Three Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking God’s Will

​

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES Hard Questions

Three Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking God’s Will By Rick Warren — Jul 30, 2015 “The steps of a man are established by the Lord …. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.” (Psalm 37:23a-24 NASB) You may be at what you think is a dead end in your life. “We’re never going to get out of debt! I’m never going to have a baby. My dream is never going to come true. How is it ever going to work out?” Right now it may look dark and you may feel defeated and it may seem like a mystery to you. But one day you’re going to see in the light of eternity how it all fits together in God’s plan. Until then, there are three errors you need to avoid as you seek God’s will that will help you trust in him, even when you don’t understand. Don’t be fatalistic. The idea of fatalism — that everything that happens is God’s will — leads to self-pity. It causes us to blame God for everything bad in our lives rather than accepting responsibility that we caused the problem. And, fatalism leads to passivity. It makes us think, “I’m waiting on God to bring me a wife” or “I’m waiting on God to get me a job.” God’s saying, “I gave you a brain! I gave you two feet! Get out and do something about it!” Don’t be frustrated. If you try to figure out everything in your life, you’re going to be very frustrated. Sometimes you’re going to do what you think is God’s will, and it’s going to fail. “I thought God was leading me to start this business, but it failed.” What do you do when there are no answers? You keep trusting God, knowing that he’s working on your character through all of your circumstances and that he has good plans for you. Don’t be fearful. What is behind the fear of God’s will? The root problem is that you doubt God’s love. The Bible says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18a). We always get into trouble when we doubt God’s love, because when we don’t trust him, we don’t obey him. Psalm 37:23-24 says, “The steps of a man are established by the Lord …. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand” (NASB). God’s will is an expression of his love. When you don’t understand what God is doing, have patience. God knows what’s best for you. You can’t see the end result, but he can. God’s path may be a path of pain, but all those delays and difficulties and problems are building character in your life. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick>> Talk It Over How would you respond to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” What have you been waiting on God to do in or bring into your life? What do you think he wants you to do about it? What do you think this statement means: “God’s will is an expression of his love”? Today’s Scripture “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels...” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NKJV) SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS Treasures Within You have treasures deep inside of you! As a believer in Jesus, the greatest treasure of all is within you—the Spirit of God. You carry the most valuable treasure in the universe inside of you! He has also deposited many other treasures on the inside of you as well. You may not even see these treasures yet, but God has given you gifts and abilities that are tied to your purpose. He has fully equipped you to succeed in life. What do you need today to move forward? What do you need to break out of your comfort zone? It’s on the inside of you. Proverbs says that understanding is like a well within and the wise person draws it out. Today, draw out those treasures inside of you by speaking words of faith. Connect to the heart of Almighty God. Stir up the gift inside of you by praying in the Spirit and thanking Him in worship. As you seek the Lord and submit yourself to His leading, you will discover the great treasures within! A Prayer for Today “Father, thank You for choosing to live inside of me. Show me the treasures You have deposited within me so that I can fulfill Your purpose for me all the days of my life. I love You and bless You today in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

How Do You Find Out God’s Will?

​

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES Hard Questions

How Do You Find Out God’s Will? By Rick Warren — Jul 29, 2015 “God … invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, even Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9 TLB) God’s not playing games with you. He wants you to understand his will, his purpose, and his plan for your life. You may say, “I want God to guide me, but I still get confused. I don’t know what to do.” Often the problem is we’re looking for the wrong thing. You need to know what you’re looking for before you can find it. So, what is God’s will? God’s will is not a feeling. Some of you are looking for a feeling or a supernatural sign. You want God to pull your heartstring so you’ll know exactly what to do. The problem is that feelings are unreliable; they will often guide you the wrong way. Feelings can come from fatigue, hormones, or an event you’ve just experienced. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful” (NIV). Even your heart plays tricks on you. Even the devil can create a feeling. If I had listened to my feelings, I would never have married my wife, Kay. The day before the wedding, my feelings said, “Run!” But that wasn’t God’s will. It was fear! Don’t wait for a feeling when you’re trying to figure out God’s plan for your life. God’s will is not a formula. In our culture, we want everything to be easy. We want things to follow a simple formula so it will instantly change our lives. We want a step-by-step guide. But there’s a problem with this approach: There’s no room for mistakes. If God’s will is a recipe, what happens if you leave out one ingredient? If you leave baking soda out of a recipe, you’ve got the difference between a birthday cake and a pancake. What if you have “52 Steps to Knowing God’s Will,” and you leave out number 37? God’s will is not a closed system. It is dynamic! It is not always an issue of choosing A or B. In fact, many times you can choose from A to Z, and any of them will be OK. It’s your choice. Why would God give you a brain and not expect you to use it? He lets you make choices, and he gives you second chances. If God’s will is not a feeling or a formula, then what is it? It is a relationship. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1:9, “God … invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, even Christ our Lord” (TLB). There is very little in the Bible about the technique of knowing God’s will. But there are thousands and thousands of verses that talk about developing a loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Why? Because God’s will is a relationship. The better you get to know him, the less confusion you’re going to have about what his will is. Get to know God, and everything else becomes secondary. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick>> Talk It Over What does God want you to do if you get a feeling that you believe is telling you something about God’s will? Why do you think God allows us to make choices and even mistakes when we are searching for his will? How can you get to know God better? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x2IpLSfqp8

