Love Fiercely

I believe in dreams. I am the kind of person that is constantly dreaming – I am not sure if you can relate. But there are times that my dreams keep me from sleeping… & yet there have been dreams of mine that have come true, & didn’t end up how I thought they would/should have. It can be very discouraging. I came to a place in my heart & mind about two years ago where I really wondered, do dreams REALLY come true?!? 

 

I hope that the message I recently spoke at Elevate Life Young Adults about dreams helps & encourages you to DREAM BIG! – but don’t forget to invite God into your dreams, He is the one who gave you them in the first place!

 

 

 

I have provided notes below for your convenience if you would like them so that you can follow along during the message. 

 




DO DREAMS {REALLY} COME TRUE?




 GOD DOES FULFILL DREAMS, JUST NOT MY SELFISH DREAMS. GOD IS IN THE BUSINESS OF FULFILLING HIS DREAMS.

 

This theme runs through all of scripture. God has a plan, a dream for each person, & He always fulfills that dream.  

  • Abraham and Sarah dreamed of having lots of kids together. God dreamed of them having one son together, who would, along with Abraham, be an instrumental part of an incredible covenant between God and God’s people. Moses dreamed of growing up in Pharaoh’s palace. God dreamed of sending Moses into the desert for forty years, then using Moses to lead God’s people out of Egypt. Hannah dreamed of having a large family. God dreamed of her having a son, Samuel, who would be dedicated to the Lord’s service.
  • The people of Israel dreamed of a Messiah who would come in power and destroy all the enemies of Israel. God dreamed of a Messiah who would come in weakness & humility & be crucified upon a Roman cross.

GOD’S DREAMS FOR ME ARE BETTER THAN MY DREAMS FOR ME –  GOD WILL ALWAYS FULFILL HIS DREAMS.

THERE ARE MANY TIMES WHEN GOD MESSES UP MY LIFE PLAN. & THAT’S A REALLY GOOD THING.

 

 

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all for planning. Without plans, little of enduring value gets accomplished. Those who fail to plan often find themselves binge watching on Hulu or Netflix. But the reality is, there are many times when God intentionally messes up my life plan. & that’s a good thing.

  • Deferred, deterred, and destroyed dreams can make your heart feel sick. They can make you question God. Why God? Why am I still single? Why am I stuck in this job? Why is my church still so small? Why can’t I have kids? Why am I still struggling in my marriage? Why am I still battling these health problems?
  • To which God would reply (without minimizing your pain one bit): You can trust me. Your dreams aren’t working out, but mine are. You are mine, & I have a plan for you.

DO YOUR DREAMS INVOLVE GOD – OR ARE THEY ONLY WHAT YOU DESIRE (EXPECT)?

God Wants Us To Have Dreams – He Is The One That Gave Them To Us. But If Our Dreams Never Come Under His Authority & We Do Not Submit Them To Him, We Will Be Very Disappointed.

 

 


There is a difference between: DREAMS | DESIRES | & DESTINY

DREAM: A strongly desired goal or purpose a dream of becoming something. Larger than yourself, it cannot happen in your own power!

DESIRE: To long or hope for, a wish for: a request or desire for an immediate answer. An EXPECTATION. 

DESTINY: Something to which a person or thing is destined: A predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency felt that a greater power would determine their future. A calling that we have a choice to be a part of.


A DREAM THAT GOT MESSED-UP.

God really messed up Joseph’s life plan, he had dreams… He shared them to those who should have loved & supported him the most. & his brothers threw him into a deep pit & then sold him into slavery. Then the wife of his Egyptian slave-master tried to seduce him. When he refused her advances, she created false evidence & turned him over to the Egyptian cops, who then tossed him in prison. He then spent years in prison, waiting to be released for something he did not even do.

I cannot imagine that Joseph’s dream included slavery | false accusations | or prison time in his life plan. Finally, after many years of painful waiting, God brought him to a place of authority… he was second in command in all of Egypt under pharaoh. When all was said and done, what did Joseph say to his brothers? 

Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

GENESIS 50:19–20

God messed up Joseph’s life plan, & ended up being a good thing. He ended up doing for Joseph what Joseph could never have done for himself. The issue is that Joseph took dreams from God, put his EXPECTATIONS before Gods plan & this is how we often get confused.

  • God gives us a dream, but He doesn’t show us what cost that dream will come with, or how it will happen or unfold.

