Strengthening Meeting - Pastor Philip Steele - September 6th, 2026

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele.

Pastor Phillip and I want to thank you for listening to this message from Life of Faith Church.

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God is good to us.

So good.

Hallelujah.

I thank him tonight.

Good to be here.

I mean, it's glad to be here.

I am.

Hallelujah.

We have some uh wonderful things to get into.

And uh, of course, uh these meetings, strengthening meetings, Sunday nights, they're a bit different.

They're obviously uh from another place, another room, another area, if you will.

And uh let's go to Isaiah 1 tonight.

I want to take some time and deal with this subject of obedience to heaven's plan.

Obedience to heaven's plan.

Heaven's plan is why we're on earth.

It's the plan of heaven is why I'm on the earth.

That's why God placed me where he placed me.

Every person has a plan of God for their life.

And it doesn't matter male, female, old, young, black, white, whatever your nationality is, God, heaven has a plan for you.

And we see that all throughout the scripture.

You know, when when we look at different ones in the Bible, it says, you know, John the Baptist, he made the statement, the Bible makes the statement in the book of John, there was a man sent from God whose name was John, right?

And he was sent to be the forerunner of the Messiah.

He was sent to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

John understood this.

Amen.

And when he was baptizing in the Jordan, you've got to understand that he is the premier man of God in the earth at that time.

Remember, Jesus was not known for the first 30 years of his life.

John is the premier prophet.

Jesus said about John that among women there's not born a greater than John the Baptist.

Right?

And John is in the earth and he's baptizing, and people are coming to repentance.

But he's in the Jordan River and he looks up one day and he sees Jesus and he says, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

Right?

Jesus came into the river, he baptized Jesus.

Remember what Jesus said?

He came and said, I need you to baptize me.

And John said, I need you to baptize me.

And what did Jesus say?

He said, Look, look, we got to fulfill all things.

Right?

We got to fulfill all things.

It says, Two days later that John was standing with some of his disciples, and Jesus came walking by, and he said it again.

Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Right?

And two of his disciples went and followed Jesus.

Hallelujah.

They came to John, who is the premier prophet in the land, and they're talking to him about Jesus, and they're making mention, you know, that Jesus' disciples are baptizing people.

And what did John say?

He said, He must increase, and I must decrease.

That's the plan.

That's heaven's plan.

Right?

A greater than me has come.

And so heaven's plan is that I was the forerunner, I was the one that pointed him out to the masses.

And now watch.

Now from here on out, my ministry is going to decrease.

And his ministry is going to increase.

What happens with the increase of Jesus' ministry?

John's ministry is brought to further fulfillment.

John's ministry is even proven how much more important it was.

Oh, hallelujah.

Amen.

And I've heard people say things about John, you know, when he was in prison and kind of paint this picture that John was, you know, whatever, melancholy or whatever.

Well, I mean, he's facing the prospect of having his head cut off.

And, you know, he did sin and say, Are you the one or should we look for another?

And Jesus said, You go tell John.

Well, do you think if Jesus told them to go tell John that they went and told him?

I think they did.

Right?

And what did he tell him?

He answered his question.

He said, You go tell John that the blind see, the sick are healed, the lame walk, the dead are raised, right?

And blessed is he that's not offended in me.

In other words, John, your ministry's going on.

Right?

Your plan, the plan from heaven has not failed.

It's not missed a beat.

Amen.

I I believe this is just me personally.

You do whatever you want to believe.

John was beheaded, and you know he was a godly man, so he went to Abraham's bosom.

I believe this with all of my heart that he said this.

He said, I've seen the Redeemer, I've seen the Lamb of God, and I'm telling you what, he's coming for us.

He's gonna show up and he's gonna deliver us.

See, if John doesn't want to stick with heaven's plan, obedience to heaven's plan, then it becomes, what about this?

And what about mine?

And what about this other?

His job was to be the forerunner for the Messiah.

That was his job.

Obedience to what God has asked you to do will determine how how successful, how successful what you do is.

Amen.

And so heaven's plan for our lives are why we're on the earth.

Many never experience all heaven has for them because they operate out of or partially in heaven's plan.

Amen.

And they never function in all that heaven has for them.

Because they're partially in the plan, or they're not in it at all.

Hallelujah.

Isaiah 119.

Of an important verse.

It's familiar, but it's important.

It says, if you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land.

But if you refuse and rebel, you'll be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

Notice that phrase.

If you're willing and obedient, so willingness and obedience are both required to walk in heaven's plan.

Willingness and obedience.

You remember the story Jesus told?

He said there were two brothers, and their dad came and asked the first one.

He said, I need you to go work in the field.

And you remember what he said?

He said, I go, I'll go.

And he didn't go.

Right?

Then he came to the second one and said, I need you to go work in the field.

He said, Nope, not going.

But he said, a little while later, he repented and went to the field.

And then remember what it said?

Jesus said, Who did their father's will?

The one that went.

The first one said, I'm willing, but he wasn't obedient.

The second one rebelled at first but repented, and Jesus said he did the will of the Father.

Willingness and obedience are both required to walk in heaven's plan.

Heaven is looking for obedience to the plan.

Right?

What the plan for my life.

Heaven's looking for obedience to that plan.

You know that that's in every area.

You can look at it in just the everyday aspects of life.

As parents, as we train our children up in the nurture and the admonition of God, heaven is looking at that and smiling on it because we're being obedient to heaven's plan.

Amen.

You know, when when are y'all with me tonight?

You know, when a parent looks at their child and says, No, you're not going to those people's house.

They're looking out for the plan of God for that child.

Amen.

They're not always going to understand, they're not always going to grab it at first.

But when you talk about the plan and you explain the plan and you're telling them about the plan, you want heaven smiling on what you're doing.

Because I want the plan of God.

Amen.

Do you see that?

When you feel like you should take this job, but right here you believe you should stay where you're at or take this other job, and you follow that leading, now you're in heaven's plan.

And it may look like it's a downturn, it may look like it's a deficit at first, but God always takes his plan and brings provision through it.

Amen.

Everything that you do is based on what is the plan that heaven has for me.

Hallelujah.

I'm not just looking at the money, I'm not just looking at the opportunity, I'm not just looking at the ease of things, I'm looking at is this heaven's plan?

Amen.

Say it out loud.

Heaven is looking for obedience to the plan.

Hallelujah.

In Brother Hagin's book, Brother Hagin wrote a book called I Believe in Visions.

It was one of his first books.

And he details in there, I believe it's uh eight visions that he had uh personal visions from the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there's a chapter in that book called A Hospital Visitor.

And he de he tells this story.

He was in a meeting in El Paso, Texas, and one night uh he hurt his elbow.

And uh what what happened was he got excited, got happy, and jumped over the altar.

Right?

And somebody had placed, you know, back then they didn't have recording systems in the church.

So somebody placed a big reel-to-reel recorder right there, right?

Everybody under like 20 is looking at me like, what is that?

That's how we used to record things, right?

You remember Brother Kitchen, right?

My my dad had, it was called a wall-in-sack.

Now that's a word for you.

A wall-in-sack tape recorder.

Reel to reel.

They had big reels of tape, right?

And they they'd put them on and record.

