Keep My Life Aligned With My Purpose

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. And we've been in this series called Uphill Habits. And the idea of Uphill Habits, I love it because anything worth achieving is work, right? Nothing comes easy in life.

And there's some spiritual habits we can implement, but they're going to be hard. So we have these Uphill Habits. So most people have Uphill Hopes, but Downhill Habits, if you're following your notes. Most people have Uphill Hopes, but Downhill Habits. Another way of saying it, we are what we repeatedly do.

We are what we repeatedly do. I think Aristotle said that, or they contributed to Aristotle. We're not for sure who made that statement. But we are what we repeatedly do. We become those things that we repeat in our life.

Well, another way of saying it is we form habits, and habits form us, right? Who we are today is a result of many habits that we formed in our life over a period of times. And it kind of defines who we are and where we're going and how we're operating in life. And today, we've been going through this series for the last few weeks. And today, we want to enter this in again.

Again, you know, we need to implement these Uphill Habits. Here's our theme verse here in the message paraphrase. I love how the message kind of lines this out, kind of makes it in simple language for a lot of people to understand, especially new believers. And it says this, fix your attention on God. Put your focus on God, and you'll be changed from the inside out.

Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Meaning, figure out what he wants, because what he wants is good for you. In fact, that's the next part. Unlike the culture around you, always drag you down to its level of immaturity, because that's what it's trying to do. It's immature.

It's not working. It just doesn't. That's why so many people are hopeless and without purpose and all these things, because they're putting it in the wrong place. But God brings the best out of you and develops well-formed maturity in you. So in week one, we talked about first things first, making things first in our life, putting God first, putting his things first, giving the first of our year.

That's why we do 21 days of fasting. We're in week three. We're entering in week three of fasting. Hey, look, some of you have fallen off the wagon. That's okay.

Jump back on and do it for the next week. If you haven't entered yet, there's an opportunity to do it now. Enter into it. There's all kinds of different fasting. It's not just food.

It can be anything, you know, that's stealing your time from God. And give that time to God. And we believe in that. And we believe the first of your week. That's why we come on Sunday morning.

I challenge everybody. Sunday morning, make this year, the first of your week, a time where you will worship God. That you'll be here. You'll celebrate the goodness of God together with fellow believers and giving that week. That's why the early Christians moved it from Saturday to Sunday because they wanted to start their week off.

First fruits, celebrating God on Sunday, the first day of the week. And then, you know, given your day, the first 15 minutes of your day, just 15 minutes of worship, five minutes of worship, five minutes of prayer, five minutes of Bible reading. That's a good start. That's a good start. If you can't do 15, do 10.

If you can't do 10, do five. And just make him first in your life. It's not just financially. It's in every area of your life. It's a heart thing.

That's why Jesus says, Pharisees, you give your tithes and you give all this, but you're doing it because you want people to look at you. But I'm telling you, if you really loved God, if you really loved me, you would do more. You would do it all. It would be every area of your life. That's what I expect.

That's what I want. That's what I yearn for is that you be fully devoted to me. And we do that through first things first. And then last week, I got a lot of good response from this one is controlling our thought life. The way we think determines who we are.

Whatever somebody said about you or whatever you thought about yourself, that's all a lie because it's your thoughts. And we need to change our thought process. And we gave you some practical stuff. And you can go back to the sermon on our website and pull that up and listen to what we talked about in our thought life. Today, I want to talk about habit three.

And I think this is even every week. I know I say this is so important, but this is so important. And that's keep my life aligned with my purpose. You need to keep your life aligned with your purpose because you have a purpose. Amen.

What do I mean by aligning? I think of a car, you know, how it's out of alignment. And when you drive it around, how many have ever had an out of aligned car? I mean, I've probably driven out of aligned cars because I couldn't afford to align it. And I was riding around, you know, as a teenager, you know, and it's just not it's not a pleasant ride.

It's up and down all over the place. And and the longer you ride it, the more things fall out. Right. Fall apart. The car starts deteriorating.

It starts getting getting out of whack. And a lot of times our lives are like that. Right. And if they're not aligned with the reason we exist, the reason we're here on this earth, then it can be a mess. And we can lose out.

We can be out of focus. Things will be all over the place. How many of you have ever been to a chiropractor? Oh, yeah. Wow.

We got a lot of bad backs in here. Right. My back got pulled out a few years ago and and I'd never experienced anything like it. I couldn't do anything for about a year. My back was just so whacked.

