What God’s love is #17: Love is ever ready to believe the best
(1Co 13:7 AMP) Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
Love #17 from Rick Pina on Vimeo.
This is a big one. I have dealt with many people who consistently believe the worst of people. Love is always ready to believe the best, no matter what.
- This does not mean that God wants you to be gullible.
- It does not mean that the person walking in the influence of God’s love is under some type of mystical spell that makes them all naïve;
- that they are prone to believe a falsehood as the truth; or that they do not make the effort to investigate the truth.
- What is means is that a person walking in the love of God is disposed to give the benefit of the doubt to others;
- is ready to put the most positive slant on the information they receive about others;
- and tends to believe that others are acting upon good motives.
- Love produces this type of positive expectation because it rejoices in the happiness and goodness of others and refuses to believe the contrary except on irrefutable evidence.
To put it another way, love has faith in men.
- Love wants to believe that people are good and not evil.
- Love wants to believe the best and not he worst.
- I have met many people that have lost faith in people.
- They have been hurt so many times that they now refuse to allow others to get close to them and they expect the worst out of people.
- These types of people close themselves down towards others and build up walls of resentment, bitterness, and pain.
- Love refuses to allow the actions of a few to influence our actions towards the masses.
So:
1. Don’t allow yourself to expect the worst in people, just because some people did you wrong.
Have people mistreated me? Sure. Have some led me astray? Of course. But those are not grounds for me to taint my opinion of people as a whole. Love empowers us to forgive those that have hurt us in particular and to continue to expect the best out of people in general.
2. Don’t allow the actions of a few to influence your attitude towards the masses.
Have you been hurt in the past? Please don’t allow the hurt caused by a few to cause you to expect the worst of the rest of the world. There are people in this world that are here to bless you and others here for you to bless. If you have the wrong attitude you might miss both opportunities!
Winning the War Within – Part 8 (Change from the Inside-Out)
Two major points I want to make this week:
1. You can be IN CHRIST and still full of ‘dark stuff.’
2. If you give the WORD priority, it can wash you and change you from the inside out.
Purpose and Vision – Part 5
Two major points I want to make this week:
- You can’t do any of what we have taught this month if you don’t know who you are.
- You won’t know who you are until you know who Jesus is!
(Mat 16:13-19 KJV) When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Simon discerned Jesus’ true identity:
- Jesus asked who others identified Him to be
- Other misidentified Jesus to be either: John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or one of the prophets
- He then wanted to know is His disciples could properly identify Him
- The question was posed to all 12
- Only one (Simon) received the answer
- The answer came by revelation (not flesh and blood)
By identifying Jesus’ true identity, Simon found his own (Peter):
- You ID’d me, so let me now ID you
- Simon, You are Peter
Closing thoughts:
- When you find Jesus you are able to find yourself
- When you find yourself you will be able to discover your purpose
- You don’t come up with your purpose, you discover it
- When you discover your purpose you will receive incremental vision
- When you walk in accordance with God-given vision you will experience divine provision and favor
Purpose and Vision – Part IV
Two major points I want to make this week:
- All true vision will be tested for authenticity.
- Nothing happens until you announce it.
All true vision will be tested for authenticity:
- Life in Christ is not a cakewalk.
- Every person that was used mightily of God faced opposition.
- The devil only attacks those worth attacking!
Example: Paul
- Paul went through challenge after challenge, but the devil was not after Paul, the devil wanted to stop Paul’s assignment!
- Paul was charged with taking the gospel the Gentiles.
- The greater the assignment, the greater the attack!
- After describing some of the challenges he faced, Paul said, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12).
Nothing really happens until you announce it:
- Paul was living well until he announced the fact that he had changed sides.
- After Paul’s public declaration of what God wanted to do in his life, the life went haywire.
- It’s one thing to receive from God in your prayer closet. But it’s something else when you have the faith to declare what God is going to do in your life, before it happens.
- Taking God public crosses the faith line.
- When you take God public – at the risk of looking foolish – the Father honors your faith.
- When you take God public you become a target of the enemy!
Closing thoughts:
- If the vision came from God, the provision will come from God.
- If the vision came from God, the opposition will come from satan.
- Instead of getting discouraged by the opposition, get encouraged!
- Satanic opposition is proof that you are heading down the right road!
- What satan means to destroy you can actually help validate your assignment!
- The only way you can lose is if you quit!
Purpose and Vision – Part III
- Purpose is predetermined and fixed, vision is incremental and progressive.
- Vision is sight, birthed from insight, with the benefit of hindsight (progressive).
Example: Abraham
Abraham’s Purpose was fixed:
- God visits a 75yr. old man and tells him his purpose.
- The Lord was going to start a family through Abraham and through this family; ALL the families of the earth would be blessed.
- Blessed TO BE a Blessing!
- From the time Abraham received his purpose, to the time he died, the purpose never changed and he was continually in pursuit of it.
Abraham needed vision (insight) in order to accomplish the purpose:
- When Abraham couldn’t SEE it, the Lord had him look up to the stars and look down to the dust. Just like the number of stars and the grains of dust cannot be counted, that’s how many children would be in his lineage.
- Abraham had to SEE IT before he could BE IT.
- The Lord needed Abraham to SEE IT on the inside.
Don’t be afraid of using your imagination:
- Vision is birthed from anointed imagination.
- Free yourself to allow God to show you your future.
- Walk around in your future, see the people you are going to impact, shake their hands, touch them, see the change, and then come back and get ready to go there.
- Abraham received it ON THE INSIDE well before he ever saw it ON THE OUTSIDE.
A few nuggets in closing:
- Purpose will give birth to vision.
- If you allow yourself to imagine, with God involved in the process, He can show you your future. Your job then is to come back to the present and make plans to get there.
- Your plans will not experience Godly success unless they line up with God’s purpose.
- When God gives you vision for your future He is also confirming what He has already implanted IN you – He will never tell you to do something you can’t do! The goal then is the outworking of the internal.
Find, Follow, and Finish it! (Purpose and Vision Part 2)
My prayer for you is that you:
1. FIND your purpose.
2. FOLLOW your purpose.
3. FINISH your purupose.
… before you die! That is the definition of success in my eyes.
Enjoy:
Happy New Year – Purpose and Vision (Part 1)
First of all, I want to wish you and yours a Blessed and Happy New Year!
This month I am going to teach on Purpose and Vision. I pray you will be blessed by it.
Vision:
• Vision is more insight than it is sight.
• Vision is being able to see beyond where your eyes can look.
• Sight is common, vision is rare.
• Vision is foresight, birthed from insight, with the benefit of hindsight.
(Prov 29:18 NIV) Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.
• People with Vision don’t do everything.
• Their vision restrains them.
• Their vision keeps them focused.
• Their vision makes their life simple.
(1st Cor 6:12 NIV) “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
(1st Cor 6:12 MSG) Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.
Just because you CAN do something, it does not mean that you should. People with vision know what they should do and they focus their efforts therein. People without vision are people that fail to operate in discipline, because they lack to the direction to make the right decisions.