The Timing of Purpose

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 1 through 8, familiar passage of Scripture in the modern English version of the Scripture notice there these words, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. We're talking today from the subject, the timing of purpose, the timing of purpose, you may be seated. Yes, it is true that there is a time, a time for every purpose under heaven. Now, as you know, these words were written by Solomon, the man who was deemed to be the wisest man who ever lived. He wrote this, the book of Ecclesiastes, when he was around age 70. And that's when you have lived a bit of life and you have come to an understanding about some things. And I think that his great wisdom was probably due to some of the great foolishness that he had had in his younger years. The wisest man who ever lived, and yet if he were really wise, I meant we would wonder why in the world would you have 700 wives and 300 concubines or bedwinches. And yet he's the wisest man who ever lived. I meant for those of us who are in relationship, we understand it's a full-time job trying to keep one happy and satisfied and things worked out and getting up and checking to make sure that we're not dealing with attitude today. [laughter] And yet he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and he was deemed as one of the wisest people who ever lived. Now please understand Solomon is a king. And just you know, it's not always what it looks like. There's always a backstory. He's a king and when he married a woman, most of these were foreign women from other lands. He did that as a political alliance so that he could reach over to another nation and say, "Hey, excuse me. We've got to be friends because my wife is from your land." That gave him political alliance in various places around the world. In his world he was smart enough to do that. God had warned him against it because he said, "If you marry these foreign women that worship other gods, they will eventually turn you a heart away from the Lord." And sure enough, you did. I'm just telling you, "Wisdom alone is not enough." It is not enough. But what Solomon is telling us here in Ecclesiastes 3, he's talking to us about the air and flows of life. It's like the ocean that comes in and goes out, and you know it is the gravitational pull of the moon that causes the tide of the ocean to be controlled. He's letting us know life is not static. The only constant in life is change. So he's reminding us here that your life is not just going to be static. And I know that you would love to be able to just get it and set it and forget it, and don't need about it, touch it. But life is not only ebbs and flows, it's mountains and valleys and mountains and valleys. And you have some good days and you have some bad days. And you have some good days and you have challenging days. And you have days that you win and you have days that you learn. Every day and they seem to be highs and lows and highs and lows. And it keeps life from becoming boring and predictable. Because when you wake up in the morning, you don't really know what today is going to present. You might have a flat tire. Something could happen. You could wind up in an accident. This could happen. That could happen. And so he's just letting us know that sometimes that there have to be changes, things were not designed in this world to have permanence. So if it is temporal, the word temporal means subject to change. That's why you've got, anybody who's invested in the stock market, it's up and down. I mean, you've seen a parathy or a day, you've seen Bitcoin plummeting. The loss has been in a year. And it is up one day and it's down the next and life is not static. It is not dependable to where it's always the same. It is subject to change. And this is all that he's reminding us about is that life is not a static, predictable event. It's ups and downs. It's ebbs and flows. And sometimes you feel really close and other times. It's that you have a distance that happens. So it's this way one day and that way the next. And sometimes you have to get in the test of water to see what it is. And he's just letting us know that there is though, even with all of this flux and change in our world. Even with all of that, he says that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. That when God has marked your life for purpose, there's a time that He's already assigned. For that purpose to be fulfilled. So he's assuring us about the timing of purpose. And I love the words of Oswald Chambers here who said that I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. Purpose is not something that you decide. Purpose is something that you discover that God has already decided. God decides your purpose. Your purpose belongs to God, not me. Purpose belongs to God, not you. It's God's purpose. It's thy will be done. Thy kingdom come. So this is not something that you just wake up in the morning and say, "Yes, I want to do this." No, no, no, we have to choose what God has decided for us. And the beautiful thing about life is this. That life is a mosaic of things that have an ability to break and even in the brokenness of it. God finds beauty. I like to describe it as saying that we are beautifully broken. Because all of us have gone through various places and positions in life where we have been broken by something, but we're not just broken and left in ugliness, but we are broken and we are beautifully broken. I remember a number of years ago when one of my mentors, who's a spiritual father to me, died. And it was just a deeply sad memorial service. And I'm sitting in the service and I realized because I was wondering, you know, you think about when a person dies and they have a mantle and their mantle falls, who catches the