There is a word among the Mohammedan people and in the Islam religion, “kismet,” which means a destiny. They believe anything that happens to them is written in the stars, it’s their kismet, and they have a fatalistic acceptance of things that come. I don’t believe in fatalism, but I believe in the sovereignty of God.
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What them shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Romans 8:28–34.
God had a plan; He foreknew us. “Whom He foreknew, them also He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” That shows the sovereignty of God, but does not in any way violate the fact that He gives to every man the invitation to walk with Him or reject Him. Yet He knew those who would accept Him, and He had a plan for them that would eventually lead them into complete conformity to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who we are going to be like.
To wonder, “What does God have for me? What’s His will for me? Do I go to school? do I quit? do I change jobs? etc.,” is missing the idea. He’ll guide you, but that guidance is incidental to the main objective that God has in mind: to bring you into complete conformity to His Son. Whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Chapter eight of Romans talks about God’s plan for us, those who are called according to His purpose, and how everything works together for good. You may say, “I don’t understand—if I’m called according to His purpose, why is this happening to me?” Everything is working together for good. You weren’t given these trials to accept them but to overcome them. You weren’t given that old flesh to down you, but that by faith you would crucify it and believe God for a new creation to come forth according to God’s purpose.
“Here I am saddled with all of these old problems of the flesh. I have to struggle, struggle, struggle!” God’s plan for you, is to become conformed to the image of His Son—to come up into that divine nature, into the full excellence of the glory of God. That is what He has provided; that’s what He has given; that’s what is yours. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You weren’t given these problems to handicap you; you were given them so that you could throw them off.
We have a sense of destiny, an awareness and an acceptance of the promises of the Lord. If we say we are servants of the Lord, born and brought forth in this generation for a purpose, it may sound egotistical—but because of the promises God has given us, it is healthy to realize that God has chosen us to believe; He intends for us to walk in what He has provided, in this end time.
Paul wrote, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were anathema (accursed) from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Romans 9:1–3.
He continues about being foreordained, fore-chosen, and predestined. This was familiar thinking to the Jewish people, because they thought that they were God’s chosen people. Then he disputes the idea that the Jewish people are God’s Chosen people upon whom all the promises have to be fulfilled. He is taking of the Jew and Gentile, the bond and free, and making of the two, one new man, having broken down the middle wall of partition which was between them. (Ephesians 2:14).
It isn’t whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, but that you are one whom God has picked. He breaks down the barriers and brings them together into one new man—a new creation. Don’t think like an old creation, think like a new one. I don’t want to think like an Old Testament Jew. I don’t want to think like a Gentile. I want to think like the Son of God—the new creation that’s coming forth from all of them.
Many of you are still expecting most of the end-time prophecies to come to pass on a natural level in Israel. Jesus said, … Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Luke 21:24. That’s true, but giving a city in Palestine back to the Jewish people isn’t God’s main purpose; that was just a small sign that He gave.
In the days to come, the people in Jerusalem will face death and the grave as surely as anyone else who does not know Christ. What advantage do the Jewish people have who are following the way of atheism and agnosticism?
They are lost. What did Peter say to the Jews? “There is no other name given among men whereby you must be saved—except the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 4:12). Can they reject it, blaspheme it, and still on an individual basis find their salvation just because they have Jewish lineage? What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. Romans 3:1, 2.
The only advantage the Jew had was that they had the word of God before anyone else. But the issue is not, who had it first; it is who has it now and what they are walking in? To whom much is given, much will be required and there is no such thing as the dealings of God being upon any one nationality. Everyone is responsible to God for himself. We can’t receive a word like we’re receiving and not walk in it, for if our light turns into darkness, woe be unto us what God will require of us. Truth is a responsibility.
… it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. Romans 9:8. The children of promise are reckoned for a seed, not the children of the flesh. John the Baptist said to the Jew, “Don’t say, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; God is able of these stones to raise up the seed of Abraham.” We are dealing with God’s great plan and maneuverings, not fatalism. In Luke 14, they that were bidden to the feast were not worthy, so they were rejected and cast into outer darkness. The lame and the halt and the blind are called—God’s house is going to be full—and on them that great plan and purpose and promise begins to rest, and God starts working something out in their lives.
A SENSE OF DESTINY
I have a sense of destiny that is not based upon who I am as a human (as far as my attributes or abilities are concerned), but I know God chose me to walk in promises and prophecies, in the fulfillment of many things, and I know He has chosen you.