ECCLESIASTES 5:3

For a dream comes with much business and painful effort…

Therefore, many people abort their dreams before they reach full-term. God plants a seed (dream) in them and they become pregnant. But when they find out it will take effort, be costly and uncomfortable to complete their preparation for the birth, they decide it wasn’t really God’s will after all and go and do something else.

  • I want to encourage you to go through the hard part because if you give up, you will never be completely satisfied. There will be a part of you that doesn’t feel settled or fulfilled.

SO HOW DO WE SUCCESSFULLY MAKE IT THROUGH PREPARATION & LIVE OUT OUR GOD-GIVEN DREAMS-

3 KEYS TO HELP YOU GET THERE:


 

 1. The Power of Putting Your Expectation in God.

When a woman is pregnant, we say she’s “expecting.”

  • This is part of what we must do to reach full-term and not give up or abort the dream God put in us. We must keep expecting, be aggressive and talk to God about it, preferably every day because the devil is a thief and he wants to kill, steal and destroy the plans God has for us.

We miss out on our dreams because we think of them as just that – OUR DREAMS. We plan our way & put expectations on how they should happen & when… the bible tells us:

PROVERBS 16:9 

A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.

PROVERBS 20:24

Man’s steps are ordered by the Lord. How then can a man understand his way?

It’s easy to fall into a passive attitude that says, “Well, we’ll just see what happens…”

  • But we must resist becoming a “wait & see” kind of person. Instead, we need to be focused on God and determined to expect from Him, like David.

PSALM 27:13

What, what would have become of me] had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living!

2. The Benefit of a Good Attitude

You can’t REALLY do anything good or GREAT – if you have a bad attitude.

I know this from personal experience.

  • I used to & even still at times find myself being negative and sometimes I even feel sorry for myself. But being negative & feeling sorry for yourself WILL DO NOTHING FOR YOU!

Eventually I learned the truth that no matter what is going on in my life – I can choose my response.

  • & if you choose to have a good attitude in the middle of whatever you face, God can give you favor with people & in circumstances in life, even when that favor doesn’t add up in the natural. Our faith & our choice to trust God sets us up to be blessed…

While we can’t always choose our circumstances, we can choose how we react to them.

 

PETER 5:5

“God sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)—[& He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble.”

3. How to Live the Dream

So often our dreams are about us — what we want for our life or what’s good for us.

  • But Jesus, our example of how to live, HE gave His life not for His benefit but for ours.
    • Shortly before He was crucified, He was in a garden praying and He said, “Not My will but Yours be done” (Luke 22).

To really live the dream God has for us, we need to let go of selfishness, or “die to self.”

What are some things we must die to?

  • Things like our plan, our timing, our way, our reputation, getting credit for what we do, the need to be in control & the need to be right.

IF YOU WILL GIVE YOUR LIFE TO GOD LIKE CHRIST LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR YOU, GOD WILL DO AMAZING THINGS IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU.

Now glory be to God, by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of — infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes.

EPHESIANS 3:20

GOD KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING

 

 

God really, truly knows what he is doing. He usually takes longer than we would like.

  • He often leads us through strange territory. Sometimes it looks like He even – defers, destroys, or delays our dreams.
    • But God, is loving, tender, & a GOOD Father, He knows exactly what he is doing. He is accomplishing more in you & through you than you could ever think or imagine.

Are you in a place you never expected to be? Has God taken you on a path you never would have willfully chosen? Take heart. God hasn’t deserted you. He hasn’t forgotten you. He hasn’t made a mistake. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows exactly what you need and where you need to be. 

  

THE TRUTH IS, GOD’S LIFE PLAN IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN MINE.

 

 

Faith is choosing & believing God’s dream for your life.

  • When God directs our paths, He sometimes leads us in ways that don’t make sense to us so we’re not always going to understand everything. If we try to reason out everything, we will experience struggle, confusion & misery — but there is a better way.

PROVERBS 3:5-6

Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.

 

This sounds so simple, yet too many people make the mistake of trying to figure everything out themselves. When we do, we can say with the psalmist,

I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, you are my God. My times are in Your hands.

PSALM 31:14-15

Don’t let anything hold you back. Don’t let anyone keep you from dreaming. The dreams God has given you are treasures worth living for. They are worth the price, I promise!

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