mantle as it was with Elijah and Delisha. So I'm wondering who's going to catch the mantle? Do I have this mantle to some of my other spiritual brothers? Have they caught the mantle? Where's the mantle? And I'm sitting there and I really see like this mantle falling from my mentor, my spiritual father, but it was like glass and when it fell, it broke into a thousand pieces. And I realized that the mantle was not designed for one person. The mantle multiplied when it fell and broke. And so it was like each of us grabbed a shard of the glass and now what was on one man locked up in one mantle, God shattered it and it was beautifully broken so that all of us carried a piece of it. And as with a diamond, you look at it from a certain angle and there's a different facet. A diamond is a multi faceted piece of beauty. And you turn it from another angle and you see light hit it from a different angle and now you realize that it was beautifully broken. So I saw that that glass mantle as it were, as it shattered. It was beautifully broken and now in the lives of hundreds and ye thousands of people whom his life had touched. Now, carried a piece of that and refracted the beauty of the glory of the light and the wisdom and the touch and the influence of God in his life and so it ought to be with you so that when you die, that the impact of the lives that you have touched, the people that you have served, the people that that you have prayed for, the people that you've been kind to, the people that you have encouraged actually capture a shard of the mantle that you carry. And it multiplies. So that while you died, it multiplied because it's bigger than you. God's purpose in your life will live beyond you. It's bigger than you. And so I'm excited about that when I realized that God's purpose is beyond me. Solomon talked about the beauty of this life and what God does in a lot of verses here of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 11. Notice what it says here in the amplified version of the Scripture. He has made everything beautiful, not ugly, not ragged it, not ratchet. He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He's made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. You might have gone through sickness and you wonder, Lord, can I ever survive this? God will make everything beautiful in its time. He has also planted eternity, which is a sense of divine purpose in the human heart, a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy except God. That's another way of saying that there is a God shaped void inside the body. God shaped void inside of every man, inside of every woman and only God can fit it. He says, "And yet man cannot find out, comprehend or grasp what God has done, his overall plan from the beginning to the end. But what we do know is that we are beautifully broken and he has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. There's a time that some things will fall apart in your life and a mess will be made. God specializes in making beauty out of messes. My God. Yes, he does. Some of you all know that you were that mess that God put his glory on and beautified. And people would say, "You know you are mess, but God can put his glory on you and make something beautiful even out of a messy life. And the glory of God can be declared from something that has been messy in one period of a person's life." And I like to say here that the foremost meaningful words that could ever be spoken is that you make a difference. If somebody just looks at you and just say, "Hey, you make a difference." These are four of the most beautiful words that could ever be spoken to you. I want you to just turn to somebody and say, "Hey, you make a difference. You may just remind them of that. Just tell somebody, "Oh, no, no, no. You make a difference. It matters that you're here. It matters that you live. It matters that you came into my space today. It matters. You make a difference." And I will say this to you that whether you realize it or not, we are living in prophetic times. And you have to really be able to keep your spiritual watch on so that you know the timings of the Lord so that you don't miss the season of the grace that God begins to shift things in your life and in your favor. This is a time, trust me. This is a time to shift from doing good works to doing God works. And so I might say, "Well, what was the difference between a good work and a God work?" I'm glad you asked. A good work is a God work that God told somebody else to do. And now you try to do something because it was good for you to do it, but it was a God assignment for them to do it. Good works is doing nice things, pleasant things, good things that God didn't assign to you. And so it's time now to shift from doing just good works into God work, the very thing that you were born for. The thing that he told you to do, the thing that he assigned to your life to do, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. There are too many people that are distracting themselves with good work that are keeping them from giving their time and their energy and their efforts to the God work that God has called you to do. You just doing busy work, but God, when you do a God work, it is meaningful work. It is work that, well, destiny and gifts have come into alignment, one with another, and you really feel that I'm making, I'm in my groove right now. This is what I was born to do where you come alive. And the purposes of God thrive in your life. That's where we are. And so we are grateful to Him for just trusting us to be able to be different makers. Now, I want to give you four things here that are necessary, you know, for a person to feel fulfilled in their life. Number one, you have to have meaningful purpose, meaningful purpose where people feel fulfilled