And I went to a chiropractor and I find it interesting that the way they adjust your back like it's it's places that you don't even think you need to adjust like, oh, I'm hurting over here. Well, let me pop your neck. No, no, no. It's over here. No, no, it's right here.

But they'll just do that. And then all of a sudden, whoa, that feels better, you know, or or they'll pop your leg and then your neck's better or whatever it is. I don't know how that works. I don't know the science behind it, but I come out there feeling like a million bucks. I'm like, whoa, I can hop.

I mean, I had a terrible back and I came out and my back was completely in place in alignment. And sometimes the places that we think we're supposed to correct aren't necessarily the things that we should correct. Right. Because really what it comes down to is being a spiritual thing. He'll change you from the inside out.

We think we need to change the outside, but it's actually the inside. It starts with the spiritual. Because we aren't physical beings with temporary spiritual things happening inside of us, right? We're spiritual beings with temporary physical bodies. So it starts with the spiritual.

And if you assess yourself and you look deep inside yourself, there is something that longs for more than just the physical. So it takes it. That's what we're talking about. These these uphill habits and aligning ourselves with the reason we exist. Why?

Why do we want to do that? Because you do have a purpose. You have a purpose. And we all want purpose. Why?

Because we were designed for purpose. We were designed for something. Maybe you walked in here today and you thought you walked through life not believing you or anything. Maybe it's something your mom said or your dad said or your grandfather or grandmother. Maybe it was an uncle or a friend or whatever it might have been.

You you have something in your life. You've never thought much about yourself and you don't see yourself as purpose. You know this person. I think that nothing was happening. I don't know about this people who used to be in my life.

But can I say this today? Can I straighten that up right now and say that God has designed you in such a unique way that you have a purpose? He has a purpose for you. I don't care your educational level. I don't care what you look like.

I don't care what your attitude. I don't care about any of that. And God certainly doesn't care because He has a purpose for you. He uniquely made you. You are not just a dot in this world.

You are not just some person in a multitude. That God kind of looks over. He knows you. He made you. You are unique.

You are wonderfully made. Look what Scripture says here in Psalm 139, 16. And I read this. I've read this a million times. And every time I go back to it, it really hits me.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Meaning He had a story written for your life. He knew you. He knew that you were going to make that mistake. He knew you were going to be in the position you are now.

He knew that a long time ago. And He's written a book about it. He's written it. And He has a plan for you. Ephesians 2, 10 says we are God's worksmanship.

Workmanship. You know what that means? That means your artwork. Some versions say a work of art. It was an old jars of clay song.

You see the art in me. God, you see the art in me. See the art in me. See the art in yourself. Because God made you a specific way.

You're His workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus to do what? Good works. Which God prepared in advance for us to do. He prepared us to do something greater than ourselves.

These good works. And if you are aligned with your purpose and doing what He's called you to do, it gives real meaning to your life. Because we can go every which way we want to. People are trying to find meaning and they're doing a lot of good things. But unless it's aligned with God and His purposes and His mission and His plan for the entire world, it can be meaningless.

So He created you specifically for something. Because if you're not working for eternal service, it's just stuff that's fading away. Nothing saddens me more. Nothing saddens me more as a pastor than seeing people without purpose. Without direction.

Even believers. Even believers. They haven't tapped into their purpose. They haven't tapped into it. And that's why we as a church, we do everything we can to provide the tools in order for you to walk in your purpose.

To identify who you are. You're gifting. And how to walk in your purpose. Second thing is, why do we need to align our lives? Because there's competition for your time and attention.

Did you know that? There's a competition for time and attention. Whether we see it or not, your purpose is in competition. And we have things in this world that demand our time and attention, right? And what do we do?

What is our response? What is our reaction? We do more. We spend more. We fit more time into a small slot.

And we're just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And we pride ourselves on being go, go, go, go. I'm so busy. I'm busy. I'm busy.

I'm busy. I do it myself. I find myself. I've had to sometimes stop myself from saying, oh yeah, I'm just busy. Because we almost pride ourselves.

We want people to know we're busy. Because if they think we're busy, then we're important, right? But we're in competition. And our purpose and who we're supposed to be in Christ is in competition with time and other attention. And those things that are in competition with your time and attention only care about one thing.