And so somebody had placed one right down there, and he saw it, and he had he shifted in the air, and when he fell, he he landed on his elbow.

And um he said, I knew I'd hurt myself, but I didn't know how bad.

And so he got in the car.

They're taking him to the hospital, to the emergency room, and the Spirit of the Lord spoke to him and told him.

He said, Your elbow is not broken.

He said, uh, but I'll tell you, I'll talk to you more about this.

He said, uh, it it it's gonna be okay, but I'll talk to you more about it a little later.

And so he goes in there, and sure enough, it wasn't broken, but they said it's actually worse because you've knocked it out of joint and there's some chips in it, and you've knocked the muscles and the ligaments out of alignment, so we're gonna have to put you under anesthesia and put all this back in place, right?

And so he he went through that process and they said, and we're gonna need to keep you here for a few days, uh, you know, just to watch and make sure everything's mending okay.

So he was there, I forget, three or four days.

But anyway, he said one day he was there and he said, you know, I was fully clothed, and I'd walked down the hallways, and I'd even went and sat in the lobby for a while, and you know, then they brought me my dinner and he ate his dinner.

He said he was just sitting there in the bed and he heard somebody walking down the hallway.

And he said, at first I thought it was the nurse.

He said, because when they they came around the corner in the into the room, it was a person in white.

I thought it was the nurse.

He said, and it was the Lord Jesus.

And he said, when Jesus walked into the hospital room, he sat down and he said, Now I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna explain to you why this happened.

Right?

Because Brother Hagin's like a lot of us, you know, something happens like that.

Well, why did that happen?

You know, I'm under the blessing, I'm not under the curse.

Why did this happen?

And he began to talk to him.

Hallelujah.

And when Jesus came to his room and explained why this had happened, he said that Brother Hagin had gotten out of the plan for his life.

And because of that, he had opened the avenue, an avenue for the enemy to have access.

And he explained to it, explained to him where he had missed it.

You know, when Brother Hagin first began ministry, he was called to teach.

He was a teacher.

And a little later on, the Lord called him into the prophet's ministry.

And he told him that prophet's ministry will take precedence.

You're a prophet and a teacher.

Hallelujah.

Brother Hagin had been ministering in a conference, and he told the ministers there that he was a teacher and a prophet.

And he said, I did this because teaching was my natural preference.

And I saw a lot of need for teaching in the church.

And so that's what I leaned towards.

But the Lord said to him, This is the third time I've had to speak to you about this.

Obedience is not obedience until it's instant obedience.

You understand?

God should not have to be talking to us three or four times about his plan.

I want the plan, I want to be in the plan, I'm gonna go after the plan.

Hallelujah.

He said, This is the third time I've had to speak to you about this.

And of course, he said, you know, he repented and never did that again.

The plan that heaven has for your life is your safe place.

The plan that heaven has for my life is my safe place.

It's my place of provision.

It's it's my place of more than enough.

It's my place of safety.

The plan that heaven has for my life.

I told you the story about uh uh looking at people on a Sunday uh as I was coming to church and and they were just doing what people do during the summer.

Uh, you know, running, golfing, doing different things, nothing wrong with any of those things.

But he said to me, he said, hundreds of thousands of people got up today and gave no thought to my plan for their life.

No thought to my plan for their life.

You know, we don't just get to do what we want, we get to do what the plan is.

In the plan is all the provision.

Amen.

Now, I want to say something.

You may think I'm I'm stepping away from my subject, but I'm really not.

Now, listen, I I I believe in college, I believe in higher education, we have college funds for uh our child.

I mean, I believe in all that.

But I saw a statistic one time that said somewhere in the neighborhood of 85% of individuals that graduate from college do not go into a field that they got their degree in.

85%.

That's a that's a large percentage.

Right?

But you still have people that will tell young people, you gotta go to college.

Because if you don't go to college, you can't make it.

You know what's big right now?

The trades.

You know who's hiring?

The trades.

Why?

Nobody's doing them, nobody wants to do it.

They're paying welders$200,000 a year.

Amen.

HVAC Text, they're in demand.

Right?

Especially now.

And they're not concerned about do you have a college degree?

If college is God's plan for you, go for it.

But if it's not God's plan, you're wasting your time.

Because it's not God's plan.

If that job is God's plan for you, that's fine.

If not, it's wasting your time.

And the one thing that none of us have to waste is time.

Because we can never get it back.

Oh, hallelujah.

Do you see this?

So we want to be seeking after the plan of God.

Amen.

And this is for any of us.

None of us can do just whatever we want.

People will tell their children, you can be whatever you want.

Not necessarily right.

I can be whatever God wants me to be.

This is important.

Amen.

It's not shattering anybody's dreams.

It's not putting water on whatever they're believing.

It's saying, look, here's the sure way.

Here's the positive way.

Here's the absolute way.

Find the plan of God for your life.

Walk in the plan of God for your life and watch success follow you.

Oh, hallelujah.

I wake up every day of my life, and it matters not to me what people think of the scope of our ministry.

It doesn't bother me.

I know I'm successful because I'm in the plan of God for my life.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else doing any other thing.

This is the plan of God for my life.

And success follows it.

You can't base the plan of God on your life for what you see on the outside.

I talked to you about the minister that I preached for in Florida, and he was always looking at the size of his congregation to determine whether or not he was in the will of God.

Everything in his life, he determined the will of God by how he felt, by how the circumstances were, was there enough money?

Was there enough people?

Was there a big crowd?

You cannot determine the will of God for your life based on how much money you make, how much money you get.

You cannot determine the will of God for your life based on those things.

You've got to determine the will of God for your life based on are you in the plan?

And if you're in the plan, God will bless you.

Because provision follows the plan.

Hallelujah.

You don't make decisions based on the circumstances.

You make decisions based on the plan of God for your life.

Hallelujah.

Not on the circumstances.

You know, very often we quote Hebrews 12 where it says, seeing then that we're compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses.

You know, those people that are watching us, and that cloud of witnesses are the heroes of the Hall of Fame of faith.

Right?

We're compassed about by such a great cloud of witnesses.

Now, I don't know if if they're watching every move we make and cheering us on, but I but I look at all of those heroes of faith, and at some point the plan of God became preeminent in their minds and in their lives.

This is what God wants.

If there's no peace in a person's life, they need to investigate the plan.

When you're in the plan of God, everything can seemingly be going wrong, but you're at perfect peace because I'm in the plan of God.

Right?

See, the the the on the ship, when Paul told the centurion and the captain of that ship, they were in the harbor, and he said, We don't need to go.

Right?

In other words, the plan of God is not that we go.

We need to stay.

But the centurion believed the captain, and the captain made his decision based on the size of the harbor.

This harbor's not very large, it's not very comfortable.

Where the plan of God for your life is concerned, comfort can be your enemy.

Well, I'm comfortable.

Everything's going right.

I don't have any problems.

That's no evidence that I'm in the plan of God.

And they didn't listen and they loosed and went.

Hallelujah.

And you remember, boy, they hit a storm.

Isn't it interesting that the only person that was not worried and concerned is the person that was in the plan of God.

And who did God speak to?

The person that was in the plan of God.

Hallelujah.

The angel of the Lord stood by me this night and said, Don't worry, Paul.