when they know why they wake up in the morning. I mean, why you wake up. You get to say, I get to do this. You know why you wake up. Because purpose does not require a platform. It simply requires alignment of your gifts and God's cold on your life. So it requires an alignment. It doesn't require a platform. It requires a conviction that God has called me to do this. So you have to ask yourself this question, who or what benefits because I exist? Who or what benefits because I exist? Ask yourself that question. Here's number two, authentic connection. Our lives have to have authentic connection where no one flourishes in isolation. You know, the problem in our culture today, people, they grow up and they leave their hometown and they go to places where they don't even have any family. Oftentimes where they don't have any friend and they are disconnected. So they don't have authentic connection. If you really think that all of the folks that you got on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and you know and Snapchat all of these, if you really honestly think that these are your friends, ask them all to send you $5. No, no, no. You will just discover that what you're calling a friend is really not a, not like that. And so, and not everybody who follows you follows you. And so you have to be able to come to a realization that this is really an illusion of connection that pacifies you in a place that still leaves you disconnected and isolated and feeling with feelings of anxiety and depression, which are prevading in our culture right now because people lack authentic connection. I meant to be in a place where your grandma can look at you and say, baby, how you doing? Some wrong with you, honey, how you sleep in it? How you sleep in it night? And they can look at you and they can just tell some things about you without you even having to tell them how things are going. They can look at your face and read your mail. You got to have people that are authentically connected to you, authentically connected to you. I remember my mother one time. She had never been a big woman, but she had lost her weight and she was feeling good about herself. She went home and her mama looked at her and she said, baby, she said, what's wrong with you? She said, something must be wrong. She said, you're not yourself. And so it was about she was able to read something that there's some stress and some pressure that you're dealing with in your life and you think that you can mask it on the outside, but mama's have a way of being able to read what's irritating you on the inside. The outside can be absolutely glorious, but they're able to probe and that's why you have to have authentic connections in your life because no one flourishes in isolation. And remember this, that fulfillment grows in the soil of being known. Fulfillment grows in the soil of being known, of being loved and by being needed by God, by family and by society or the community where God places you. These are the third thing in order to be fulfilled, growth and progress because stagnation suffocates the human spirit. You will not design to just get on one level and be stuck there the rest of the days of your life. You will design to grow and to progress. Whatever you start with, don't just stay stuck with that. You're designed to grow if you start it with a seed, grow it into a plant that'll produce fruit and have a whole lot of other seeds in it. You want to grow something, but stagnation suffocates the human spirit. People feel fulfilled when they are learning and when they are stretching and when they are becoming more than what they are. Fulfillment is so much less about where you are, but it's more about where you are growing, where you are growing, not where you're growing, where you're growing. They're people going all the time, but they're not growing. So you have to have growth and progress. Number four, there must be contribution and impact. We are wired to give, not just get. Contribution and impact. Fulfillment deepens when you see that your gift and that your time and that your your presence makes a difference wherever it is that you are. And what you pour into others is often what fills you. Whatever you pour into others is often what fills you. Because you see purpose gives direction. It gives direction. If you don't know your purpose, you are aimless in life. Connection gives belonging. Connection, it gives belonging. We have a need to belong. Growth gives momentum. Your life has to have momentum. And contribution gives meaning. What good is it to be moving and you not know why? Contribution gives meaning that you carry something that is meaningful. And if you're still grappling trying to figure out your purpose and why you're here, just begin with asking this question, how can I love God and others more? How can I love God and others more? That's the fulfillment of the law that Jesus gave us. You know, he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength, and the second commandment is liken to it that will show love your neighbor as you love your self. If you ever are confused about where to begin in purpose, ask yourself how do I love God and others more? Because God is love. And our ultimate overarching purpose is to love God and to love the brother in. Love humanity, to love them, to love them, to love them. And listen, we but be so much a better world. If we spent more time loving one another, then judging one another, then criticizing one another, then isolating ourselves from one another. We are built for community, community, community, community, and not just where everybody just looks just like you. Because you're going to be in for a great surprise, because the end of the book in Revelation says that men of every ethnos, that's not really just about