Rick Warren - How to Get Ready to be Used by God II

Pastor Rick Warren often says you were made by God

and for God, and until you understand that, life will

never make sense. Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope Today.

As we bring our series called God's Vision for the

Rest of your Life to a close, Rick will wrap

up his look at the unique purpose and vision that

the Lord has for your life. Now in just a

few moments, we're going to tell you how to get

a copy of the brand new Daily Hope twenty twenty

one prayer Journal based on the theme God's Great Adventure

for You, a great resource to help make your time

in prayer the best it can be. Go to Pastorick

dot com to find out more, or text the word

daily to eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four.

That's Pastorick dot com. Or the word daily to eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Right now, here's

Pastor Rick Warren with the final part of a message

called how to get ready to be used by God.

Now, let me give you the greatest time management tip

you'll ever get. This is the greatest time management tip.

It's a two letter word no no. Do you know

I say no hundreds of times a week. It's a

positive word to me because every sign I say no,

I'm saying no that gives me more time. When I

say to no to that opportunity, to that invitation, to

that idea, to that meeting, whatever, it gives me more

time for the things that God has called me to do.

And if you don't learn how to say no, you

will be overwhelmed with opportunities, options, requests, things in your

life that could take up all your time, and you

have no time for what God wants to do in

your life. And saying no learns helps you stay focused.

In fact, Jesus said this in Matthew sixteen. I love

this God's word paraphrase. He says, those who want to

come with me must say no to the things they want,

pick up their crosses and follow me. So distractions will

keep you from being used by God. You have to

simplify your life. Here's another one. This one's a little

bit more painful.

Debt, debt, debt.

I know so many people who were so in debt

they couldn't follow God's will if they wanted to because

they're so over committed. They bought things they didn't need

with money they didn't have. To impress people they didn't

even like, and as a result, they spend all their

time hustling to pay the payments on all these things.

Life is not about the acquisition of things. And I

would say to you, you ought to set up a

plan to get out of debt, or at least reduce

it as much as possible, because when you're all in debt,

you can't. You have to spend all your time working

to pay off the debt. Now you didn't get in

debt overnight, you're gonna not get out of it overnight.

You might set up a ten year plan, say you know,

let's knock this thing off. I'm not talking about your

mortgage in Orange County mortgages or an appreciating item in

a very big way, but I'm talking about all that

consumer debt that just takes up your time paying it off.

Life is not about things.

And if God were to say I want you to

do this, he said, well, I can't do that.

God I got to pay off all his debt first.

And I would say, the better you can get that

paid down, the more God can use you. Now, we've

got some action steps that can help you. We have

books and all kinds of things that can help you

get a grip on your finances. So you're saying, I'm

gonna get my help in balance. I'm gonna get my

finances in balance. I'm gonna get my heart in balance.

These are things that God says you need to do

so I can make you more and more usable. Now

there's this verse Matthew six twenty four. Jesus said this,

no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve both

God and money. You can't be always focusing on debt

and focusing on serving God. Here's another verse on Proverbs

twenty one. Up here on the screen says this. The

wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man

spends whatever he gets. Are you saving anything? Are you

putting any money away and saving?

If you're not, you are overspending.

You need to learn to live on less so you

can put some money away.

If it's all going right out the door, you are

well over extended.

God says the wise person is putting some money away

and saving it. Last week we talked about how everybody

ought to startup peace savings account. So these parts start

putting a little bit money away every week so you

could do your mission for God. I would encourage you

to simplify your life so you're more available for God

to use.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Rick will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional

at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

If you want to make your time in prayer the

best it can be, then you're going to want to

get a copy of the brand new twenty twenty one

Daily Hope Prayer Journal. This year's theme, God's Great Adventure

for You, will help you tap into God's power and

presence when you learn how to pray with passion and purpose.

Covered in soft vegan leather with full color pages, this

prayer journal has sections to pray for specific people and situations,

as well as space to express your gratitude and personal

prayer requests to God. Each page is beautifully designed and

filled with inspiring Bible verses, photos, and artwork. The God's

Great Adventure for You Prayer Journal is a spiritual growth

tool designed to help you enjoy a vibrant prayer life,

connect with God, and establish a consistent Daily Prayer time.