Today’s Scripture

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9, NIV)

SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS

Confess and Believe

Scripture tells us that salvation comes when a person confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that He was raised from the dead. In the same way, God’s Word comes alive in our hearts when we confess and believe it. The question is: What are you confessing today? What are you saying about your situation? Are you confessing the Word and believing that God is at work behind the scenes? Or, do you talk about your problems and always believe the worst? Whatever you confess and put your faith in will come to pass in your life. If you’ve been saying the wrong things, it’s time to simply stop and turn your thoughts and words around. You can choose to speak the Word of God any time. Don’t just let your mind and mouth wander. Be intentional. Write down a few Scripture verses and take them with you. Be determined to speak the Word. Confess and believe and walk in victory in every area of your life.

A Prayer for Today

“Father, today I repent for anything that I’ve been confessing that isn’t pleasing to You. I choose to turn around and keep my mind and heart focused on Your Word. Make Your truth real to me today in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

When You’ve Given All the Love You Can Give

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES 40 Days of Love

When You’ve Given All the Love You Can Give By Rick Warren — Jul 28, 2015 “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT, second edition) Love can be absolutely exhausting. Don’t let anyone fool you. The kind of love that really makes a difference in this world will zap everything out of you. Sometimes you just don’t feel like you have any more love to give. Maybe you’re in a people-intensive job, such as teacher, salesman, or server, and you come home and think, “I just can’t face another need, another problem, or another heartache.” So you just shut down. Or you need to show love to a particular person who is demanding, selfish, and never returns your love. And you just think to yourself, “I’m done. No more.” While that’s perfectly natural and human, it’s not the standard of love God calls us to in the Bible. The Bible says, “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT, second edition). Love never gives up. How can you have that kind of persistent love for another person? You get refueled. When my kids were young, I remember taking the family to a nearby air show. It was so impressive to see how they would hook up a tanker to a jet in flight to refuel. I’ll never forget that. But can you imagine someone flying a jet and saying, “I don’t need to refuel!” The jet would crash and burn. In a long distance flight, a jet has to refuel. To give the kind of persistent love that God wants you to give, you have to refuel your love tank. Look around at society, and you’ll see it’s littered with debris from relationships that have crashed and burned because people didn’t refuel their love. How do you refuel your love tank? You start by letting God love you. The Bible says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV). When you’re worn out, tired, and can’t imagine showing love to anyone else, remember that God loved you so much that he sent his Son to die for you. Now that’s real fuel. That’s what keeps you going when you want to quit. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick>> Talk It Over How does your daily quiet time help you refuel your love tank? What are some ways you can recharge and refuel throughout your day to help you gain perspective and help you remember God’s love so that you can love others better?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga6Qtxzd6vk What does it mean to have love that is “always hopeful”? Today’s Scripture “...the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God...” (Galatians 2:20, ESV) SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS The God Kind of Faith Faith is all around us. People have faith in so many different things: faith that a friend will be true, faith that your job is taking you on a certain career path, faith that the chair you are sitting on is going to hold you up! Faith is simply believing in something. But there are different kinds, or levels, of faith. We’ve all been given a measure of faith. The question is, what are you doing with it? The God kind of faith will cause you to believe for things when you don’t even know how they’ll happen. It will take you further than you ever dreamed. It probably won’t make sense in your mind, but you have to allow your spirit to rise higher than your thinking. Don’t ever talk yourself out of believing. Don’t focus on all the reasons why not; instead, allow supernatural faith to rise up within you. Meditate on His Word that says you can do all things through Christ, and you are strong in the Lord and the power of His might. As you rise up in faith, He’ll take you places you’ve never dreamed, and you will live the abundant life He has for you! A Prayer for Today “Father, today I humbly open my heart to You. Use me for Your glory and have Your way in my life. I choose to trust You. I choose faith in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