Notice what he said.

I have given you all that are on this vessel.

I've given you.

Right?

Why?

He's the only one believing.

The plan of God affects every part of your life.

It affects your family.

It affects your marriage.

It affects your children.

It affects everything.

If I get out of the plan of God, I open my whole family up to things.

Because I'm not in the plan of God.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Look at Luke 22.

And that's why, you know, husbands and wife have to spend time praying out the plan of God.

What's the plan for our family?

What's the plan for our marriage?

What's the plan?

What does God want us to do?

Hallelujah.

Because I want to be right on with everything He's asking me.

In Luke 22, verse 42.

Luke 22:42

Of course, this is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And notice he says in verse 42, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done, but yours be done.

When you read Matthew's account of this, he prayed that three times.

It says he went and prayed at once, came and found the disciples sleeping, woke them up and went and prayed again.

Saying the same thing.

Came back the second time, woke them up again, went and prayed the third time.

Got the victory.

And then came back and said, Well, go on sleep.

My betrayer's at hand.

Right?

Well, what's he saying here?

I want heaven's plan.

I don't want my plan.

I want heaven's plan.

Say it out loud.

I want heaven's plan.

Tell your neighbor, I want heaven's plan.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

In Matthew 16 and 23.

Peter had just made the statement, you're the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And then Jesus began to talk to them about the plan.

I'm going to be delivered into the hands of evil men, and they're going to they're going to crucify me, and I'm going to die and be buried and raised again on the third day.

And Peter comes to him and began to rebuke him.

Now, how are you going to rebuke Jesus?

Hallelujah.

But he did.

Saying, Lord, be it far from you.

This shall not be to you.

But he, Jesus, turned and said to Peter, Peter, you just don't understand.

Let me try to explain this to you.

Oh no, that's not what he said.

Get behind me, Satan.

You're an offense to me.

Why?

You do not savor, you're not mindful of the things that be of God, but of men.

The Montgomery translation says, you are not intent on what pleases God, but what pleases men.

Heaven's looking for our obedience to its plan.

Jesus is explaining the plan.

And Peter says, No, Lord, be merciful to yourself.

Don't talk like that.

And there's no sterner rebuke that Jesus ever spoke than this one.

Right?

You're not intent on what pleases God, but what pleases men.

Now don't focus on not pleasing God.

The focus should be on I can please him.

I can be in his plan.

I just have to want to do it.

Heaven is looking for obedience to its plan.

Many end up in a bad place because they treated heaven's plan lightly.

You can't treat it lightly.

You know, in the the where our the Kansas location is, this town has grown a lot, but for years, the town that the church is in was only around 10,000 people.

It's grown a lot in the last two years.

The Lord said to us through a man of God that that was going to happen and that great economic advancement was going to come to the area, and he had positioned us to be a light there.

And of course, we believe it.

And Panasonic decided to build a lithium battery plant there.

And so it's phenomenal, the growth.

But here's my point.

In the time that I've been there, nine different spirit-filled churches have started.

And every one of them said it was God's will for them to be there.

And they're going to take the city.

And that's God's plan.

None of them exist today.

A lot of the people are not even in ministry no more.

Well, now what happened?

If it was God's plan for them to be there, somebody walked away from it.

Right?

If it was God's plan for them to be there, somebody walked away from it.

If it wasn't God's plan, it was doomed to failure.

Hallelujah.

Do you see this?

If God says, this is what I want you to do, and I go after that, and I don't treat it lightly, whatever heaven's plan for you is, you don't treat it lightly.

It is the single most important thing in your life, is what heaven said to me.

Hallelujah.

When Pastor Carwell and Miss Jeannie, when they were traveling all those years ago, on in traveling ministry, singing and ministering, and they went to Southern California, and he was praying in the downstairs bedroom of Ed Dufrane's house.

And he said the anointing just came on him.

And the Holy Spirit, the Lord spoke to him and said, You need to go back to Little Rock and you need to start a church, and I want you to raise up a spiritual production center, produce in life, city, state, nation, and world.

He said, I didn't want to go back to Little Rock.

Little Rock was my hometown.

Everybody knew me in Little Rock.

I didn't want to go back to Little Rock and start a church.

He told Miss Jeannie, the Lord told me to start a church, and we were supposed to pastor a church.

And she said, Well, the Lord didn't tell me that.

And so he said, Lord, you're going to have to tell her.

Well, he did.

Well, here's the point: the plan of God.

All the provision was in the plan.

Why was that building built debt-free?

Why did God provide?

Because that was God's plan.

That was God's plan.

You just stay with the plan of God.

You preach what God's plan is.

You don't change what you preach.

You don't change what you're declaring.

You don't change what you believe because that's God's plan for your life.

Hallelujah.

And so you see people, and it seems like they're advancing, they're progressing, they're moving ground, they're taking ground, they're moving forward.

They're in the plan of God for their life.

I watched Pastor Nancy do this.

When she was at our church in Kansas, Nancy Dufresne, when she was at our church in the Kansas location, we were taking her, I think we were taking her home or taking her to the church, I forget.

And she began to talk to us then about how God was moving her out of the pastoral office and moving her over into the prophet's office.

And she said, I've known this was going to happen because she said, when my son Grant was in his bassinet, in his baby carrier, she said, I was sitting there one day, I just fed him, and I was sitting there one day and I looked over at him, and the Lord said to me, Pastor.

So from the time he was a little baby, she knew he was going to be a pastor.

This is important.

Because she pastored, she she pastored that church for 25 years.

And during the first part of their marriage, her and Dr.

Dufresne, he traveled.

She traveled with him some.

But she kept telling him, Now you're going to have to get somebody in here to pastor this church.

And he would tell her, You're the pastor.

She said, No, I'm not.

You're going to have to get somebody in to pastor this church.

And he said, No, you're the pastor.

And she said, then one day the Lord said, You're the pastor.

And so she pastored that church for 25 years.

Well, she was telling us these things, and I remember when it began to happen.

Every time, now watch, she said, every time that she would think about her future and what God wanted her to do, she would see healing crusades.

Healing meetings.

God would not show her pastoring.

He would show her healing crusades.

Well, was pastoring the plan of God for her life?

For the time being, for that moment it was.

Because why?

God had the one whose plan it was to pastor that church being raised up.

He wasn't ready yet.

So she stayed with the plan of God until God said, now you need to move him over.

And he became the pastor here about three years ago.

Well, they had a 25-year anniversary.

And and uh she said, the Lord said, I want you to have a celebration.

And if if you know Pastor Nancy, she's not big on those kind of things, right?

Dinners and things like that.

But the Lord said to her, He said, I want you to celebrate.

So she said, We did.

And I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, I don't mind doing this.

I love blessing the people.

But why do you want us to celebrate this?

He said, I want you to celebrate because it's the end of your pastoring anointing.

We're making a change.

You're moving into the plan of God for your life.

You know where you're sitting tonight?

That's that's part of the plan of God for your life.

If this is where you call your home church, this is part of the plan of God for your life.

This is where God will speak to you.

This is where God will show you things.

This is where God will open up ideas.

This is where God will open up anointings.

Why?

Because you're where God told you to be.

You're being obedient to what God said.