ethnicity, it's every people group, every people group, sons and daughters, will be able to come together. God's kingdom is going to be a kingdom where the diversity of the beauty of God, my goodness, if you ever seen a mosaic, it's not all the same color. It is intentionally blended in beauty that way. And I don't know whether you ever seen the little Japanese con suji bowls that when they were making the pottery and it broke and then a crack came in it, and they used gold to feel the crack and what was broken becomes a work of beauty in the life. And every time that our life cracks and we become fractured, God will fill it with the divinity of of himself. He will feel what only God can feel. And the broken piece that's been sealed and fixed by God is more beautiful than the original unbroken piece. It becomes a work of art. Every scar on you, every scar on you is a testimony mark. Anybody, I would have some people that sometime that will say, "Yeah, you see this right here? That's when I had open-heart surgery." And it's that testimony that I survived. This almost took me out 20 years ago, but I'm still here. And I carried this as a badge here. And I was wondering like, "Honey, why don't you cover that up?" And she said, "I've been there to the bedside of individuals the day, the next day after they had had open-heart surgery. And I'm looking at staples and meet the steel pinch together. And I'm like, "Excuse me, could you cover that up for my comfort?" But they're like, "I live through this. I survived. God brought me through this." It is their way of saying, "Yeah, this is my lip now. And I want somebody to know that I went through something and something happened, but I survived. I'm still here." That's what I mean by being beautifully broken that we are actually, he makes everything beautiful in his time. And I'm just telling you, God will piece you back together, put you back together, hold you together, and what was something that was ugly and terrible in an accident, in a divorce, in a broken situation, in a firing, and somehow God let something where you were released from your job. And that thing became a pathway to you unleashing a creativity in your life. My goodness, I'm just trying to tell you, don't you ever put your destiny in the hands of another two-legged human being when, oh, my, my, my, when God has your best interests in him, and others try to cut you off and limit your life. God says, "I know the plans that I have for you. Don't ever let anybody else create your world for you. They will always create it too small." [APPLAUSE] I'm here to remind you of this that purpose is just like a central nail that holds everything together so that it works for fulfillment. In report, one time had one of his expensive machines that came and it broke on him. And he hired a guy that was a friend of his to come there and fix it. The man pulled the cover off of the machine and he put his screwdriver in and turned it made an adjustment to something and then closed it back up, pressed the button and everything worked fine. And he gave him a reform to bill for $10,000. And him reports that he-- excuse me. He's taking you less than five minutes to come here. And he said, and I've stood here and watched what you did. He said, you just stuck a screwdriver and then just turned to screw. And is this justified to hand me a bill for $10,000? He said, the screw-- that was five cents. He said, but knowing which screw to turn was $10,000. And it's amazing. It's amazing. I love this piece called For Want of a Nail. It was created by an anonymous author here. And notice what they said, For Want of a Nail a shoe was lost. For Want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For Want of a horse, a rider was lost. For Want of a rider, a battle was lost. For Want of a battle, the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. And just because you thought that the details didn't matter, I meant a nail because a nail somebody was careless with a nail that was lost, a horsehoe was lost. And because the shoe came off of the horse, then that horse now was crippled in its ability to carry its rider. So it lost a horse. It was a horsehoe that affected a leg, that affected a horse, that affected the rider, that affected the battle, that affected the war, that affected the kingdom. And sometimes you don't even understand that it is purpose, that is that nail that is holding your life together. So through your ups and your downs, through the ebbs and the flows that God says, I still got a purpose. Your purpose has not changed. Your purpose is that you was supposed to rise up and come back from everything that tried to push you down. Your purpose was for you to be resilient. So when people look at you, then they'll know that if you were able to get back up and to spring back, and if this didn't kill you, they can live too. Your life can speak and preach and prophesy, without your ever opening your mouth. All you have to do is spring back, and if you can sober up, and if you can get delivered from chasing everything that looks good, and if you can spring back and come back and repeal from bank ruptures, and if you, who didn't know how to manage money, can get some sense about you, my God, you are prophesying to somebody else. When they look at you, you are in your purpose. Your purpose, your purpose, will come and manifest in every phase of your life. And it's the nail that will hold all of it together. [APPLAUSE] It's amazing. Acts 17, 28, reminds us that in him we live, and we move, and we have our being or our becoming. And most of the time, we understand about living and moving, but we don't understand becoming, because becoming happens so gradually, that we assume that nothing is happening in the becoming process. Can you imagine when a caterpillar