> >
> This is my sermon for the day! It made me stop to think. Wanted to
> share with
> the ones I care about!
>
> You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now
> having
> cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an
> absolutely
> incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life '
> author and
> pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
>
> In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
> People ask me, What is the purpose of life?
> And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were
> not made
> to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
>
> One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my
> body-- but not
> the end of me.
> I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions
> of years
> in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants
> us to
> practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity..
>
> We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life
> isn't going
> to make sense.
> Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just
> coming out
> of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
> The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character
> than your
> comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in
> making
> your life happy.
>
> We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of
> life. The
> goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
> This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the
> toughest, with
> my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
> I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark
> time,
> then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that
> anymore.
>
> Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of
> like two
> rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and
> something bad in your life.
> No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something
> bad that
> needs to be worked on.
> And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always
> something good
> you can thank God for.
> You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
> If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness,
> which is my
> problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of
> pain is
> to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
>
> We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of
> thousands of
> people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has
> been very
> difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given
> her a
> ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her
> closer to Him
> and to people.
>
> You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
> Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For
> instance, this
> past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it
> made me
> instantly very wealthy.
> It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with
> before. I
> don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for
> you to live
> a life of ease.
>
> So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money,
> notoriety and
> influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what
> to do,
> II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
> First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our
> lifestyle
> one bit.. We made no major purchases.
> Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from
> the
> church.
>
> Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace
> Plan to
> plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and
> educate
> the next generation.
>
> Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years
> since I
> started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be
> able to
> serve God for free.
>
> We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions?
> Popularity?
> Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism?
> Or am I
> going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
>
> When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God,
> if I
> don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love
> You better.
> God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more
> interested in
> what I am than what I do.
> That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
>
> Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
> Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
> Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
> Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
> Every moment, THANK GOD..
>