Hallelujah.

And so she stepped into that.

And everything has flourished.

I've watched that over the years with people that I have great respect for.

They look for the plan of God.

They look for the plan of God and they align themselves with the plan.

Hallelujah.

They align themselves with the plan.

I remember talking to Pastor Caldwell in 2013, and he and I were discussing some things, and he shared with me.

He said, Well, you know, the Lord has has begun to talk to me about transitioning in the ministry.

And he said, So this is what I'm going to do.

And you remember what he said?

Somebody asked him one time.

They said, You pastored that church for 32 years.

You built it from the ground up.

Wasn't it hard to give that away?

And he said, No.

Not when you consider it's not your church.

It's Jesus' church.

What see what he wanted was the plan.

Why?

When he was pastoring his first church downtown, his first church back in the 70s, the praise team was practicing, the sound men didn't show up.

And so he said, Well, I know how to run sound.

We were on the road all those years, and I know how to run sound.

So he went up because I was asking him.

I asked him, I said, When did God first start speaking to you about the television ministry?

VTN.

And he said, I was up there in the sound booth.

And he said, when I sat down and got everything turned on, was looking at the levels, he said, suddenly all the church just disappeared.

And I saw a television studio and I saw me behind the pulpit and I saw television cameras.

And the Lord said to me, at Life Unlimited, the Lord said to me, Yours is a television ministry.

Right?

Well, they had a guy from Ghana come in.

And the former pastor had actually invited this man, so he came and he was ministering, and he stepped off the platform.

And when he stepped off the platform, he turned around and looked at Pastor Calwell and said, Yours is a television ministry.

He had never met him before in his life, had never talked to him.

So here's what I'm saying: God will start giving you glimpses of the plan.

But yet, VTN didn't start until the mid-80s.

And God said that that ministry was the plan of God for his life in the early 70s.

Amen.

You got to stay with what God tells you to do, and he adds to the plan.

And there's things that you that you grow out of.

As you're operating in the plan, there's things that you grow out of, and you grow into other parts of it.

But your part is obedience to the plan.

Hallelujah.

Do you see that?

I remember when Michelle and I first moved to Kans City.

Is this all right?

We attended a little church.

I mean little church.

It was maybe, maybe half the size of this room.

Maybe.

Maybe half the size.

Deeper Life Christian Ministries.

Pastor Edward Morton.

And we went there.

And you know, up till that time nobody had really recognized the call of God on Michelle's life.

Me, but nobody else.

And he gave her opportunity to minister.

And of course she did a good job, but here's the point God put the plan of God for her life in her, in that church.

He prayed for her, and she was out under the power of God.

And that's when she saw that vision.

And she saw herself standing there in those tattered garments of her past.

And people were coming to her by the multitudes.

And she was pointing at her garments and then pointing to the cross where Jesus was there and the blood was running down, and people were getting set free, and people were getting delivered.

Right?

And the Lord said to her in that vision, He said, The plan of God for your life is to take your testimony and point people to Jesus.

Amen.

And that's why you'll see all through her ministry, you'll see different, you'll see different versions of her testimony.

I was going through, I call it the archives.

I was going through our archives the other day, and I found an old cassette tape in an old cassette uh uh binder and it was called Dead End Street.

That was the first that was the first part, that was the first uh, whatever you call it, the first version of her testimony, Dead End Street.

Right?

And I said, boy, we need to we need to put this up because it, I mean, and and you open it up and said master tape, and it we thought we were high tech.

Amen.

But of course, now she has escaping hail.

Amen.

You can tell where I'm from, huh?

Hail.

Uh escaping hell.

Praise God.

What do you mean it's hail?

No, it's not hail, it's a hail.

Amen.

Any anyway.

Her testimony, Dela Fe testimonies, 90,000 views.

90,000.

Wow, technology is amazing.

And and I was I was reading her the comments the other night.

People saying, I was so bound by shame.

I didn't think God cared about me.

Your testimony has set me free.

People from uh Mexico, people from Colombia, people from Puerto Rico, Sweden, all over Europe, hearing that testimony.

Now, here's the thing, God's not, that's that's not the that's not the the crux of what God's going to do with her testimony.

I'm just trying to explain to you that everything about her ministry revolves around pointing people to Jesus.

That's the plan.

Right?

And if and if you can get the plan and just stay with it, just stay with it.

Doesn't matter what it is.

If if you're working in the church and you feel like that's the plan of God for you, and we could say right now, or we could say for the moment or whatever, then just stay with that.

Because that's where you're gonna find not just the blessing, that's where you're gonna find the next steps.

Listen, if I'm not walking in heaven's plan now, God's not gonna give me the next steps because I'm gonna miss something.

Right?

How important is two plus two?

We think, well, not very.

I mean, it's four.

Yeah, but you you you cannot do an algebraic equation if you don't learn two plus two.

Right?

You just you just can't, you you can't miss two or three years of school and just pick up where you left off.

Because what?

Each grade builds on the next grade.

Everything you do in the kingdom is positioning you for what you're going to do in the kingdom.

And then everything I do is positioning me for something else I need to do.

Oh, hallelujah! And so that's why I can't, I cannot.

I cannot take lightly where I'm at.

I've had people come to me and say, Well, I'm not doing that much.

But you said God asked you to do it.

So that's the plan of God.

Don't take that lightly.

Right?

I mean, think about this.

Jehoshaphat and the king of Israel and another king, they got into trouble in the wilderness, ran out of water, and Jehoshaphat, godly man, he said, Is there a prophet, a man of God, that we may inquire of the Lord?

And watch.

They said, Well, there is Elisha, right?

The son of Shaphat.

Uh, he poured water on Elijah's hands.

The premier prophet in the land.

And what do they remember about him?

That he poured water on Elijah's hands.

If you're the water pourer right now, don't despise that.

That's the plan of God for your life.

For right now.

You're not going to stay there.

But here's the thing if you do, what's the big deal?

If you never do any more than what you're doing, and that's God's plan for your life, who cares?

God will make Magnify, multiply, provide for you there.

Don't ever look at what somebody else is doing in God's plan for their life and say, Boy, I would like to do that.

No, you don't.

You want to do what God wants you to be doing.

You want God's plan for your life.

Hallelujah.

That's why when people ask me questions, how do I move into this and how do I do this?

I don't know.

Is that God's plan for your life?

I don't know.

I can't.

The only thing I can tell you is find the plan of God and go after that.

Am I helping you?

Glory to God.

This is important.

Because there are no minor plans of God.

There's no minor plans of God.

You know, I think, I think of somebody like Billy Graham.

You know, I forget how many millions it's estimated that he ministered to.

Millions of people.

Millions, simply millions.

By TV and other places.

I think about T.L.

Osborne.

You know, T.

L.

and Daisy Osbourne, before Reinhart Bonkey came along, they had ministered to more people personally, face to face, than any person in the history of the world.

Phenomenal miracles happen in their ministry.

And so you can look at something like that and think, well, the plan of God for my life pales in comparison to what they did.

You're not looking at what they did, you're looking at the plan.

That was the plan of God for their life.

That might not be the plan of God for your life.

And if you look at it and you think, boy, this is minor in comparison, you will downgrade, you'll take lightly your plan and you won't fulfill it.

