Chapter 2: Serving Destiny

Philippians 2:3-4 (NKJV)

3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Destiny vs. Ambition by Christine Caine

Destiny Draws you. Ambition Drives you.

Destiny marks you. Ambition markets you.

Destiny is about building the kingdom. Ambition is about building our empire.

Destiny honors. Ambition competes.

Destiny invokes loyalty. Ambition is selfish.

Destiny is all about the cause of Christ. Ambition is all about elevating my gift.

Destiny is about finding our place in the Body. Ambition is about securing my position and title.

Destiny is others focused. Ambition is self-focused.

Destiny is okay with anonymity. Ambition wants the limelight.

Destiny is concerned with the lost. Ambition is concerned with how many are following me.

Destiny is God-dependent. Ambition is self-sufficient.

Destiny produces fruit. Ambition produces opinion.

Destiny is God-pleasing. Ambition is man-pleasing.

Destiny is about legacy. Ambition is about now.

Destiny is about becoming Christ-like. Ambition is self-actualizing.

Destiny produces obedience. Ambition forfeits any sacrifice.

Destiny produces anointing. Ambition just wants to promote gift and talent.

Destiny is dependent. Ambition is independent.

Destiny is spirit-lead. Ambition is self-planned path to success.

Destiny is God’s will. Ambition is my will.

Destiny takes time. Ambition wants immediate results.

Destiny loves people. Ambition leverages relationships.

Destiny gives. Ambition takes.

Destiny is generous. Ambition protects.

Destiny aims for Jesus. Ambition aims for self.

Fulfilling Destiny

To be frank, I’m tired of us as singles being overly obsessed with our goals, dreams, and desires. Many of us think we can only find fulfillment in our career, relationships, or financial status. After camp, I realized I had just spent the last several months pursuing something that left me feeling more empty than before I started pursuing it! It drove me crazy.

How could I spend so much money and time, and give so much attention to something, and still come up feeling empty at the end? Was the world lying to me? The answer to that question is yes. The world spends billions of dollars on advertising trying to convince us that we need something else and, until we have it, our lives won’t be what they should.

The world teaches us to love ourselves more than we love others. To be concerned about what we’re going to do when we get older, who we’re going to marry, how much money we’re going to make, and how our future is going to turn out. I’m convinced there is purpose outside of materialistic things. There is something so much more rewarding than achieving your own goals. As single people, we should be the number one people group bringing hope, healing, and love, to people in need. Why? Because in this season we have more time on our hands than anyone else.

To this day, it’s amazing to believe the change I’ve had in my heart. The most fulfilling thing I’ve ever experienced is fellowship with God. It’s living with a heart that longs to be with Him -- that doesn’t want anything more than it wants to just be with God. To lie awake at night and just long for His presence. The Scripture that says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good,” really is true for me. It’s one thing for you to take my word for it, but it’s another for you to experience it yourself. Just like it would be one thing for me to tell you that a particular glass of lemonade is the most refreshing thing you’ll ever taste and, once you taste it, you will never want another drink ever again. In fact, I imagine it would be hard to believe (especially for all you coffee lovers). Until you pour your own glass and drink for yourself, you will never have an opportunity to experience what I’m talking about.

That’s my challenge to you as a single person. Don’t take my word for it! I’m challenging you to taste and see, to allow the love of the Lord to flood your heart so full that everything else in this world pales in comparison. Money fails. Relationships fail. Careers fail. Status fails. Fame fails. Those are all good things but, next to Jesus, I’d rather throw out every other drink. I’ve tasted and I’ve seen and I don’t want anything else more than I want to feel His love, to understand His heart, to do what pleases Him, to know Him, to help others know Him. That is my life’s mission.

How To Taste Living Water

John 4:1-14 (NIV)

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

If you want to experience God in a way that you won’t want anything else, you have to stop filling yourself up with other things. It’s like Jesus offering a beautiful, gourmet meal. If you’re not hungry, it doesn’t matter how good the meal is -- if you’re not hungry, you won’t eat.

This will mean different things to different people. Everyone has things that fill their time, and certain things that are a distraction to one may not be a distraction to another. For me personally, once I took an assessment of where I spent most of time, I decided to stop entertainment for a season and replace those activities with things that helped me focus on God. I stopped filling myself with late-night television, social media, and critically acclaimed movies.

It’s not necessarily wrong to do those things. But when I did them, I could feel a desire growing for entertainment more than my desire was to know God.  After I consumed those things, I noticed I didn’t have as great of desire to read my Bible, worship, or share my faith. The things of the world were literally eating away my hunger for the Lord.

Let me encourage you to step into protection mode. Protect your hunger for the Lord. I had tasted living water and now I wanted to protect what I had tasted. I listened to more worship music, I watched more youtube videos that encouraged my faith, and I read more books that challenged my spiritual growth.

I also started spending time with people who hungered for God more than I did. This doesn’t take the place of reaching people and loving people in the world with the Gospel message. (Please, don’t ever stop doing that!) But you also have to balance it by spending time with people who push you to grow in God.  You’ll find that conversations with these kinds of people will be rich and encouraging, like iron sharpening iron.