Our problem is not just the negative side of rejecting the restrictions and limitations that are coming against us. There is a positive side that says, “We are going to be the children of promise.” This is where it is all resting, and it requires more than a vague sense of destiny: it requires a sense of divine appointment resting upon you, an urgency for you to walk in what God chose you to walk in.
It’s not so much that we choose this walk and then begin to battle all the restrictions and limitations, but that we sense that God chose us for this walk. Our faith is greater if we are not as concerned with our faithfulness as we are concerned with His faithfulness, and that we reach into something that is an electrifying faith rather than just being aware of the opposition that God has allowed.
God wants you to lift up your head and look away from the things besetting you, and see for a moment the glorious rays of sun coming through the clouds. He is saying, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. I have chosen you.”
You may think, “But that word was to Christ.” Yes, and it’s to the Christ that is coming forth in us. Christ is coming forth in us, so we can rise out of the depth of circumstances, out of the oppression of afflictions, the stench of limitation in our thinking and in every part of us; not just to battle them, but to dare to believe for more. God chose us to choose Him, to believe Him, to walk with Him in His victory, to manifest His presence, and to house His glory. When we begin to believe that positive side, the negative side begins to dwindle.
Do you believe that God put you here and that you have a place to fill? Then you must do what He called you to do. It goes beyond any sense of personal accomplishment or meaning to your existence; you are here as God’s representative to show forth His victory, to manifest His presence, to grow into a glorious manifestation of Christ in His many-member Body.
We need to have that positive picture to help us. Don’t be confused, don’t be worried. God is leading and directing us, and He intends for us to find some secrets, not just find a way to give us enough wisdom to be better businessmen than those in the world; that isn’t what God is after. He wants to make us the miracle of the age, to bring forth His glory. We should have faith in the destiny we’re to fill.
Sometimes as the years pass, people get bogged down, but every defeat that a child of God experiences is invalid, because of the victory of Jesus Christ. We put too much emphasis upon little individual victories when we have THE victory. God wants you to stand up and proclaim, “I’m a child of victory. God raised me up to manifest that victory.”
Have violence in your spirit. March around your Jericho with faith; don’t draw back, shout those walls down. God knew they were there when He gave you that territory; He knew all the problems when He brought you into the walk. Just believe. God says, “I’ve given it to you wherever the sole of your foot treads.” (Joshua 1:3).
“I tried to put my foot on that mountain and somebody threw me off of it.” You have to move forward with faith and God will give you that mountain. The victory of Jesus belongs to us. Refuse to be discouraged by the appearance of things. We look at a circumstance and say, “It’s not changing.” But believe God; believe in the destiny that He has brought you forth for.
For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac—for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou will say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? Romans 9:9–24.
It is in this chapter, verse 28, that the promise is given, for the Lord will execute his word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short. (The King James version says, “cutting it short in righteousness.”) God is going to finish this thing up and suddenly He’s going to cut it short.
Do these verses disturb you? He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. In eternity some will be showing forth the mercy of God, who, before they found Christ, committed more sins than maybe millions of people before. You say, “It isn’t fair that some people should have sinned so much yet come forth and show the grace and mercy of God forever, and others sinned little and are worse off. To the froward He will show Himself froward (Psalm 18:26). God resists people who live with a good moral code and don’t budge from it, but God keeps blessing those who have been weak, who have slipped and fallen a thousand times and said, “Lord, forgive me, “and whose hands reached out to show mercy to everyone they could. He said, Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Matthew 5:7.
God has a way of thinking about things that you do not have. He takes those who have blasphemed Him and turns them into saints who will die for Him. He called us; we’re the “vessels He afore prepared unto glory.” The hand of the potter takes the clay and makes two kinds of vessels, one to honor and one to dishonor. One is a beautiful cup to put on the table from which wine is served to guests; the other is a vessel of dishonor for refuse. God has a way of making both kinds.
We need a greater awareness of what it means for the Spirit of God to set us in the Body, to anoint us and to set before us promises, and to say “Do My will.” Let’s not question it. It’s not that we are better or more deserving than anyone else in the world; He’s showing mercy on us. As long as God is giving mercy, take it. When He says, “I’ve chosen you, I’ve picked you,” don’t ask, “How can it be? I’m not worthy.” Of course you’re not worthy. It is the sovereign moving of God that reaches down and moves upon people, choosing them.