starts out in life, it has nothing on the inside of it that tells it that one day it's going to fly? And can you imagine when you're crawling around in the dirt one day and on the branch of a tree one day just crawling as a worm, something on the inside is already built for wings to sprout out, and people that knew you in elementary school and high school as a worm, because they couldn't see your wings. But it was in there, at all that goes-- needed was a situation to be able to encapsulate you, to put you in isolation, to make you feel like an oddball, like something was wrong with you, and he silenced you off from the naysayers and from the negative talk. And while he was doing all of that, something was sprouting and transforming on the inside of you, and when you break out of that cocoon, you are not the same thing that crawled in, you might have crawled in, but you go fly out. God will change your mold of transportation. I don't know who there is this for, but God says you've been crawling around in the dirt long enough. You get ready, you may not look like it, but God says, I'll show there. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up. Yes. It's not what it looks like. There is more to you than meets the eye. Take your seat. Let's go a little deeper. Because here's some good news. Jesus Christ is the great redeemer. I want you to understand this that God forgives you, and he gives you the time and the opportunity to change the narrative over your life. God forgives you, and he gives you time and opportunity to change the narrative over your life. That's the way that the God is that we serve. He forgives you, and then he gives you time and opportunity to change the narrative over your life. You can change the narrative over your life. You remember this woman that was a sinful woman. She worked in what was called the red light district. Yes, she was a prostitute. And yet when God's spies came in, the Israelites spies came in. She stood up for her whole household and risked her life, put her life on the line for those spies to hide them in her place. And she said, listen, if I do that for you, I want you to save everything that's in my place, me in my house, everything that's in my apartment. She had a house on the heel and the red light district and they said, how will we know that it's you? And she said, I'm going to hang a scarlet cord out of the window. It was really a type of the blood of Jesus. Whenever he sees the blood, he passes over. And so she hung that out. And she went, she changed the narrative over her life because God was forgiving her for the life of debauchery that she had living as a prostitute. And his glory came on her and he saw something usable and redemptive in the worm. He saw her wings. And though she was known as a prostitute, because she hid the spies and God brought salvation to her. And she put herself in the lineage of Jesus. If you discover that same prostitute is in the Hebrew 11 Hall of Fame of faith, she made it into the Hall of Fame. She was known for her sin, but she was remembered for her faith. She changed how she was remembered. And it doesn't matter how much you have messed up in the earlier years of your life, you can change how you are remembered. You have the power. He forgives you and gives you time and opportunity to rewrite the narrative of your life. Who, what young person has not made some stupid and foolish decisions while they were young? And you get older and you realize that I know them then what I know now I wouldn't have done that. But God is able to redeem you and bring you out of that and make something beautiful. And that's what I'm telling about that he makes all things beautiful in their time, starting out as a slut, as a prostitute, as a whore and he puts his transcendent glory on it and saves them and allows them to rewrite the narrative and she was known for her faith. She made it into the Hebrew Hall of Fame of faith. And so can you. So can you. So can you. Reminds me of Sir Alfred Noble. In most people don't realize about him. I was in Sweden a couple of years ago. I made it a point that I was going to go there to the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. And I'm standing there in Sweden and they have all of these beautiful things on these glass things that come by and I stood there and waited until I saw Dr. Martin of the King, Jr. come by with his Nobel Peace Prize. And I stood there until I saw Mahatma's Gandhi come by with his and all of these people in science and medicine and education and all of these different life-changing people. I wanted to see that and the only reason that we know about the Nobel Peace Prize is because that was the legacy work of Alfred Noble. But it didn't start that way. Alfred Noble's earlier years, he became rich because he invented TNT Dynamite. And one day while he was sitting having breakfast in his breakfast room, he opens the newspaper and reads the obituary. And his obituary is there. And they talked about all of the destruction that had happened all over the world by this man's invention of Dynamite. They erroneously thought that he had died, his brother had died. And when he saw his own obituary, he had a wake-up call and he said to himself, "This is not how I want to be remembered." And most people today don't even know that he invented Dynamite. But they do know about the Nobel Peace Prize because he served Alfred Nobel. He wanted to be remembered as one who promoted peace, not destruction. And I'm telling you, when God forgives you, he will give you time and opportunity to shift how you are remembered. How you are remembered. And it doesn't happen overnight, but it happens over time. That's why Galatians chapter 6 and verse 9 have noticed, "So let's not get tired of doing what's good at just the right