Amen.

I've had people tell me, when you minister, you minister like your life depends on it.

It does.

Because this is the plan of God for my life.

Right?

You understand?

And so when you look at something like that, you know, we talk about some of these people.

When Reinhard Bonkey was a young man, I don't know if you've ever read his autobiography, A Life of Fire.

But he wrote in that book, and he said, when he was a young man, he had an encounter with the Lord.

And the Lord showed him some of what he was going to be doing.

And after church, his dad was a pastor in Germany.

After church, he ran up to his dad and he said, Lord, or dad, the Lord showed me I'm going to be a minister.

And his father looked at him and said, Reinhardt, you are a zero.

And you will always be a zero.

Your brother will be my successor.

You want to know why?

Because he's good at mathematics.

So he's smarter than you.

Now watch, I need you to see this.

So Reinhardt goes to Bible college.

He gets out of Bible school, he graduates Bible school, and he's on his way back home to Germany.

He's got to go through England.

He's got to go through London.

And so he had a day, and he thought, I'm going to see the sights in London.

And so he's walking through a certain part of London and he walks by this house and it says, George Jeffries, on the door.

And he thought, is that the same George Jeffries that God used to turn Europe upside down?

George Jeffries and his brother?

Phenomenal miracles.

And so he said, I'll find out.

And he said, he went and he knocked on the door.

And a lady came to the door, and I won't go through all of that he talked about her.

But he said he asked her, Is this the same George Jeffreys that God used to turn England upside down?

She said, It's the same.

He said, Could I possibly speak to him?

And she said, No, he's not seeing anybody.

And he said, all of a sudden, he heard a voice.

Let him come in.

And so he said, I went by her and she let me in.

And he said, he was coming down the steps.

And I went up the steps to meet him.

And I began to talk to him.

Here's the gest of it.

The Lord had spoken to George Jeffreys and said, There's going to come a Bible school student.

And you're going to lay hands on him and impart into him those things that he needs.

And on those steps, George Jeffreys laid hands on him and imparted that healing anointing and imparted that miracle anointing into him.

He said it was only maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

I didn't get to talk to him very long.

He went back out of the house, went, got on the train, went to Germany.

His father picked him up at the station watch.

And he said, Oh, Reinhart, have you heard George Jeffries went to heaven today?

Hallelujah.

When you're pursuing the plan of God for your life, God will put you in the positions that you need to be in to receive what you need to receive.

Hallelujah.

Do you see that?

And when he started his ministry, he is pastoring obviously there in Europe, in Germany.

And he saw a vision one day, and he saw a blood-washed Africa.

And God spoke to him.

All Africa shall be saved.

All Africa shall be saved.

And he started as a missionary there, playing the accordion on the street corner, singing, and then preaching a little sermonette.

But what's in his spirit?

What's in his heart?

All Africa shall be saved.

See, he's in the plan.

We quote that verse a lot.

Don't despise the day of small beginnings.

Everything begins small.

I'm looking around this room.

I don't care how big you are and how old you are.

There is a time that somebody could hold you on their arm.

You're about that big.

Right?

All of us.

Except for Joseph.

He came out with a mustache.

Amen.

But here's the thing.

He's not despising it.

He kept going after it.

And kept going after it.

And God began to talk to him about open air meetings and tent meetings.

And he started.

And people started coming out by the hundreds.

And then people started coming out by the thousands.

Well, what was happening?

Miracles, signs, wonders, blind eyes being opened, people getting out of wheelchairs.

Where did that start?

That started that night in Germany in his father's church when God said, I am calling you to preach the gospel in Africa.

And he went and told his father, and his father told him, You're a zero.

Don't let anybody else talk you out of the plan of God for your life.

Oh, hallelujah! Hallelujah.

And the Lord told him, the Lord prophesied to him through a man of God, a prophet, and said, There will come the time when one million people will be born again in one service that you're preaching in.

One million people born again.

It happened.

And it happened more than once.

He would start having meetings with four million people in attendance.

And those were not just estimated salvations, those were verified, followed up on salvations.

So he goes from a zero to one million people born again in one meeting.

Hallelujah.

Why?

The plan.

The plan.

Now you may look at that and you say, but man, that's so large.

And you know, what does my plan look like compared to that?

You're looking at the numbers, you're looking at the exposure, you're not looking at what heaven looks at.

Heaven looks at, are you obedient to my plan for your life?

Not are you doing what Reinhardt did?

Hallelujah.

Does that make sense?

Well, I wish I could be doing that.

No, you don't.

You want to be doing exactly what God wants you to be doing.

Amen.

You know, for a long time, the plan for our life, I was gone two or three weekends out of every month.

And depending on what I had to do, I'd be gone a week, two weeks at a time.

And it was regular.

Some of y'all remember for years, I was gone two or three weeks out of the month.

My wife and I made the decision.

We will not complain about this.

This is the plan of God for our life.

And folks, I'm just a demonstrative guy.

Every time, my daughter's right here.

Every time before I go out of town, I get on my knees, and my wife and my daughter lay their hands on me, and we say, Father, we thank you for the plan of God for our life.

We thank you, Father, that we're obedient to that plan.

We thank you for the blessings of God on our life because of that plan.

And we we submit ourselves to the plan of God.

I'm not bragging about that.

I'm telling you, that's how you keep it in the forefront of your mind.

This is not, this is not a drudgery.

This is not hard.

This travel is not a drudgery.

This is the plan of God for my life.

There's joy in that plan.

Amen.

Do you see that?

And so you don't decide, is the plan of God for my life important?

Right?

Based on what somebody else is doing?

Hallelujah.

Do you see that?

The plan of God for your life is the plan of God for your life.

That's what I'm gonna get rewarded for.

What did I do with the plan of God for my life?

Did I go after it?

Did I make it preeminent in my life?

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

Say it out loud.

I want heaven's plan.

Look at Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Am I helping you?

And here's the thing.

You cannot allow.

You know, I've had people come to me before and say, you know, before I was really going after these things, and I kind of backed off and I kind of did this and I kind of did that.

Listen, don't worry about that.

Just get back in, God will catch you up.

God'll catch you up.

Don't don't worry about what you didn't do.

Just get back in the game.

Yeah, but I don't want to fail God.

You're not, you're back in the game.

Let me come right over here where they believe me.

Right?

You're not, you're back in the game.

Right?

There's none of us in here that have at some point wasted time.

Right?

If you say you've never wasted time, we're gonna pray for liars here in just a moment.

Right?

Because we've all done that.

Right?

I I can still do that.

Right?

YouTube is a pit, man.

I mean, it's just like I'm not against YouTube, I enjoy it, but you just know what I'm saying.

Well, here's the thing.

If you see it, what do you do?

I repent, I get back in the game.

Right?

Do you know that God doesn't need another Kenneth Copeland?

God doesn't need another Jerry Savale.

God doesn't need another Ed Dufresne.

Charles Caps, Happy Calwell.

You know what God needs?

One more you.

God needs you.

Right?

Because Dr.

Dufresne, he's ran his race.

Brother Charles has ran his race.

Brother Jerry has ran their race.

They're that great cloud of witnesses now.

They handed us the baton.

