Friendship – Being A Good Friend – To Yourself
Blessed Destiny – Part I
Key Text: Jeremiah 1:5 – "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew
thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I
ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
This week we start a new section within our friendship series: being a good
friend to yourself. One thing that I have learned about giving is this –
"you can’t give anything out of something that’s empty." In other
words, if your cookie jar is empty, you can’t bless someone with cookies. If
your car’s gas tank is empty, you can’t bless a friend with a ride. The same
applies to friendship. If you’re not a good friend to yourself, you can’t be a
good friend. So in this section we are going to show you some reasons why you
should be a good friend to yourself and also how to be a good friend to
yourself.
We all know that the first step is to love yourself. But while I’m typing
this message the Lord is telling me to tell you this:
"You have a blessed destiny ordained by Me. It doesn’t matter if this
message has been forwarded twenty times to get to you; it was written for you.
You have a blessed destiny. It is no accident or coincidence that you received
this message — it is for you. You have a blessed destiny, and I want you to
know that this day!"
Now when the Lord gave me "Blessed Destiny" I really had to
meditate on it. But after a while the Holy Spirit gave the following to me:
Blessed means "empowered to prosper" and destiny is "a
predetermined course." So what is this "Blessed Destiny?" A
course so great, so wonderful, so fulfilling that just knowing it exists
empowers you too much to turn back!! So who has the blessed destiny? YOU DO!!!
Yes, YOU DO!!! Do I need to repeat that? YOU DO!!!
From our text we see the Lord talking to his prophet Jeremiah. The Lord
tells him, "Before I formed thee; and before thou camest forth out of the
womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
Here the Lord tells Jeremiah that BEFORE he was even formed in his mother’s
womb HE KNEW HIM. Does this sound like Jeremiah was some sort of incident or
accident? Some sort of mistake from "one night of passion?" No!!!
This scripture tells us that the Lord had a divine plan to get Jeremiah here —
the same way He had a divine plan to get you here. Regardless of what you’ve
been told, you were not an incident or accident. God used resource upon
resource upon resource to get you here.
Just this past Sunday my Pastor made this statement: "We always say,
‘Lord use me’ but when He does we say, ‘I feel so used!!!!’" Don’t worry
if you’ve been told "you were an accident" or "you shouldn’t
have been born." Don’t feel used because you think you’ve been abused —
it’s your parents who were used! And even if the enemy used them to conceive
out of wedlock, God will use that which was meant for evil and turn it to good.
And guess what? YOU’RE THAT GOOD!!!
I know satan may have thought he was doing something through that act, but
guess what? While he (satan) was focusing on the act, he forgot about the seed.
And through all the years, and all the tears, one day you, the seed, met Christ
and came out of the curse and got blessed. That’s why the Lord says in the next
portion of Jeremiah 1:5, "Before thou camest forth out of the womb I
sanctified thee." So before coming into this world the Lord set Jeremiah
apart for His personal, holy use. And again, the same applies to you. Now do you
really feel that God would create an accident for His personal use? He knows
the end from the beginning! Remember He knew that Judas would betray Him, and
He knew that satan would fall. Therefore, He knows every birth and every
circumstance surrounding every birth, so how you got here is no surprise to
God.
Also the Lord tells Jeremiah, "and I ordained thee a prophet unto the
nations." Now the word "ordained" means to invest with
ministerial or priestly authority. The word I want you to take note of is INVEST!
Yes, God invested in you tremendously. He allowed your mother and father to
come together so you could come. Now I want you to think even deeper than that.
He allowed your Mother’s mother and father to come together and your Father’s
mother and father to come together so you could get here. Do we need to go a
generation or two deeper to get the picture?
So through all this investing, planning, preparing and coordinating God
wanted you to get here for a purpose, and that purpose was not to fail.
"For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our
Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9). Now I don’t know about you, but for me,
failure is wrath. However right here, we are told that God doesn’t have wrath
in store for us, He has salvation (deliverance and peace) in store for us.
Yes honey, where you are right now is not your blessed destiny. Where you
are is "en route" to the blessed destiny if you have Jesus in your
life. If it’s going good for you right now then baby it’s only going to get
better. If it’s not going good right now then trust me, it will get better. God
loves you too much, Jesus paid too much, and the Holy Spirit has too much power
to leave you where you are. They’ve invested too much in you to leave you with
nothing. If you want to know what to do next, I’m here to tell you — jump on
board the "Blessed Destiny" train. Oh yeah, and when you do, bring a
Bible and a seat belt—-the bible to keep the word of God before ya’ and the
seat belt to hold on because it’s definitely the ride of a lifetime!!!
ALL ABOARD THE BLESSED DESTINY TRAIN!!
Let’s toot the horn and ring the bell;
either run satan down or back to hell
Because as long as he lives in our domain
we’re gonna either kill him or make him lame.
You see, failure is not an option for you.
What you’re going through now is just that — "through."
So get on the "Blessed Destiny" train, my friend.
Next stop, A Wealthy Place – yes, that’s our end.
" Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire
and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place" (Psalm
66:12).