time. We will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up, if we don't give up." And I'm telling you, even when you cannot see progress or feel movement, God is still working with purpose. God's still working for your purpose. He's still working for your purpose. Let me tell you this, when you're in that waiting process, there's a difference between quitting and being quiet. There's a difference between quitting and being quiet. Don't let people assume that just because you're quiet, that you're quit. When I get quiet, I'm working on something. I mean, you work in the silence and the intellectual work speak for you. So there's a difference between quitting and being quiet. Don't let people make the assumption and be correct that because you're quiet, that you have quit. No, no, no. God works in the silence and then brings out of the silence things that were just shouting in your dreams, things that were shouting in your matrix of creativity. That's only inside of you where you can't, you get in the bed at night and it's hard to turn it off. You can't even go to sleep barely because you've got so much that's happening in that matrix of creativity. It is shouting and you're quiet on the outside but on the inside. That's a party going on. It's amazing. And what feels like delay is being then misinterpreted as denial. But that's why he had to remind us, don't get tired of doing good. Don't get tired of it because God is faithful to His Word. He's faithful to His timing. He's faithful to intentions that He has for our life. And really what God is doing, He's simply aligning things in our own character, our temperament, our humility, our empathy, our skills. He's honing things with the purposes of God and then the timing. He sits there's certain things that don't work until the timing is right, to that timing is right. And that's what He's He's doing. And so He says, don't be discouraged in the midst of that. I remember some years ago, my wife and I were looking at a program and I ordered something off the television where you could hook up electrodes to your abdomen. And we were in the bed eating doughnuts and cookies. And I had mine on moderately and my wife had hers on full blast. I mean I'm like, how does She said, "How could she stand this?" And it was contracting our. abdominal muscles and I was, I bought the bait that you could just lay back and just get a six pack. And we were eating because it was working us out. I was doing what the commercial said. Lie, lie, a pants on fire. And then I was in the gym working trying to build the abs. And I did so many sit-ups and all of this at work, all of the balls and doing all of this kind of stuff. And I was deeply sore and I saw no results. And the bishop threw in the towel. I'm like, forget this. Buy your clothes bigger. I wish that I had known then what I know now because I would have known to stay faithful to the process. And that's what I said. When you don't know what you are becoming, the devil will get you to abandon ship because the devil knows that the wings are going to sprout while you're still crawling around in the dirt. Why are you looking for a new car when you got wings that are in you that I'm just not descended yet. If you knew what you were becoming in the process, you realized I'm not just wasting time. I am a work in progress. You may not be able to see my wings right now, but maybe they are on the inside here. And as soon as I get enough isolation, my wings are going to pressure, will press them out. Pressure for it to come out. And that's why you have to go in a cocoon. And you have to tune out the voices of the world. And it will allow you to be able to reinterpret things that we see in the acronyms of the world. So I want to give you a few little acroastics here. Fail is the first one, which means first attempt in learning. Can you imagine if a baby when they try to walk just one or two steps and fail down and then say, "Well, this is not for me." No, no, no. The fail is your first attempt in learning. My first attempt in learning. And look at end. Some people just get to the end of something. No, no, no. It's not at the end of the road. It's the bend in the road. Effort never dies. Don't give up. Keep on. Effort never dies. Effort never dies. And then hope. Look at hope. This is hold on. Pain ends. I know it's hurt. See, I wish I hadn't known that years ago because I stopped because the pain was there. And it had somebody just told me, "Listen, hold on. Pain ends." It felt like it wasn't going to never end. And I wasn't seeing the results. Hold on. Pain ends. And then know it's what fear is. This is everything in rise. The opposite of that is to fear everything in run. But this is face everything in rise. And then look at goal. Let's get out and learn. Get out and learn. Get out and learn. Because the only thing that's holding you, where you are, is something that you don't know. Get out and learn. Get out and learn. It takes time to move from being fragile to becoming agile. But I say this to you, when you're tempted to quit, stay at your post. Stay at your post. If you stay at your post, had I stayed at my post, I would have had my eight pack by now. Stay at your post. Be faithful where you are because God has been getting you ready for what He has prepared for you. He's getting you ready for what He has prepared for you. He's getting you ready for what's already prepared for you. He's getting you ready for what He's already prepared for you. And when you find your purpose, He's bringing things into alignment. It was a said, "My grandmother was a fabulous cook." And she took delight in watching people eat at her table. And I took delight in eating at her table. And it is amazing when God brings the alignment. And somebody loves the cook and then it just blesses