We have to have a new awareness that we’re really chosen of the Lord. The disciples had it. The Lord called them, yet somehow in the early days they forgot that. All the time it seemed to be such a matter of decision, of making their consecration to God. He kept dealing with them and they kept opening their hearts to Him more and more, until they almost got the feeling that Christ was teaching all of the disciples so that they would voluntarily accept His teaching and choose to follow Him. The disciples were taken aback when Jesus said, Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: John 15:16. That shook them, because they thought they had made the big choice: “Now we’re going to go out in all the world and win everybody to the Lord.”
As great and wonderful as discipleship is with all of its demands, that can carry a person only so far. When he hits a lot of snags, he begins to reconsider: “I chose to go out and do this, but maybe I was hasty. Maybe I should have weighed it a little more carefully.” If it were our choosing, we could waver and fail. When He puts the finger on you and says, “Now I choose you,” say, “Thank You, Lord; I choose to be chosen.” From that time on, the call and the cost of discipleship are fulfilled through rising in the Spirit by the grace of God to fulfill the demands of the Lord.
Denying yourself is not some noble thing you decide to do; you’re doing it because Christ decided that you had to decide that was the way you were to serve Him. Those were the conditions. When Christ puts you into this walk and says, “It will cost you everything,” don’t feel that someone ought to pin a medal on you because you begin giving of your money and labors. Those ideas didn’t start in you; God is planting them in your heart. God is the One who keeps nudging, who is leading you in your giving, in your dedication, and in your work. All you are doing is saying “Yes,” every time God reveals His plan for you. He is calling you, choosing you, prophesying over you, ministering over you, and what are you doing? You are saying, “Yes, yes, yes, yes”—but it didn’t start in you, it started with God; and that’s what makes it valid and lasting!
If this whole thing had started with us it would wither and die, because we face so much opposition along the way. But it didn’t start with us. It started with the One who said, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.” That’s what God is saying to us right now: “I chose you—and I’m sending you forth and you’re going to bear fruit. Your fruit will remain because this is My plan; this is My sovereign will. This is the way it’s going to be because I decided it. Rise up and face all of these things that are given to you to overcome.”
We didn’t invent the Word, God gave it; and He gave it to us to publish.
Doth not the Lord set before thee days in which He saith, “Thou shalt press in, thou shalt be bold; thou shalt take what the Lord setteth before thee.” But is it because the Lord desires to be chosen of thee? Is it because the Lord desires that thou shalt press in or it shall not be done? Nay, that thou shalt think rather this: thou art bidden to press in because the Lord hath chosen you, because He has laid His hand upon you.
Thou art the people that the Lord hath raised up. Thou art the people that the Lord hath called out. Thou art the people that the Lord hath set in the Body and when He exhorteth thee to press in, it is because He has chosen thee to press in. When He saith unto thee, “Possess the land,” it is because He hath chosen thee to possess the land. When He saith, “Behold the promises that are before thee,” that thou should claim them, it is because the Lord hath ordained that thou shalt be the people that shall claim the promises of the Lord and glorify the Lord by the fulfillments thereof.
Thou art a people chosen, beloved, and raised up for the Lord. Thou shalt not say, “I am unworthy,” for the Lord shall take the foolish thing to confound the wise. Who art thou to rise and say, “Behold, I am too foolish for the Lord to confound the wise”? Behold, the Lord hath picked the weak things to confound the mighty and thou shalt not say, “Behold, I am a weak thing.” Thou shalt not discredit the Lord thy God. If the Lord hath chosen thee in thy weakness to confound the mighty, thou shalt rise up in the name of the Lord and glorify God and press in.
Yea, even the jawbone of an ass can slay a thousand Philistines. Thou shalt believe the Lord, that the Lord is able to take the weak thing to confound the mighty. Let it not be within thee that there shall be a moment’s hesitancy within thee. Press in to that which the Lord setteth before thee. Amen.
The Lord put us in our present circumstances, and intended they should be impossible to overcome until He gave us a word and then we would be able to do it. Nothing befalls us but what God is faithful in it—and if He has permitted it to happen to a people whom He redeemed out of the hand of the enemy, who no longer are under the dominion of darkness but in the kingdom of God’s dear Son, and He gives us exhortations and prophecies to go in and possess it, then He has done it for one reason: He is to be glorified in our rising up in the name of the Lord and doing it. He is going to be glorified. God wants it that way.
He can send fire from heaven, but He doesn’t mind if we build a trench and pour twelve barrels of water on the sacrifice first, so that it is proven to be of God. We’ll come into the presence of the Lord dripping wet and let the fire fall. God intended it to be that way. Something in my heart says, “Don’t be discouraged because its been difficult.” We learn and we break something loose, and we walk in it. Let the weak arise and say, “I’m strong.”