When you give a gift to help Daily Hope take

the certain hope of Jesus to people around the world,

we'll send you the all new twenty twenty one Daily

Hope Prayer Journal to say thanks. Quantities are limited, so

don't wait. Call eight hundred and six hundred five zero

zero four to get your prayer journal and have your

gift matched up to one hundred thousand dollars. Or you

can visit Pastorick dot com. That's eight hundred at six

hundred five zero zero four or pastorick dot com.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope once again. Here's

Pastor Rick Warren.

God says, the wise person is putting some money away

and saving it. Last week we talked about how everybody

had a startup peace savings account. These partly start putting

a little bit of money away every week so you

could do your mission for God. I would encourage you

to simplify your life so you're more available for God

to use.

Pastor Gerald's going to talk about the next week.

This past week I read what was called the World's

Shortest fairy tale, and it went like this, Once upon

a time, a handsome young prince asked a beautiful young

princess to marry him. She said no, he lived happily

ever after. Now why do we like fairy tales? We

like fairy tales because of the ending. They lived happily

ever after. Well, if you want to live happily ever after,

if you want the rest of your life here on

earth to be the best life on earth that you

can have, step four is critical. Let's look at it together.

Step four is to fortify my faith. I need to

fortify my faith. Look at this verse up on the screen.

Build yourselves up in your most holy faith. I want

you to notice the first two words in that verse,

build and yourselves build means it takes work. Fortifying your

faith is not going to come easily. You have to

work at it, and then yourselves means nobody else is

going to do it for you. If you're going to

fortify your faith, it's up to you. You have to

be the one to decide to do it and commit

to do it. Now, look at the first verse on

your outline. First Peter, Chapter four, Verse two, Strengthen yourselves

so that you will live here on earth doing what

God wants, not evil things. People want. It is easy.

It is so easy to get caught up in doing

what everybody else wants you to do in life, and

in the process you miss out on what God wants

you to do in life. Now, I'll make this guarantee,

God's plan for your life is the best plan you'll

ever find. In fact, what God wants for your life

is better than you even want for your life. So

it's clearly better than what anybody else could want for you.

And so if you want to live on earth doing

what God wants, you need to fortify your faith now

for God to use you, for you to get in

on his plan, you've got to grow up. You just

got to get stronger. Look at the next verse on

your outline one Timothy, chapter four, spend your time and

energy in the exercise of keeping spiritually fit. Now, there

is a word in that verse that, if I'm completely

on it, I hate. It's the word exercise. And when

Pastor Rick was doing point two, I was sitting back

there doing confession and commitment that I'm going to start

doing exercise. Let me ask how many of you kind

of wake up in the morning thinking, whooh, I get

to exercise today? You are sick sick people. Actually, exercise

is great, and we need both physical exercise and spiritual exercise.

And I do know this about exercise. I want the

most benefit I can get out of every minute I exercise,

whether it's physical or spiritual. And one of the ways

you can learn to do that is take class two

to oh one, where you'll get a lot of detail

about how to do that. Let me give you just

four habits that will fortify your faith. The first one

is study the Bible. Study the Bible. Now there's another

word that most of us love. You've come to church

and you've been told to exercise and study who it's

kind of like being back in school and you get

livering broccoli on the same plate. Study and exercise. But

we really do need to study, and we need to

study personally because we can't depend on somebody else's study

to fortify our faith. We have to do it on

our own. Look at this next verse two Timothy, Chapter three,

Verses sixteen and seventeen. All scripture is inspired by God

and is useful to teach us what is true and

to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It straightens us out and teaches us to do what's right.

It is God's way of preparing us in every way,

fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do.

God's Word is the get ready manual for life. If

you want to get ready, you've got to study God's Word.

Two.

The second suggestion is read Christian books. Read some Christian books.

If you don't know where to start, I would suggest

the New York Times best selling author Rick Warren's book

called Purpose Driven Life. That's called Purpose Driven Keeping My

Job Seriously a great Christian book. And there are lots

of Christian books so that you can read them during

the week and you can fortify your faith. Look at

Proverbs chapter nineteen, verse eight. Do yourself a favor and

learn all you can. Well, you learn a lot more

when you read number three. The suggestion write out your testimony.