You Can Become an Expert at Relationships

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES 40 Days of Love

You Can Become an Expert at Relationships By Rick Warren — Jul 27, 2015 “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7 NLT, second edition) Love is a skill that can be learned. In other words, it’s something you can get good at, and that means you get better at love by practicing love. You may think you’re a good lover, but God wants you to become a great lover, a skilled lover, a master lover. Yet most people never learn how to love. You can become an expert at relationships. Wouldn’t you like to become known as a person of extraordinary love? When people speak of you they might say: “He doesn’t care who you are or what you look like” or “She doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done or where you’re from.” The only way you get skilled at something is to practice. You do it over and over. The first time you do it, it feels awkward, but the more you do it, the better you become. The same is true with love. The Bible says, “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 NLT, second edition). Let’s practice loving each other. “Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all” (1 Timothy 4:15 HCSB). PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick>> Talk It Over How might the world’s perception of the Church change if every believer practiced loving others? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yABoahkMbOs What is something you can commit to that would help you practice showing love to others on a regular basis? Who is it hardest for you to show love to? Take some time to pray, and ask God to give you courage and his love to show to that person. Today’s Scripture “Keep me as the apple of your eye...” (Psalm 17:8, NIV) SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS The Apple of His Eye In this day and age, people are considered to be important for so many different reasons—titles, position, possessions, where you go, what you drive. But God’s value system is very different from the value system of the world. If you’ve ever thought that God has too many other important things on His plate to be concerned with you and your life, know this today—you are God’s number one priority. You are the apple of His eye, the center of His world! There’s nothing you can do to change that. There’s nothing you can do to be more important or less important to Him. God values you because He made you, and your value will never change. Always remember, you are significant. Your life is significant. The things that concern you, concern God. He carefully watches over every detail of your life, and there is nothing too big or too small for His attention! A Prayer for Today “Father, thank You for loving me unconditionally. Help me to understand Your love and share it with others. I open my heart to You completely and cast every care on You in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Love Is Something You Do

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES 40 Days of Love

Love Is Something You Do By Rick Warren — Jul 26, 2015 “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.” (1 John 3:18 NLT, second edition) If you really love someone, then you show it by how you act toward that person. Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No — not at all — because love is an action and a behavior. Over and over again in the Bible, God commands us to love each other, and you can’t command an emotion. If I told you right now, “Be sad!” you couldn’t be sad on cue. Just like an actor, you can fake it, but you’re not wired for your emotions to change on command. If love were just an emotion, then God couldn’t command it. But love is something you do. It can produce emotion, but love is an action.  The Bible says, “Let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT, second edition). We can talk a good act: “I love people.” But do we really love them? Our love is revealed in how we act toward them. Talk It Over How will you reveal to others that you love them? Think about your family, and be specific. How can you show your love to each person in your family? You may understand that God loves you. How has he shown you how much he loves you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FInBsbSCnWk In what ways can the Church step up and show our love through action? What about your church? What about your small group? Today’s Scripture “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7, NIV) SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS Ask A lot of times, it’s easy to think that we’re not supposed to ask for too much, but the Scripture encourages us to go to God with all of our needs. He longs to give you the desires of your heart and pour out His favor and blessing on you. In fact, Jesus said, “You have not because you ask not.” Step out in faith and ask for God’s favor, blessing and increase. Begin your prayers by surrendering every thought and attitude to the Father. Ask Him to purify your motives and show you if there is any unforgiveness in your life that would block your prayers. Remember, He desires good things for you, and you can trust Him. Step out and ask and watch what He will do! A Prayer for Today “Father, I humbly come to You and surrender all that I am. I ask that You pour out Your favor and blessing on me. Show me Your goodness and love and position me to be a greater blessing to others in Jesus’ name. Amen.”