What's in your wallet? And what's, what's, they're trying to grab those things. They're trying to, it's material things that they want. And we, we gravitate to those things. As spiritual beings, we gravitate to the wrong, we think that's going to find us hope.

And that's going to help us find purpose. If I just get this better job, if I get this new car, maybe that'll make me feel better. I know I feel better sometimes when I go out and buy a new pair of shoes or something like, well, I feel a little better. But you know how long that lasts, it lasts maybe a day or a week or what have you. And then it's gone.

Things are in competition. And we, and the world and, and the competition that your purpose is against, all they care about is, they're not concerned about your soul. They're not concerned about the very reason you exist. They're only concerned about you thinking that you need more. You need more material things.

You need more, you need more, you need more. Ecclesiastes says this, Solomon, very, if you know anything about the wisdom of Solomon, he says it's better one handful of tranquility or peace, if you want to say it like that, than two handfuls of toil and chasing after the wind. And so many people are chasing after the wind and they're coming up empty. I want one handful blessed. I want one handful that's focused on God and his purposes for me.

And another reason is because time is short. Following your notes, write that in. Time is short. This is so important. Time is short.

Yesterday, you're a little older. Today, you're a little closer to death, right? Every day, we are getting closer to eternity. Huh? And we have this short space in our life with just a small time period.

We're lucky we'll live 90 years. The average is kind of going up. That's good. Maybe health is better. I don't know what it is, but, you know, that we might have.

But 90 years, that's it? That's it? So it's significantly important that we understand that we are living in a short period of time. And I firmly believe this, guys, that we are living in the last days. We are living in the last days.

And we need to be concerned about what we're doing and who we're reaching and how we're living and how we're aligning our lives and how we're living for a purpose. And stop focusing on all the things that don't bring us anything. Because it's only going to come through living the way God designed you to live and living for a purpose he intended you to live. And there's no time to live casual or who cares, you know. We've got these who cares attitudes.

Who cares? I'm just going to live life. I'm going to live life. I'm going to live life. And I love those, you know, those masks that we wear.

Oh, life is over. I'm just going to live. I'm going to live. And they're miserable inside because they're not really living. And I was there.

I was there at one point in my life. I knew God, but I didn't live for my purpose, you know. And I was missing out. And there's so much more. Time is short.

James says it like this. I love how he says this. Now, listen, you who say today and tomorrow we will go to this city or that city. That sounds like a lot of us, right? We're going to go.

I'm going to go here. I'm going to go there. Here's my bucket list. Here's this and that. Surfers, they talk about, I'm going to go to Puerto Rico.

I'm going to go, you know, to Hawaii. And we're talking about that. And that's all we're kind of focused on, you know. So we're going here and going there. We're going to this city.

Spend a year here. Oh, I'm going to take care of business here. I'm going to make money here. And we're talking about all those things. Why?

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. You might be dead tomorrow. Wow. And that's what I love how James gets so hard on that. He says, what is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. It means you're here and you're gone. And instead you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this. Or that. So, it's okay to do this or that, but are we focused on the Lord's will for our lives?

His purposes for our lives? What does He have for us? And after, think about it, you know, a hundred years or two hundred years or three hundred years down the road. I mean, think about the people who've lived. I mean, we know a few people two hundred years ago, right?

But most people, you know, they may have left a legacy. But sometimes that legacy fades away. I mean, life is short. And the things we live for in this world, yes, we all want to leave a legacy. It's wonderful to leave a legacy for our family, and that's important.

But are we leaving a legacy for God? Because the short amount of time we have compared to eternity, it's just, it's night and day. If we live for eternity, that's the uphill habit. God wants. We'll give us something more, and I'll get to that in a minute.

So, changing our lives, it sounds like an overwhelming thing to change everything, to change our lives. But changing our lives begins one day at a time. Did you know that? You gotta start off one day making the decision. Like last week, it was about our thought process.

Take, it's one day at a time. When I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna change my thoughts. I'm gonna think differently today. Today, we need to just make that decision. I am I am going to master this habit of living and lining my life up with the purposes that God has for me.

I'm gonna make that decision today. So, here's how you're gonna do it. Here's some practical advice. First of all, we gotta decide what is important. What is important?

What is important among all the things that you fill your life with? What is most important? What is it? Many of our lives are not defined by important. They're defined by urgent, right?

We're urgency. The urgency of this, an urgency of that. I just don't, you know, it is an urgency. And that's, that's how we do our day-to-day. We miss out on what's important.