What do we do with it?

That's why God's talking to me about clothing the next generation.

Clothing the generation that's coming up.

That's not just age.

That's people that God's calling into things.

They have to be clothed, they have to be imparted to.

They have to benefit from what God has placed in our fathers.

God needs you to be in the plan of God for his life, for your life.

Look at Luke 9.62.

Hallelujah.

Now, this is a scripture that people have used over the years as kind of a whip, but that's not really how he puts it.

Verse 61, it says, Another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go bid them farewell that are at home at my house.

And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Now people read that and they think, boy, that's strong language.

Here's what he's saying.

If you're going to keep looking back, whether it's at failures or mistakes or whatever it is, then he's saying you're not useful for the kingdom.

The kingdom just, the kingdom needs you to grab the plow with all your mistakes and all your failures and everything that seemingly went wrong and all the times that you didn't do what you should have done and just stay with it.

Amen.

Say it out loud.

I'm just gonna stay with it.

Tell your neighbor, I'm just gonna stay with it.

Try this on him.

Say, I know what God told me.

And I'm just gonna do that.

Amen.

Did I tell you all the story about one time, you know, I had I had messed up, I had gotten carnal.

Now I wasn't, you know, out committing some grievous sin, gross sin.

But it was it was on a Wednesday, and and I had gotten in the flesh, and it just, you know, when you get in the flesh, you just you see how ugly it is.

And so it's Wednesday night.

And I told the Lord I wasn't preaching.

And he asked me a question.

He said, Well, then who's going to?

I said, I don't know, Michelle or somebody, I'm not me.

And he, you know, the Lord's so gracious.

He said, Well, Michelle's doing the youth ministry, and so, you know, she don't have anybody to do that.

And I said, Well, that there was a uh I had an associate minister at the time, Tony Mendes, and I said, Well, Tony can minister.

He said, No, he's not gonna be ready.

He's worked all day.

I said, then I don't know what you're gonna do.

Because I'm not ministering.

You understand?

I I had I had gotten in the flesh and I I just I I wasn't willing.

And the Lord asked me a question.

He said, Did I forgive you when you asked me to forgive you?

I said, Yes, you did.

He said, It is in bad taste to bring up to me what I have forgotten.

Wow.

You think I didn't go preach that night?

Right now, you understand when I say this, when I say I got in the flesh, I mean you understand I didn't like go commit adultery or something like that.

Right?

I just got fleshly.

You've never done that?

Again, we'll we'll pray for you in a minute.

What was God trying to get me to see?

Philip, the plan for your life is bigger than your failure.

The plan for your life is bigger than your failure.

If you focus on the failure, you forfeit the plan.

Amen.

So Jesus said, if you put your hand to the plow, stay with it.

You're gonna hit bumps, you're gonna hit areas of tough things.

Amen.

You're gonna face challenges, hold to the plow.

Don't let go.

You know, I've had people over the years tell me, you know, well, you know, I just got mad at God and I just backslid, and and you know, I I don't I can't comprehend that.

I can't compute that.

How could I ever walk away from the one who saved my life?

I could never get mad at him because he's not my problem.

Amen.

When when I wrote the book, Pastors, Planners, and Pioneers, or excuse me, I did write that one, but the local church, the hope of the world, I put in there that, you know, I got born again when I was eight years old.

Now, there's a couple years in my life, in my very early 20s, that I I wasn't living like I should have for God, right?

But it only took me about a year and a half to figure out this is dumb.

Right?

This is stupid.

And so I got back in.

But here's the point people will ask me, Well, you were running from God.

Were you mad at God?

How could I be mad at God?

He had never done anything to me.

Only thing he ever did was love me, deliver me, help me, save me.

How could I be mad at him?

There are people you know, they'll say they're mad at God and they don't even know what they're saying.

What did God do to you?

He didn't do what they think he did.

They're being lied to.

Why does the enemy want you mad at God?

He doesn't want you in his plan.

Because in his plan there's nothing he can do.

Remember what Jesus said?

He was ministering, and and it's one line, it's one line in this chapter.

Remember Lot's wife.

One line.

Why did he say that?

What was Lot and his family told?

Don't look back.

Don't look back.

Now we don't know exactly why she looked back.

We can assume she was sentimental.

We can assume that she was, you know, had good memories or whatever, but she turned around and she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Now here's what I want I want you to see.

There's nothing back there.

The plan of God is always forward.

There's nothing back there.

The plan of God is forward.

We know I God had talked to me some years ago and told me and said this to me, and you know I didn't follow up on it.

I'm just wondering.

Don't wonder no more.

Get back in the game.

The plan's still valid.

Tell your neighbor the plan's still valid.

See, somebody else might be doing what you could have been doing, but God's still got something for you to do.

But you got to get back in the game to get after it.

Amen.

I was talking to a young man not too long ago at the strengthening meeting in Kansas, and the Lord spoke through me to him and said to him, The plan has not changed.

Right?

This young man's going through a lot right now.

He's going through a lot of challenges.

He's going through a lot of a lot of issues.

There's a lot going on in his life, right?

That's that's painful, but the plan has not changed.

Every time it gets tough, the plan has not changed.

Oh, hallelujah.

Are you with me?

And and when challenges come, you just persevere.

You just push through it.

You just pray in the Holy Ghost and keep going.

Why?

Because I don't understand everything.

But here's what I do understand: God has a plan for my life.

And I'm going to keep pursuing the plan of God for my life.

And you just have to persist.

And so Jesus said, He said, notice this man said, I'll follow you, but let me go say goodbye.

Now, Jesus wasn't heartless.

He loved family.

He loved his own family.

On the cross, he made provision for John to care for his mother.

He loved his family.

Jesus is not being heartless.

What's he saying?

I gotta go.

I gotta go.

If you're gonna follow me, you gotta come now.

In other words, you've already started this.

We can't have you running back in two.

Right?

What's the plan of God for your life?

You get in it and you stay with it.

I know people that every six months the plan of God for their life is changing.

And they never make any ground because that's not how it works.

Well, God told me to do.

This.

Well, praise God.

All right.

And boy, they'll get after it.

And then six months later, the new will wear off.

Well, I don't believe God wants me to do that, and God wants me to do this.

And that's not how it works.

I say, that's not how it works.

God moves you to other places, to other levels of the plan for his life.

Look at Acts 26.

I feel like I'm throwing a lot at you, but I want you to grab this.

Folks, I don't know everything, but I can tell you how to not quit.

I'm not, listen.

I've said this about myself.

People say I I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know how to not stop.

Amen.

I know one speed, and that's full ahead.

And if if you won't quit, listen, if the devil can run you off, he will.

If you won't quit, there's nothing he can do.

Because you just keep going.

Amen.

You just keep going.

I remember one time I was talking to a young man, and he had asked me if I could come meet him for lunch.

He had some questions for me.

And so I was going to meet him for lunch, and he lived on the Missouri side of the area, and I went to meet with him.

And on the way over, the Lord said, He's going to ask you these questions.

And he said, Here's what you need to tell him that him and his family should come and help you in the church.

That's my plan for their life.

Now, I don't tell people that because I don't run around telling people what the plan of God for their life is.

That's not my business.