The second thing I did was fast food. I started to practice saying “No!” to myself by abstaining from food.  I got used to my body being hungry because I was training myself to depend on God instead of being driven by what my body wanted. Every time I was hungry, I reminded myself that I was even more hungry for God. Fasting is the practice of allowing God to increase in your life while you and your desires decrease. When you fast, you’ll find that you can hear God more clearly and you’ll be more sensitive to God’s heart in your day-to-day life. Fasting clears the fog in life and puts things in the right perspective.

If you are just starting out, don’t be afraid to start small. Start with fasting one meal a day. Then go for two. Then go for three. You may even want to fast with a friend or a small group of people that want to do the same thing.

When you’re desperate to find God and relentless to see a side of Him you’ve never seen before, it won’t matter what it costs you. That’s how you have to be if you’re going to taste the living water Jesus talks about in John 4:14. You’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes. I had reached that point of desperation. I was chasing God and I was going to find Him. No matter what!

There’s a parable Jesus shares in Luke 11 that really speaks into this for me:

5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[a] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (NIV)

Do you see how determined the friend was? It says that the neighbor didn’t even get up because he valued the relationship, but because of his neighbor’s persistence. The other neighbor was going to get everything he asked for. Why? Because those that don’t stop knocking get doors opened. Those that don’t stop seeking, find things. Those that don’t stop asking, receive things.

Another passage that I love dearly comes out of Luke 18 when Jesus shares the parable of the unjust judge:

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ 4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. 7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

I love that it says “and he would not for a while”, meaning she kept asking and he wasn’t doing anything. But she kept on asking. Then the unjust judge says, “Though I do not fear God nor regard man,” (meaning I don’t have a relationship with God nor do I really even care about this woman), “But because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”

Do you understand how powerful that is? Jesus said, “If the unjust judge would give the widow what she wanted…shall not God avenge His own elect,” meaning will not God give his own beloved children what they ask for, “who cry out day and night”?

The phrase “day and night” is so important to me. There are some prayers you can’t pray once. You have to keep on asking, keep on knocking. If you want to experience signs and wonders, you have to keep on pushing, keep on pressing. If you want to hunger for God like never before and be fascinated with Him and Him alone, you have to go after it and keep going after it. You have to push, press, push, press, push, press, and push again. And you have to know that He’s going to answer you because He loves you.

The question is not Will God do it for you? The question is How serious are you? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to never thirst again? Then let’s do this together! What are we waiting for? We have more time now than we ever will have. We have the least amount of responsibility that we will ever have. Take advantage of this precious season. Learn to love well and learn to love yourself. Let the Holy Spirit take you on a wild adventure of loving Him and knowing Him. But remember, it’s not about a feeling. It’s about moving in a direction toward God that doesn’t ever stop.

Making Room For God

If you want your life to be drastically different, you have to make room for God. Imagine Jesus coming to make His home in you. You have to make room for Him.

Matthew 8:19-20 (NIV)

19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Jesus is basically saying, “Some say they want to follow me, but they give me no place to stay long-term in their lives.”

Let’s say the room you want Jesus to stay in is messy. What’s the first thing you do? Assess the mess. You identify everything in the room that shouldn’t be there. Are there clothes on the floor? Is there trash that needs to be thrown out? Are there people in your life you shouldn’t be hanging out with anymore? Are there TV shows you’re watching that you shouldn’t watch anymore? Are there songs you’re listening to that you shouldn’t listen to anymore? Not because they’re wrong, .but because you want to make room for more of Jesus in your life. Take some time to answer that question for yourself.

The second thing that you do is clean the mess and put things where they belong. Hang your clothes back up in your closet and throw away the garbage that was on the floor.  This is where I believe many people get discouraged. They go to clean up their room for Jesus and enter into a mental state of condemnation because their life is a mess or something spilled on the carpet. Let me help you -- chill. Just put the stuff where it belongs. Life gets messy. Responsibilities are added. Stuff happens. Distractions come. So what? Just put the priorities back where they belong.  God is not mad at you because your life gets messy. He rejoices over you and is cheering you on to grow closer to Him. He’s actually there offering to help you clean up your life So let Him help you!

Once the room is cleaned up, the third thing you do is you maintain the clean. When it comes to maintaining your room, you have to keep an eye out for piles that start to mound, areas that start to slack, and dirt that starts to build up. The easiest way to maintain a clean room is to have people in your life that are constantly visiting and checking in on you. Accountability is key. This is why relationships are so important. Not to condemn you, but to encourage you, check on you, and see how things are going.

People with a clean room assess the mess and clean up after themselves more often than those who get used to living in filth. It’s the same when it comes to making more room for Jesus in your life. Get into the habit of assessing the mess more often. Life is messy, but it’s never too late to start fresh and put things back in order.

Here are some questions I ask myself when trying to assess my hunger for the Lord:

• Do I have a growing desire to know God? If not, what’s eating at my hunger?
• What have I been doing with my time?
• What have I been listening to?
• What have I been watching?
• What have I been thinking about?
• Am I spending time reviewing what God says about me?
• Am I spending time in God’s presence?
• Am I learning?
• Am I growing?
• Am I increasing in my love for other people?

These aren’t condemning questions. God is earnestly in love with you. He earnestly desires to be with you. That’s why Jesus came: to bring you back into relationship with the Father -- to restore the identity you have in Daddy God. When you allow your life to be driven by destiny instead of ambition, the possibilities of what God can do in your life are endless.