I heard this joke about a guy who went to Super Bowl. I feel like it's appropriate to tell Super Bowl jokes since we're close to Super Bowl, right? And this guy goes to Super Bowl and, and he has this extra seat and another guy's looking over at him. He's like, you got an extra seat there. What's to do with that extra seat?

He says, he says, oh, well, that was my, my wife's seat. He's like, wow, your wife's seat? Why is your wife not here? He says, oh, she passed away. She passed away.

He's like, oh, okay, okay. Um, um, uh, and then he thought about it for a minute. He says, why, why, why didn't he give that? He asked, why didn't you give that to your, your family member, you know, or somebody like that? I mean, I mean, that's expensive seat, you know, two thousands of dollars for a seat.

And he says, I can't do that. He said, why? He said, because they're all at the funeral. I mean, that's, that's, but, but isn't, isn't that life though? That's the point is that's horrible, right?

Yes. Yeah. That's the point I'm making in the same way. We kind of treat God like that. We try to treat our families like that.

And what's important is, well, we got to decide what's important. And Paul understood this very well. Paul had everything guys. Look, Paul was the who's a who back when he was Saul of Tarsus and he was among the Sanhedrin and they knew him and he was very well educated. He had money.

He had, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. And, and, you know, Pharisees were those people that everybody looked up to, right? I mean, they were, and, and we know Pharisees as the, as the people that Jesus got onto. But in that day, the Pharisees were the Pharisees and I want to be a Pharisee. Why can't I be a Pharisee?

You know, we redefine that term. But in that day, he was that he had everything. He had wealth. He had fame. Saul of Tarsus.

But once he met Jesus, once he met him on the road to Damascus, as he was on his way to martyr Christians, to take Christians out, Jesus appears and says, why are you persecuting me, Saul? Why are you persecuting me? And his life was changed. It was completely changing. He said this to the Philippians church because he was preaching exactly what I'm sharing with you today.

He says, but whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost it, it all, everything. I've lost all things. And I considered him rubbish. I considered him garbage that I may gain Christ.

That's, that's how passionate he was. I just could imagine him just sharing that and the passion he had. And that surpassing greatness. I love that word surpassing greatness. See, that's the uphill habit that we have to work towards because it doesn't seem rational that if we align our lives with God rather than the things of this world, that there is a surpassing greatness.

If I give up all for the greatness of Jesus. Really? A surpassing greatness. He talks about a surpassing greatness. As he was thinking about that, he said, I'm sure Paul was like, I wrapped myself around all these things before.

I wrapped myself around these, this fame and this education that I had and, and being in the who's who. And I had all, and all of that was wrong thinking because that wasn't my purpose. That wasn't my identity. Now I know. Now I know.

Now I know. Now I know. And I urge you, Philippian church, the church of Philippi, I urge you to consider Christ because if you consider him, there's a surpassing greatness. Look, my heart as a pastor for you is to, to experience the surpassing greatness. There's a greatness beyond the things of this world.

So the only way to really know is to go all in. God's asking us to go on and take the plunge, take the plunge. You want surpassing greatness? Go all the way with Christ. Don't go halfway.

It's not just, I know that, you know, there's those people that have, I know Jesus level and I'll go to church as much as I possibly can. There's those people, but they're not experiencing surpassing greatness. And then there are those who, God, this is worship and I'm all in. I sacrifice it all. Everything's yours, Lord.

I'm all in. I give it all. I give it all. Number two, next thing we should do is give calendar time to the important things. Put it in your calendar because our calendars fill up so quickly.

We need to put calendar time to those things. If you value something, you've got to give calendar time to it. You've got to put it on your calendar. If your marriage is important, you put it on your calendar. If your kids are important, you put it on your calendar.

Anything you put it on your calendar, it's a value to you. So we need to figure out the things that are important and then put them, put calendar time to them. Psalm 90 says this in verse 12, the living Bible translation says, teach us to number our days. Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are and help us to spend them as we should. So don't put, don't focus your calendar on the urgent, focus your calendar on the things that really matter, the things that really matter.

I love how John Maxwell says it, one of the premier leaders in Christian and secular community. He says he has this thing called the rule of five, the rule of five, and he does the same five things. He tries to accomplish the same five things every day. And his example is, he says it like this, he says it's like taking an axe to a tree. If you go out with an axe and there's a big tree there and you're hacking at that tree and you're just trying to get it down and you're working real hard because of the urgencies and I gotta get it done, what's it gonna do?

