when we're down, people try to keep us down. But this is what I love about God. He lifts the falling, He gives hope to the hopeless.
His mercy is.
Bigger than any mistake we could ever make. I don't believe that divorce is God's best, but unfortunately sometimes it's happens.
Now.
I'm not for divorce, but I am for divorced people. Your life does not have to stop just because a relationship came to an end. God still has a plan, A rise and shine. That means, get up from that discouragement, shake off that self pity, receive mercy for your mistakes.
A rise.
That's the first thing. And then number two, you've got to shine. Smile on your face, get your enthusiasm back, start laughing again, start enjoying your life. Take up some new hobbies, find some new friends, buy some new clothes. It's not enough to just a rise. You gotta start shining. That is an act of your faith. When you do that, you're announcing not only to yourself, not only to your friends, but you're saying to the enemy. I'm not gonna live my life in regrets. I'm not gonna go around beating myself up over the mistakes I've made. I know God has another plan, So I'm gonna arise and I'm gonna shine.
What you're really saying is I'm back and I'm bad.
My father, my dad, had all these thoughts telling him you'll never be in ministry, you'll never have a family again.
But God is a god of restoration.
He will take what was meant for your harm and use it to your advantage. Several years later, my father left the insurance business and he got back into the ministry.
Things begin to flourish.
One day he met my mother, They fell in love, got married. God blessed them with four average children and one exceptional child who I didn't say as me, you're gonna hurt Paul's feelings out here. But I think about how we wouldn't be here today if my father had not stayed open to a plan different than his, if he had not been willing to dream a new dream, he'd have never met my mother. I probably would have never been born. There may not be a lakewood in life. There will always be voices telling us you blew it, you had your chance, it's over.
Just settle where you are. Gon't believe those lies.
If you get knocked down, get back up again. It's not over until God says it's over. My father went from being a popcorn salesman to a ministry to an insured salesman, back to being a minister. That tells me God knows how to connect the dots. God knows how to get you to your final destination. Some of you today you may have been through a disappointment. Something didn't work out. Maybe it was even your fault. But God is saying I've still got a plan. Dream a new dream, get your fireback, get your enthusiasm back. Just because it didn't happen one way doesn't mean it's over. When life deals you a lemon, God can make lemonade. He can take your mess and turn it into your message. It's time to arise and shine. In the early nineteen hundreds, farmers back in Alabama were facing a major challenge. A tiny little insect called the bull weavil had migrated from South America and it was quickly destroying their crops. They tried everything they could do to get rid of it. They exterminated with all kinds of pesticides, and they even came up with new folos formulas they'd never used before, still to no avail. Eventually, all they could do is sit back and watch their crops and their livelihood be eaten away. They were so discouraged, looked like it was over. But one day, as they were sitting around kind of defeated, kind of down, a man came up.
With an idea.
He said, instead of planting our normal cotton crops that we know won't survive, why don't we try something new. Let's plant peanuts. They looked at him like a cow at a new gate. They said, peanuts. We could never make a living off of peanuts. He eventually talked them into it. What they discovered was the bowl weavils did not like the taste of peanuts. Those crops took off and flourished like nothing they had ever seen before. They made more money in several months than they normally made.
In a whole year.
In fact, even when the bowl weavils left, they didn't go back to their cotton crops.
They stuck with peanuts.
They went on to produce more peanuts than any country in the world.
Friends, God has a plan.
You may have some bowl weavils bothering you right now, but don't worry.
There are some peanuts in your future.
What you may think is a setback is really a set up for a greater comeback. I love the fact that the bowl weevils did not like the taste of peanuts.
That tells me God always has.
Something in my future that the enemy cannot touch. He always has some way to prosper me, some way to heal us, some way to restore us, some way to bring our dreams to pass. And even when it looks difficult, even when things don't work out, just remind yourself. These bowl weavils may be causing me some problems, they may not even go away. But really I'm not worried about it. I know they can't touch my harvest. God has given them a distaste for what belongs to me. That person at the off it always gets on your nerves, annoys you. Next time you see him, just think to yourself, he just a bow weavil.
He can't touch my harvest.
This shows us how God's plan is better than our plan. Had it not been for the bowl weavils, the farmers would have never tried peanuts. They would have just kept producing their normal crops over and over all, the while missing out on the abundance that should have been theirs. When you're facing adversity, that set back, that disappointment, you don't know where it's taken you. You've heard the saying when you're down to nothing, God is up to something. When it looks like your crops are being eaten up, God is not on the throne saying, oh man, what am I gonna do?
Who let the bowl weavils out. No.
God is in complete control. He has a way even when we don't see away.
Here's the key.
Had those farmers not been open for something new and been willing to reinvent themselves, they could still they will be sitting around saying, just my love too bad for me, A little insect ruin my future. Know nothing has to destroy your future. When one dream dies, dream another dream, try something else. If you hold your rod up and the rivers don't part, start walking toward the waters, God has another plan. Be willing to get out of your comfort zone. Keep a freshness in your life. Don't be satisfied to live off of past victories. God has new victories out in.
Front of you. Thanks so much for listening to today's message.
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