Write out your testimony first. Peter chapter three, verse fifteen says,

always be ready to answer everyone who asks you to

explain about the hope that you have. And if you're

going to give them an answer, you need to be

able to give them your testimony. Just like nobody else

can study for you, nobody else can tell your story.

Only you can tell it. That's because you're the expert

at it.

You know.

There are four parts to any testimony, just four simple parts.

You talk about, Here's what my life was like before

I came to Christ. Here's how I realized I needed

Christ into my life. Here's how I committed my life

to Christ. And then the last and the most important part,

where you spend the most time, is what's my life like?

Now?

What's my life like after having made a commitment to Christ.

One more suggestion, be faithful, support your small group. I

need to support my small group first. Thessalonian chapter five,

verse eleven says, encourage one another and build each other up.

I don't know of much that will fortify your faith

like regular contact with your small group. My wife, Tammy

and I cherish our small group. Every week. We look

forward to our small group getting together, and then the

things that we do together outside of our small group.

I want to encourage you to start engaging your small

group to do a local peace project. You don't have

to necessarily start out overseas. Just do something locally. At

least begin talking about it together.

God uses ordinary people, normal people, in spite of our faults,

our habits, our hurts, our hang ups, the crises that

come into our lives.

If God only use perfect.

People, nothing would get done because there are no perfect people.

God wants to use you, but you have to get usable.

You have to be willing to say God, is there

anything between me and you?

Purify my heart? God?

Do I need to get better shape so I have

more energy to serve you? Do I need to simplify

my life so I have more time to serve you.

Do I need to fortify my faith? Do I have

more strength spiritually to serve you? And then, finally, here's

the fifth step. Five is to apply what I already know.

I purify, sanctify, simplify, fortify, and apply what I already

know to do. The Bible says this Titus three. Our

people must learn to apply themselves to doing good deeds

and helping others who have urgent needs so they won't

be living idle, unproductive lives. God says, I want you

to live a life of significance, a purpose driven life,

a life of meaning. And how do you do that

by applying yourself to do good deeds and helping others

who have urgent needs? He take small steps. Look at

the next verse Isaiah One. Learn to do good, work

for justice, help the down and out, stand up for

the homeless, go to bat for the defenseless. God's vision

for your life is both global and local.

You need buy focal vision.

And when we talk about God's vision for your life

and the Peace Plan, it's not just something way over

there in another country.

It's something right here.

It's not about location, it's about dedication.

Look at this verse up here on the screen. The

Bible says, this.

Christ carried our sins in his body where on the

cross so we would stop living for sin and start

living for what's right.

The Bible says, Jesus Christ died.

On the cross so that everything we've ever done wrong

could be forgiven and forgotten wiped out, so we could

start a brand new life and we could start living

for the right things, all because of the Cross. Now listen,

fulfilling your mission in life. God's vision, God's purposes for

you is not about crossing the sea. It's about seeing

the cross and realizing what He did for you. Here's

God's promise. Look at the next verse.

Stay true to.

What is right, and God will bless you and use

you to help others that is a promise. God is

looking for people to use, and God wants to use

you in ways you have never ever imagined. He wants

to use you. That's why he made you. That's why

you're alive, that's why your heart's beating.

But you have.

To be usable and you have to say, Okay, God,

here I am through these steps. Now I wonder which

of these five steps do you need to work on

and you might put a check by it. Do you

need to purify your heart? Need to get alone with

God this week? And say, God, what's between me and you?

What's the barrier between? Why do you feel so distant?

And you ask God to reveal to you any sins

in your life and you confess them to God. You

don't have to come to me, You don't have to

go to a priest. You just go directly to God.

Confess to God, it says, and you know, purify us.

Maybe you need to sanctify your body. Maybe you're so tired,

you don't have any energy, and you need to say

I need to work on getting my life in shape.

I need to simplify my life, and there's some things

I need to let go of and cut back on.

So that I have time for the things that are

going to matter in light of eternity, and I work

on these distractions and debts that are holding me down.