It's gonna wear you out. But it's just really just working on a few things, walking out with an axe, hack, hack, I'm done today, hack, hack. And over a period of time, you hack that tree down. The rule of five, he says, he focuses on five things and his example was his five things were, first of all, to pray, to give God his time. That's every day I pray and I give that time, that first period of my day to God.

The second one was to study. Study the Word of God. And his words, because you guys are smart people and I need to study because I have to teach you and I feel the same way. We gotta study as pastors. He says, study.

He says, spend time with my family. That's the third thing. I made a decision to do everything. I love the fourth thing. He says, his fourth thing is to make a difference in someone's life every day.

That I'm gonna go out to make a difference in someone's life every day. I wanna change someone's life. I wanna be part of steering someone's life every day. And then the fifth thing is, he says, I wanna take care of myself. Those are his five things every day.

Maybe we should do that. And I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna make a list of five things. We all should do that as a church. Amen?

Just put down our five things. And then the next thing is, make a time for renewal. Make a time for renewal. You know, we don't make time for rest, do we? We don't rest.

One of the most broken commandments in the Bible is the Sabbath. Because we're so busy, we don't have a day of rest. And Sabbath is just a term. It doesn't have to be Sunday. I realize that many of you work on Sunday and you got things to do on Sunday, but you need to set aside a time.

Whether it's Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, I don't care what it is. Take some time to rest. You need to rest. You need to rest. The principle of the Sabbath, 2 Corinthians 4.

16 says, Therefore, do not lose heart. Though the outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. So you need that renewal. That renewal every day because outwardly you may be getting older. Outwardly you may be losing what you had once when you were young physically.

Maybe mentally you're losing that, but you can be renewed spiritually and you need that time of rest. And then you need to make time for relationships. Put people in your life. It's important to have the right. We're going to talk a little bit about that next week.

In fact, February 10th, we're launching our small groups. Amen? Yeah, we got our February 10th. We got those coming up. You need to get in a small group if you're not in one.

We've got a number of them. We were talking last week about some of the groups we're forming. And I'm super excited about those groups. And we take time off the first year because we're focused on fasting and prayer and things like that. But we launched those small groups so we can get together and we once again can eat and enjoy each other and have the right relationships and grow together.

It's super, super, super important for us to be around people who are like-minded to help us grow, to help us mature. And we need to make time for relationships. That's very, very, very important. And then we need to make time for reward. Make time for reward.

What do I mean by that? Make time for reward. Do some things that will bring heavenly reward. Think about those things. Not earthly reward, heavenly reward.

One day you're going to stand before God. Did you know that? All of us are going to stand before God. And he's going to ask you, first of all, how much did you love me? And secondly, what did you do for me?

Because he has tremendous reward for you in heaven. Eternal reward. Purpose. He designed you for a purpose. What did you do to make an impact on the world I sent you to reach?

We're all ministers of Jesus Christ. Amen? We do this together. God's called us with unique purpose and unique identity. Ecclesiastes 4.

14 says this, I have seen all the things that are done under the sun. Solomon witnessed everything under the sun. Absolutely everything. He had money. He had women.

He had castles. He had people bowing at his feet. He had fame, fortune, everything you could think of. And he says this, all of that was meaningless. It was just chasing after the wind.

Chasing after the wind. Live to make an impact. And then number three, eliminate the non-essentials. Eliminate the non-essentials. Do a not-to-do list.

Look at your life and say, okay, we're just going to make a decision not to do this. And I was reflecting on this myself. And even with our church, there's a lot of things that I could have done on my to-do list when we were early into church. And we probably could have been a lot further along as a church in some areas of our church. But I made a decision not to do it.

Because I wanted time with my family. And I wanted time to be healthy. And to grow as a Christian myself. Because I'm always growing. And I could have filled my slate with opportunities.

Speaking engagements. And work. And all these things that ministry demands from a pastor of a church. I could have done all those things. But I know that what's most important.

And I made a not-to-do list. This is what I'm not going to neglect. I'm not going to neglect my wife. I'm not going to neglect my family. And most importantly, I'm not going to neglect God for work.

Because He's why I do this. Because I reflect back on that day where I gave my life to Jesus. And I was worthless. I wasn't anybody. I wasn't worthy.