them to watch people eat. When she was making these homemade yeast rolls, I'm not talking about something you got to bust out of a can of biscuits. No, no, no. She did her old fashioned way. The old fashioned way. And sending it out there and making a whole sheet of them. And I could eat as many as I could eat. And then I was a grown man in 28 inch waist. And I'm a tabaldaism in eating homemade yeast rolls. And I was in heaven. And she was in heaven providing what she was gifted to do. Or something comes alive in you in this fulfilled when you were gifted to create something, but then when somebody consumes it and they enjoy what you have created, that's a gift all in and of itself. And I'll tell you this. And give up when you're in the middle of something while you're waiting on your wings to come out. Because it's like the difference between skill and mastery and the bridge between skill and mastery is called time. The bridge between skill and mastery is called time. You can get some people that would go to culinary art school. And you're going to learn some wonderful things in culinary arts about being able to put things here and do this and the other. But you need to talk to somebody who's been in a restaurant business for a few years when there's chaos in the kitchen. And while you back there and some catches on fire and then you go to look to find this and somebody to install on some of the meat and some of the cheese. And you don't have all your ingredients and you try to keep over your inventory. See, they don't teach you about that in culinary art schools. They want to skill the other one as mastery. It takes time. It takes time. And that's what I'm telling you. That's a skill that's developed. Because they can shorten your learning curve and you need that because you got to put in some time. And once you master that thing, that's when your wings have sprouted. Just because you've got a skill. Skill knows what to say or how to say something. Such knows what to say. Skill knows how to say it. But wisdom knows when to say it or whether it ought to be said at all. Go wisdom said, "If you say this to her right now, she'll chop your head off." And wisdom will just say, "Just drop it." Wisdom will say, "If you hold your piece, you keep your piece." Wisdom knows when you ought to fight a battle or when you ought to abandon the mission. Abandon the mission. Wisdom already knows. Because listen, man, if your wife asks you, who was that lady that was at the party with that yellow top on? She's not asking for information. She's already launched a full investigation. Has enough evidence to convict you and puts you behind bars for years. And she's just testing the water to see whether you will own it before she murders you. So wisdom knows. Wisdom knows how to say it. Wisdom knows whether or not it ought to be said. And if it is to be said, it knows when to say it. And that's what I want you to know. Today we'll finish the next part of it next week. I'll leave you with this in the latter part of just talking about the difference between chronos, which deals with the chronology or a chronograph, and then chirous. Chronos measures minutes. Chirous measures meaning. These are totally different in the nature. Chronos deals with the time. It measures minutes the chirous measures meaning. You know how children in the car and they're asking the question, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And chronos is about quantity. Chirous is about quality and impact. Quality and impact. Chronos is about the time you spend. Chirous is about the time you seize. You have to seize a chirous moment. A chirous moment is a god time to be able to act in human affairs. It's a god window to be able to act in human affairs. Chirous is not about crisis. It's about opportunity and it is about God's favor in your life. It's only in there for a season. It's only for a season. Chronos is about all time but chirous is about this time. Chirous says right now is the time. You see, chronos is always asking what time is it? Are we there yet? Chirous says on your mark, get set, go. Chirous says now is the time. And let me just tell you there's some things about chirous. Kyra. God is a God moment. It is the time that God has reserved for himself to act in human affairs. So when God gives you a chiroch's moment, there's a sense of urgency that will rise up. And God will say, "Get up today, go now and put a beard in on the land today." He'll say, "Go, go that the house. I've got this reserved for you today. They might have turned your application down before. But if you go today, if you're a pilot of the loan today, go now. Move now." Chiroch says, "Right now is the moment because God has opened the window." And there are sometimes that you have bad or strange relationship with a child or with a spouse or with a parent or with a sibling or with a coworker or with a neighbor. And you've talked to them and you still have your differences and things. I've not been able to be worked out. But when you get a chiroch's moment, a child will come to you and they'll ask you a question and it will always seem to be at an inopportune time. But when you are spiritually discerning, you have to recognize God is opening this window and giving me an opportunity. And I've got God's favor on me right at this moment. That's a chiroch's moment to say that if I have this conversation now, God has brought them to me and their hearts are open. And now this is the time for me to deal with it. I can talk to them now. They're rational. They're calm. I'm rational. I'm calm. This is a chiroch's moment. It won't be there forever. If you tell them, "Baby, come back. Let me finish that." You've got to be able to sense when there is a chiroch's moment. Because when they've walked into your bedroom, when