But I knew what the Lord said to me.

And I said to him, He was asking me, and he said, Well, I just don't know what God wants me to do and this different things.

And I stopped and I said, Well, can I tell you something?

He said, Yes.

I said, This is what the Lord said to me that you are really supposed to be helping us.

And he looked at me.

I'll never forget it.

He didn't say, Oh, I'll pray about it.

He said, That'd be an awful long way to drive.

That's it.

That's where he left it.

If miles can stop you from getting in the plan of God for your life, how important is it?

How important is it?

I I you understand?

I have great respect.

I've got people in our church that drive an hour one way to come to church.

I can name them.

Billy and Irma Simpson.

They drive an hour one way to church.

Nancy Hudson drives an hour one way to church.

Ralph and Teresa drive a lot, what, 45 minutes to come to church.

I'm not bragging on them.

I'm just saying.

They said this is where God wanted them to be.

And the mileage doesn't matter.

Right?

Because that's the plan of God.

Now I watched.

It wasn't because of me.

It's the plan of God.

I watched.

I watched things in that life just go down, down, down, down, down, down, down.

Until eventually everything fell apart.

Family fell apart.

Marriage fell apart.

Why?

You can't be successful if you're not where God told you to be.

If God told you to be in the church down the street and you're trying to come to this church, you're not going to be successful.

Because this is not where God told you to go.

But if God told you to come here and you're trying to go down there, you're not going to be successful.

Because God told you to be here.

Does that make sense?

Because that's the plan of God.

I've had people tell me, you know, Pastor, I really enjoy, I know people right now.

I enjoy your church, I enjoy your ministry, but the Lord won't release me from where I'm going.

Then you stay there.

You stay right there, wherever it is, and keep doing what God told you to do there.

Why?

Because you can come here and get blessed, but evidently this is not where God's plan for you is.

If it is, then come come be with be a part of it.

Amen.

Do you see that?

And it's important that we understand that.

Everything that you do revolves around the plan of God for your life.

Is your job God's plan for you?

Right?

Is what you're doing.

Is that God's plan for you?

Well, I've got to seek the Lord.

I've got to ask him.

And maybe he'll say, yeah, temporarily or for a time or whatever the case may be, or it may be forever.

I don't know.

But here's what I've learned.

If you can't see yourself doing it forever, it's probably not God's plan for you.

Probably not God's plan.

Why?

Because he said he puts eternity in our heart.

Right?

When I find God's plan, I cannot see myself doing anything else.

Just can't just can't see it.

Right?

Did you find Acts 26 and verse 19?

This is Paul in front of King Agrippa, and he was talking about the vision that he had on the road to Damascus.

And notice what he said.

He said, Whereupon, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

One translation says, I did not become disobedient to the heavenly vision.

Another says, After I had this vision from heaven, I obeyed it.

After I had this vision from heaven, I obeyed it.

And when you read the Apostle Paul's writings, that was it.

That was it.

That was what he pressed for, right?

That's what he that's what he pushed for is the vision that God had given him, or the plan of God for his life.

He said, I wasn't disobedient to it.

That's the one thing that caused uh Paul's ministry to be so effective.

He stayed with and obeyed Heaven's plan.

He stayed with and obeyed Heaven's plan.

Hallelujah.

Knowing the plan is not sufficient.

I believe this is God's plan for my life.

Obeying the plan is required.

I had a minister talk to me one time and he said, I believe the Lord wants me to go into full-time ministry.

How do I do it?

Can't tell you.

I could only tell you what I did.

And what I did is not maybe what you're supposed to do.

Right?

Let me finish here.

We got to pray, but let me finish.

Tomorrow's a holiday, right?

Labor day.

You're gonna rest from your labor, right?

Me and Lily are right.

Was she back there?

She probably went somewhere.

We're gonna rest from our labors at Barnes and Noble.

Amen.

She's already explained that I'm gonna need to take a bag with me because she's gonna get some books.

So anyway, hallelujah, there she is.

But um, you know, back in uh Pastor Michelle and I were married in '93.

We'll be married 33 years this month.

And uh we knew we had a call of God on our life, and we were living in Nashville, and we had a good life in Nashville.

Uh Pastor Michelle had her own business, and and uh uh she had a house cleaning business and she was cleaning uh all high-end homes in the Brentwood area of Nashville, very high-end uh area, and and we had a good life.

I was on the maintenance staff of an apartment complex, and and uh so you know we had a good life.

We worked hard, and but we had a good life.

And uh the church that we had were a part of uh closed and the pastors left, and and uh so we were having home Bible studies, we were looking for a church, but we were having home Bible studies, and uh a group of people were coming over and that used to go to the church, and we were ministering to them, and and it wasn't a church, I didn't see myself as a pastor or anything.

We just that's what we were doing.

And little by little the Lord began to deal with us that we needed to go to Kansas City.

And uh uh my my son uh from uh my first marriage had was living there with his mother.

She's in heaven today.

And uh anyway, uh so we eventually moved there.

And this would have been in '94, probably '94, because uh '95, because our daughter Angela was born in '96.

And uh anyway, we moved there, and I need you to understand this.

The first thing we did was we got to find where God wants us to be.

Where does God want us to be?

What body does He want us to be a part of?

And so we we get involved in the local church, and and we eventually we worked in that church, and I eventually became the assistant pastor of that church, and these different things.

But the whole time, right here, it's like I know this is not God's plan for me.

Not pastoring is not God's plan.

Being here, right?

Because people were already starting to talk that the pastor's gonna retire and you're gonna be the pastor.

I just knew right here that's not it.

And we had a move of God going on.

People were getting healed of cancer.

I mean, uh, just phenomenal.

It was a phenomenal thing.

And anyway, I'm seeking the Lord.

And every day I would be, every morning I'm up, I'm praying in our living room in that little rental home, and I'm saying, this is what I'm saying, Father, I just want your plan for my life.

What is your plan for my life?

And then I'd pray the praying pray about it in the Holy Spirit.

What is your plan for my life?

And so one day I'm praying, and he said, I want you to give your two weeks' notice at this church.

And so I went and gave my two weeks' notice at the church because I was on staff.

And the pastor kind of got upset with me.

She said, Well, you know, you don't have to say the two weeks, just leave now.

And I did, I, you know, at first I I guess I wanted to be hurt, but I wasn't, but I didn't know what God was doing.

I went, that was Sunday and went back to work Monday, and I got a phone call at my desk, and it was a guy that had come to the meetings that we had been having there, and him and his family had been really touched.

And he said, I pastor a church in Mission, Kansas, Mission Full Gospel Church.

Would you come and hold me a meeting?

Well, I didn't have any engagements now, so I went.

He said, Well, we'll do a week.

Well, we did a week, and the spirit was really moving, so we went two weeks, and then it was still really moving, so we went three weeks.

I I don't I forget how many people got saved.

It was just tremendous.

Well, during that time, before I had gone to that uh revival, that meeting that we held, I had gone and preached at the church that's now our church in DeSoto.

And while I was ministering there, they had asked me to minister for three nights.

And so I'm ministering there on a Wednesday night, and the message, the title of my message, I'll never forget it, it was Right Where You Don't Wanna Be.

Right?

Right Where You Don't Wanna Be.