And I'm going to set. And I'm going to eliminate the non-essentials from my life. Hebrews 12.1 says, Let us throw off everything that hinders us. The sin that so easily entangles us, right?

We definitely want to get that sin. But there's also those things that hinder us, you know? All that stuff in our life that hinders us. And let us run with perseverance the race mark before us. So we want to eliminate the non-essentials so we can run this race well.

And then fourthly and lastly, I want to take a regular inventory of my life. Regularly take inventory. Look at your life. Look at this short life and realize, you know, I've only got this much time. This much time.

This much time. And I shared this one time with many years ago with the church and with a youth ministry I was a part of. And I stole it from Francis Chan. He has these great practical examples on stage. And he had this rope that went across stage.

And he put a little piece of tape on the end of it. And I wish I had done that today just as an example. And he kind of shared. He says, we have this long rope here. Let's let that represent eternity.

And then we have this little piece of tape here at the end. And we work our entire lives. Like a big portion of that little red is like, work, work, work, achieve, do, go. So that we can have even a little. A little smaller piece of just a few years of retirement.

And that's our life. And we live for that and we have all of this. And none of this reflects that. The good news is that's there. And it's good.

And it's waiting for you. But it's determined by how we live now. So we need to take an inventory of ourselves, an inventory of our lives and determine, determine, are we aligned with God? Are we working for a purpose that we were intended to live for? Because it's exceedingly greater than all the things this world could offer us.

And I can preach it. I can preach it. I can preach it. But some people will not receive it. It's like Pharaoh.

I was watching Moses yesterday. And Moses is the Prince of Egypt cartoon, you know? Me and my kids were watching that. And I was just watching that part where Moses was like, Pharaoh, if you just listen to me, this wouldn't happen. Well, I don't want to because I want to rule.

I want my own life. I want to do it my way. And that's how we live life. And we get offended and we get frustrated because we want to do it our way. But God's got something more, more for us.

And we need what He has. And we need to pursue what He has for us. We need to do it. We need to do it. Let that break those things off your life, the sin that so easily entangles us.

And take an inventory of our lives. Psalm 39, 4, 5 says this, Lord, remind me how breathed my time on earth will be. Just remind me, Lord. This isn't it. Remind me that my days are numbered and that my life is fleeing away.

My life is no longer than the width of my hand. That's it. My entire lifetime is just a moment to me. Human existence is but a breath. And some of you today need to get your lives back on track because exceedingly and abundantly more does He want to do in your life.

Take an inventory. Look at your life. Get back to the reason. Get back to the reason you exist, that you're on this planet. And that's what God wants for you.

Because this uphill habit, this purpose that God designed for, you need it more than you think you need it. You need it. You desperately need it. Lord, I hunger and thirst. What the deer pants for the water.

So my soul longs for you. That's what God wants for you. Heads bowed, no eyes closed. I just want to pray for a moment. But God, let us take this word that you've given us seriously and apply it to our lives.

Get real. This place now, stir us, Lord, acts of service and good. But most importantly, stir us to be defined by you and not what the world tells us. It says we should go too. So God, I'm praying over this church right now that I want so badly as a pastor to see people be life changers, to be environment changers, to be world changers, God.

And I believe that you're going to do that through the people here. But it starts with this habit. So I pray over this church. I pray over everybody here. In that same spirit, with all heads bowed, no eyes closed, because some of you need to take an inventory of your soul.

Because life is short. Life is short. And don't make the assumption that I have plenty of time to get my life aligned with God. Don't make that assumption because as scripture says, you're not promised tomorrow. And today is the day of victory.

Today you can have victory. And you don't need to be a member of a church. You don't need to be a member of this church. You don't even have to take the next step. You don't even have to go to lunch.

You just need to know God. That's what he wants. He wants to help you know who you are. And maybe you walked away from God. Maybe you once were following him and you took the path away from him and you're ready to get back.

Or maybe you're somebody who's never given your life the Christ. Maybe that's you today. And you need to know him. Today is the day. Today is the day.

If that's you today, if you would just, if you just make that decision by just gently slipping up your hand, I'm not going to embarrass you. Just say, I'm in God. I'm in God. I'm tired of doing it my way. I'm tired of doing it.

Is there anyone else? Let this be your day. This is your day of victory. Pray this with me. Father, in the name of Jesus, I align my life with you today.

Come and cover my sin. Make me new. For you are victory and you have defined me. Today, my heart, my life, I surrender all to you today.