And then I need to fortify my faith. Like Pastor

Gerald talked about, you're reading and studying the Bible and

Christian books and getting involved in your stall group, all

of these things that you can do writing down your test.

The money key is to apply what you already know.

Will you let God use you? Will you let's bow

our heads? And before you can be used by God,

you've got to get to know God. To his son

Jesus Christ. If you've never opened your life to him,

say this in your heart.

Say Lord, I don't understand it all.

But as much as I know how, I open my

life to you, Jesus Christ. I want to know you,

and I want to know your purposes for my life.

I want to be used by you. So today I

step across the line. I put my faith in you

in Jesus name.

Amen.

Hi everybody, this is Rick and I hope you enjoyed

today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer

for the very first time, or you just recommit your

life to Jesus again today, would you let me know

about it. There's something real about sharing your commitment. So

write me Rick at pastor Rick dot com and say, Rick,

I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life

to Christ. And I'll send you some material that will

help you on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also

pray for you. God bless you.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so thankful that

you've chosen to spend some time with us today. If

you've missed any part of this broadcast, including portions we

didn't have time for, just go to Pastorrick dot com

and listen online. Anytime. Rick will be right back to

close out our time today. But first, if you want

to make your time in prayer the best it can be,

then you're going to want to get a copy of

the brand new twenty twenty one Daily Hope Prayer Journal.

This year's theme, God's Great Adventure for you will help

you tap into God's power and presence. You learn how

to pray with passion and purpose. Right now, here's Pastor

Rick to tell you more.

Do you ever feel like your prayers get stuck in

a rut? Would you like to know what God told

me to do when my prayer life got stuck in

a rut. It was a time when I just felt

like I was praying the same thing over and over

and over. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if

God was even answering my prayers or even listening. Maybe

you felt that way sometimes, or maybe you feel that

way right now. So what did God tell me to do? Well,

here's what he told me. It was such a powerful

way to re energize my prayer life, and it was

so simple that I want to pass it on to you.

God told me to do this, He said, Rick, start

writing down what you're saying to me, and then I

want you to write down what I say to you,

write down what you say to me, and then write

down what I say to you. You see, it's really

not that complicated. God just said I should start by

writing down what I'm feeling, and then I should write

down what he tells me after I've read his word.

It's really just a form of journaling, and spiritual journaling

is a spiritual habit that will help your prayers stay

fresh and effective. If you've never tried it, I'm begging

you try this for a week or two and see

if it doesn't reinvigorate your prayer life. Journaling has many

many benefits to your spiritual life. It'll help you stay

consistent in your prayers. It'll give you a permanent reminder

of how God answers your prayers because you we've written

them down. It shows how God is working in your life.

You can go back and review it. It'll even help

you worship God more and more as you speak to him.

God speaks to people who care enough to write it down.

So write down what God tells you. But you've got

to have a place to do that.

Now.

I want to encourage you, and I want to help

you take this simple step of learning this new spiritual

habit in your prayers, of writing down your prayers and

writing down your prayer request. So what I did is

I had my Daily Hope team create a brand new

spiritual prayer journal. It's got a real simple to follow

format that will help you put into practice God's wisdom

that is found in Philippians four to six that says this,

don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God

what you need, and thank Him for all he has done.

Those four things are part of the format of our

prayer journal for this year. It's really cool. You're gonna

love this tool.

Covered in soft vegan leather with full color pages, this

prayer journal has sections to pray for specific people and situations,

as well as space to express your gratitude and personal

prayer requests to God. Each page is beautifully designed and

filled with inspiring Bible versus photo work and artwork. The

God's Great Adventure for You Prayer Journal is a spiritual

growth tool designed to help you enjoy a vibrant prayer life,

connect with the Lord, and establish a consistent daily prayer time.

When you give a gift to help daily hope take

the certain hope of Jesus to people around the world,

will send you the all new twenty twenty one Daily

Hope Prayer Journal to say thanks. Quantities are limited, so

don't wait. Call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and

four to get your prayer journal and have your gift

matched up to one hundred thousand dollars, or you can

visit pastorick dot com that's eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four or pastorig dot com. Be sure to

join us again next time as we look into God's

Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by

Pastor Ricks Daily Hope and your generous financial support.