Dear
Friends, I have been having some problem recording and I just want
to say, please bear with me--this is an important message that God
put on my heart for you. I ask that you would listen to the whole
thing and ignore any little problems with the audio. I will have the
problem fixed this week. I really feel it's an attack of the enemy
and I ask that you would pray about this---Shoshana
Today I’m going to speak about PURPOSE, but before I do, I want to
introduce a new part of our ministry. I am delighted to announce
that our very own Maureen, who has been a blessing to so many people
on Rest Ministry’s Forum, will have a section in this website called
Maureen’s Nutrition Korner. There will be a link to it on this page
and also on the homepage of the website as well as the What’s New
page. God has a purpose for Maureen and because of this, He anointed
her to gather information and wisdom about Good Nutrition. Also,
Maureen has suffered with chronic illness so she knows the
difficulties of shopping for and preparing food when you have no
energy. Actually, her advice can lead to a way of eating that’s not
only healthy, but actually EASIER than eating just any old way. I
know that I myself need to learn about this and do it. But it’s
there for you to read and choose…not to pressure anyone or make
anyone feel guilty. The link is at the end of this message.
NOW---ON
TO THE PURPOSE YOU ARE CALLED TO:
God sees you as an individual. You’re special to Him, not just a
faceless shadow in the sea of humanity. Read the following verses
and you will find the answers to those questions.
(NIV)
Psalm 139:13-14
-
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's
womb.14
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works
are wonderful, I know that full well. 15
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret
place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were
written in your book before one of them came to be.
JEREMIAH 1:5—GOD CALLED JEREMIAH AND TOLD HIM:
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew [a]
you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a
prophet to the nations."
"But, that’s Jeremiah" you might say—"a prophet to the nations. I'm not a prophet to
the nations". You are are a royal priest—part of a holy nation. You
have a great calling.
1
Peter 2:9-10 9But
ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a
peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who
hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 10Which
in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which
had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
YOU WERE BORN FOR
A PURPOSE AND YOU HAVE A DESTINY TO FULFILL.
You are part of God’s plan to fulfill that wonderful purpose.
There’s something God has for you that you were BORN to do.
In
him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the
plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose
of his will, (Eph. 1:11)
You have to know and believe this or you will just be aimless and
probably depressed.
Proverbs 29:18: (KJV) Where there is no vision, the people perish (NASB)
Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained
You will have no incentive to really discipline your life according
to God’s will. Before I understood my purpose, I was pretty
depressed—very negative—and had very little hope. I couldn’t really
discipline my life, because I had no reason to. I thought my chances
were gone. More about that in a minute.
Let’s talk
about the life of Moses:
MOSES WAS BORN FOR
A PURPOSE: TO DELIVER THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AFTER 400 YEARS OF
BONDAGE.
Exodus
3:7-8
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people
which are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of
their taskmasters; for I am aware of their sufferings; So I have
come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to
bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land
flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, and the
Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the
Jebusite
The moment
god puts a plan in action, satan tries to thwart it. At the time of
israel’s delivereance, he tried to stop the deliverer from being
born using pharaoh’s plot to kill all male children two years and
younger.
BUT GOD
THWARTED THAT PLAN. In fact, the very plan that was meant to destroy
Moses and a whole generation of children, brought Moses under the
protection of the Pharaoh, the evil ruler used by Satan.
GOD
ORCHESTRATED THE EVENTS IN MOSES’S EARLY LIFE---THAT HIS OWN MOTHER
NURSED HIM.
Yocheved, the mother of Moses, was actually hired by Pharaoh’s
daughter to be his nanny. He had a purpose and, someday, he would
set his people free. We each have a purpose. Someday, WE will be
used to set our people free.
Exodus 2 You can read most of this for yourself.
1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a
Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and
gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid
him for three months. 3 But when she could
hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it
with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among
the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His
sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5 Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the
Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get
it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He
was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew
babies," she said.
7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh's
daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the
baby for you?"
8
"Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's
mother. 9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her,
"Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the
woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When
the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter andhe became her
son. She named him Moses, [a]
saying, "I drew him out of the water."
So Moses grew
up in Pharaoh’s palace and was taught by the best teachers---worldly
knowledge. But he also was taught by his own mother Yochoved—Godly
knowledge.