they've walked in to say, "I want to talk to you about something." You have to put down everything that you're doing. Stop what you're doing because you sense this is a chiroch's moment. And when there's a chiroch's moment, there's an urgency that has to come into you. I remember when my wife was growing up and we had a young man that was staying with us. My parents were out of town and as soon as my mother got back in town, all of a sudden she noticed a chiroch's moment. And she said, "I don't know about this young man. Get him out of this house now. He must go. Not another night can he stay here." We didn't know she didn't know anything about him. We didn't know anything about him. You know, just a few weeks later, that young man was found dead in a hotel room. Mama had an intuition about a chiroch's moment. That was an urgency that rose up on the inside of her to say something has got to be done and it must be done now. You'll be surprised how many people miss God's divine timing when God has opened a portal from heaven. And he says, "I'm giving you right now a chiroch's moment. When you have a chiroch's moment, what will have taken weeks and months and years in a chiroch's moment?" It's the nail that unravels everything when you shit that one. It's the thing that causes the other marble to break off. And all of a sudden you've been hitting it and hitting it. But in the chiroch's moment, God says, "Strike now. Go now. Speak now. Stand up now. Now is the time. Seize this moment." Because the chronus sees the moment. But the chiroch's seizes the moment. It says, "Now is the time. Go right now." And I want to show you one of the clearest examples of a chiroch's moment in Scripture in Romans chapter 13 and verse 11 through 13. Notice this. Another reason for right living is this. You know how late it is. Time is running out. Wake up for the coming of the Lord is nearer now than when we first believed. And then notice this. The night is far gone. That means that darkness has been prevailing. And the day of his return will soon be here. So quit. And I'm just telling you, we're living in the last days now. That's why we're seeing such craziness in the news and craziness in our government and craziness in different territories around the world and flux in the stock market. So quit the evil deeds of darkness and put on the armor of right living as we who live in the daylight should be decent and true in everything you do so that you can approve your behavior. Don't spend your time in wild parties and getting drunk. Oh my God. Somebody's here in the Holy Ghost or in adultery and lust or fighting or jealousy. This is a chiroch's word. He's saying this moment in this moment. He's saying, "Now is the time. Now is the time. Now is the time. Today is the day of salvation." He says, "Right now is a chiroch's moment. We are living in the last days. We are closer than we have ever been. There is such gross darkness that is still the earth. So many demonic spirits that have been unleashed. But this is a time of birthing. And whenever there's a time of birthing for things in the realm of the spirit, there comes a murdering spirit to rise up and to snuff out that which is the gift of God that you carry in the womb of your spirit. And the demons are going to come out and they're going to try everything that they can to be able to kill your ambition, to kill your motivation, to kill your drive. It's coming with stuff that you can see to discourage you based on what you see. That's why the just shall walk my faith and not by sight. This is your time. I'm just telling you, we are in a chiroch's moment. It takes a spiritually discerning church, a spiritually discerning people of God to be able to realize I know what time it is in the spirit that somehow when the chiroch's moment arises, I know that I've got to run like I've never run before. I know that the hour is late. I realize that if we don't get them saved now, we are in trouble. They're in danger because the darkness is creeping in on us. And we are in a chiroch's moment. I've just here to remind you today that the days are evil. The days are evil. The days are evil. And he must shorten the time. There's no flesh be seen. And he said even the very elective God would be to see if it were possible. But God has us as the sons of Isaacar. The sons of Isaacar who were deserters of the signs of the time and what know what Israel ought to do. They were able to sense the chiroch's moments of God. Every opportunity that God is opening to you. Every time and season of favor, where the favor of God is on you. And when you go now, you get in the game and you just hot. Everything that leaves your hand is going in the basket. When you're in that moment, you've been waiting and now God says I'm sending the wind to your sale. Now this is a chiroch's moment. People that you've been praying for for years. All of a sudden now here, now they get delivered. Now they get set free. Now they sober up. Now they have a, that they take drugs and they get sick to their stomach and start throwing up. Now, now we are stepping into a new chiroch season right now. And God's people have to be diserning to be able to recognize that this is a God opportunity. That window of opportunity will not be open forever. When you get a chiroch's moment, that moment can pass. You have to see it and seize it. The chiroch's seasons the moment. It doesn't just see it. It sees the moment says now is the time and it says I've got to move in this now. It's like I got to run now. I got a house on fire because I realize that my days are coming down. My days are numbered. That's why he said number your days. Teach us Lord to number our days so that we might apply our hearts to wisdom because you're in a chiroch season right now. And the time is counting down.