And I'm ministering, and I stepped off the platform to minister, and the Lord said to me, He said, Uh, at the end of this service, I want you to make yourself available to pastor this church.

Now, you know, I know there's people that say they argue with God.

I know the voice of God, I don't argue with the voice of God.

I know it's God's voice.

And so I said, Okay.

And so I got done ministering, and I told the current pastor, I didn't know till that night he was retiring, and he said, Okay, I'll put you in touch with the board members, and he did, and told the board members, they said, Okay, well, and here's what they said, we'll put your name in the hat.

Okay.

That's how that works.

And so uh in between that, I'm still at this meeting, and in between that, I'm I'm I'm I'm talking to you about the plan of God.

Remember, I I got a job in the corporate world.

I'm we're doing good, we're doing better than we've ever done.

I mean, I'm not dependent on ministry for my finances, right?

So I'm I'm I'm living the dream, man.

I mean, I'm I'm preaching every week.

It's it's great, right?

But here's the thing I'm I'm going after the plan of God for my life.

So they said, we want you to come out and we want you to meet with the board.

And so they'd already heard me preach, so they didn't need to hear me preach.

They just need to talk to me with the board.

And so I went out, and again, I'm not in a hurry.

I'm not putting any pressure on myself.

If anybody knows me very well, uh, 15 minutes early is on time for me.

On time is late.

Right?

Yeah.

Right?

If it starts at 7 and you show up at 7, you're late.

Because it started at 7, right?

I know you're gonna be looking, you're gonna be sneaking in when.

But anyway, here's the point.

I I'm I'm under such, there's no pressure.

Man, I'm just I'm I'm running late.

That sounds like a curse word for me just to say that.

I'm running late and I don't care.

Right?

Well, I get out there and and I'm supposed to meet them after this other minister.

And on the way out there, the Lord begins to talk to me, and he said, at the end of the meeting, they're gonna ask you why you should be the pastor of that church.

And he said, Here's your response.

If you do, if you make me the pastor, you'll be in the will of God, and if you don't, you won't be in the will of God.

That's it.

Now, you know, I'm I'm even thinking, boy, that's strong.

But I'm I'm on my way out, and I get there, I'm ready for them to wait because they're meeting with the other the other man.

And they said, Well, no, he's running late, so we'll meet with you first.

I said, Okay.

So we met and and they went through a lot of very important questions, like, you know what, did I believe about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and and and these different important theological things, right?

And of course they talked about the rapture and these different things.

And uh so I answered their questions.

And then at the end, and some of you remember Larry Marie Price, they used to go to church here, uh, or actually used to pastor in Clarksville.

They they had been with us for a number of years.

And uh, Marie actually started her own ministry and is doing her own ministry now.

But anyway, uh she was on the board.

Her and five other ladies had been praying every Monday night for God to send a pastor that didn't care what people thought and would take that church to where God wanted it to be.

I told them over the years you had no idea what you were praying for.

But she asked me, she said, I have one more question.

I said, okay, she said, why should we make you the pastor of this church?

And I told them what the Lord said.

Because if you do, you'll be in the will of God.

If you don't, you won't.

Now, see, here's the thing I want you to understand.

I have now found this is the plan of God for my life.

Right?

If if you go to DeSoto, Kansas, it makes Mayberry look big.

Right?

I mean, it's that's just how it was.

Man.

We kept going, and we're ministering in this other church, in this revival, the third week.

I get home on a Wednesday from that revival, and Marie calls me and she said, We've decided to make you the pastor of this church.

If you if you'll accept that, I said, I will, I'll accept it.

Well, here's the thing.

So that would have been in December of 1998, December 98.

And uh I I ministered my first message as pastor there like the second week of second Sunday of December 1998.

Well, by this time, I've I've moved in my job, I've moved to the help desk.

All right.

It was a conglomerate, it was the all the Blue Cross clinics in the Kansas City area, they brought them under one building roof.

Didn't last very long because it can't, but anyway, I'm on the help desk and I'm on call throughout the week.

And and uh this is back in the day of pagers.

I man, I was really important.

I had three pagers, right?

I had three pagers and a laptop.

Right?

I I was important, right?

It was really a boat anchor, is what it was.

That was so heavy.

But right, that was back in the days where you know I had to carry that laptop with me when I was on call, even when we went out to eat.

And if you got a page, well you had to call them and you had to reset things on their computer system.

And so this this there's no Wi-Fi.

It's all it's all uh landline, right?

And so you'd have to go to the business and say, Can I use your phone line, right?

And hook up and fix it.

But anyway, uh, so that's what I'm doing.

And I'm I'm I'm working in the in the in the evening shift.

And one day I I got, I was walking out to my mailbox where we were living, and the Lord said to me, He said, February 22nd, 1999 is your last day on your job.

You need to give your notice.

And so I gave my notice.

Now listen, I didn't give any thought to this.

I need you to hear me.

I'm not talking about being reckless.

I didn't give any thought of how much are they gonna pay me.

This is the plan of God.

Right?

We just moved into our first home that we ever bought that we ever owned.

And uh I took that job, this is the only way I know to say it, I took that job, I took the pastor of that church making three times less than what I was making in the corporate world.

Three times less.

And it never crossed my mind that that was a problem.

Because the Lord said to me, Your family will never suffer.

And you know what God did?

I entered into the plan of God and they elected somebody to be on the board that wanted to be a blessing to me and my family.

And so they talked to the board and got me a raise and set up a bonus program.

I don't know how you set up a bonus program for a pastor, but I took it.

Here's your bonus, thank you.

Praise the Lord.

Right?

Well, why did that happen?

Because I'm in the plan.

You know why the other pastor was there?

He didn't have nothing else to do.

The guy that tried out before me, they asked him why he should be the pastor, and he said, Well, it really don't matter to me.

If you don't make me the pastor, I'll just go to Texas and go on vacation.

They were really after the plan, huh?

See, I wanted the plan.

Not bragging on me, I'm just saying I wanted the plan.

Everything fell into place.

Everything fell into place.

You don't make decisions based on outward circumstances when you're after the plan.

Hallelujah.

So knowing the plan's not sufficient.

Obeying the plan is required.

Knowing's not enough.

I gotta obey the plan.

And that's when you begin to see God move, and that's when you begin to see things begin to change.

Amen.

Let's take a moment here tonight.

And I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know who's called to do what.

If the Lord doesn't tell me, I don't know.

But but here's what I do know.

I know God has a plan for everybody.

Everyone, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every child, every person.

God has a plan for their life.

I want you to do me a favor.

I just want you to close your eyes, bow your head, close your eyes.

And I just want you to look inside.

I just want you to take a moment and look inside.

Look inside.

Look right right in your spirit.

And whether you say it out loud or not, I I want you to look right inside, and I want you to ask the Lord, again, out loud or just under your breath or however it is, Lord, what's your plan?

Ask him what his plan is.

And then just give it a moment and see what he shows you.

Because that's that's crucial for stepping into that plan.

Hallelujah.

And while you're there, if you if you feel like you see what his plan for you is, would you with your head bowed, your eyes closed, would you just raise up your right hand, you see, you believe you see what his plan for your life is.

Amen.

For your life is.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.