And he grew up
with a sense of destiny, and then tried to use the position of
royalty and privilege to deliver his people—his own way in his own
timing. Well, that didn’t work out to well. It never does.
Exodus 2:11
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own
people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian
beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12
Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian
and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he
went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the
wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"
OOPS! That didn’t work out very well, did it? And when we try to
take matters into our own hands, it works out just about as well as
this did for Moses.
15
When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled
from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a
well.
And here’s where Moses’s real preparation for the ministry begins.
Here is where God trains him to fulfill the great purpose of
delivering his people---on the backside of the desert, in the house
of the priest of Midian with not one Israelite anywhere near him.
And not for just a week, a month, or a year—for 40 years. Forty
years!!!
It’s in the time that we are taken aside, put into seclusion, and
seem the most remote from what we expected that our real training
begins. Does that sound familiar to any of you?
Here we are—sick—suffering—many of you seemingly forgotten and
alone. It may seem like all is lost and you have no hope of
fulfilling your purpose. I’m sure that’s what Moses thought. Nothing
could be further from the truth. God has taken you aside to change
your character, like He did for Moses. He changed him from an
impulsive young man who killed to help God to what God called “the
meekest man on Earth”. That’s quite a change. You may have been a
good person, but God digs deeper—down into our hearts (which he
calls deceitful and who can know it?). We all have things hidden
down deep (and some not so deep) that God wants to change.
A little over five years ago, God called me aside. I had been sick
for many years, but I always managed to overcome and go on with my
ministry. And the ministry my husband and I had was a front and
center ministry. Leading a congregation, traveling and preaching,
teaching, and singing—with our sons in the early years. And I also
had recordeD quite a few albums which were sold (for a few years)
internationally by Messianic ministries.You would think that THAT
would have been the fulfillment of my purpose. Well, it wasn’t. God
gave me a scripture I thought I understood but really didn’t:
Proverbs 24:27Prepare
your work outside
And make it ready for yourself in the field;
Afterwards, then, build your house.
Five and a half years ago I got sick and weak enough that I could no
longer go out an do things actively. My world was INSIDE the house
and I thought all was lost. I lost my sense of purpose.
n
God used this time to change me—to reveal things inside of me I
didn’t know were there. And I had no one to argue with about
it—there was only God and me.
n
God also used this time to get me on the
internet out of sheer frustration and boredom.
n
He taught me how to create websites and help other ministries.
n
And, most importantly, he gave me
understanding of what it’s like to be sick and alone, with no one
around who
understood or could help.
n
Then He gave me a burden and a burning desire to help and minister
to others in the same position
n
And all the while, He connected my husband and
myself with a wonderful church and man of God who would cover us,
believe in us and actually put me forth into this ministry. The
church is A PLACE CALLED HOPE, the man of God is Bishop Duane
Swilley, and the ministries are aplacecalledhope.net,
olivetreeministry.net, hopeontheinside.org.
n
ONE IS A CHURCH MINISTRY—ANOTHER IS A MINISTRY TO BRING UNITY AND
UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN JEWS AND GENTILES, AND THE THIRD IS A MINISTRY
TO BRING HOPE TO THOSE WHO ARE SICK SUFFERING, OR IN PRISON.
And, I know this is just the beginning for me. Since I have come
into my purpose, I am filled with joy—never lonely, and totally
different in my walk with God.
I don’t know where you are in the journey, but I do know that just
about all of you are at the stage where you have been called aside
(like Moses) to be trained and changed and molded into God’s image…I
just don’t know how far into the process you are.
YOU ARE RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.
YOUR
LIFE IS NOT OVER AND YOUR PURPOSE IS NOT LOST—IT IS JUST BEGINNING.
You may not feel the joy now. You definitely are feeling the pain.
But, God is preparing you and He is getting ready to speak to you
like He did to Moses. For Moses, God’s Voice came out of a burning
Bush.
Exodus 3
Moses and the Burning Bush
1
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the
priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2
There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from
within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not
burn up. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go
over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
It may not be from a burning bush (probably not in fact) but He will
speak to you and you will KNOW it’s God. Come back this week. I will
be continuing this message with Part 2 of CALLED FOR A PURPOSE.
