The enemy would have you believe that you’re nothing special — that life is some combination of chance, circumstance, and heredity.  But God has so much more for you.  God has blessings, opportunities, promises, and a destiny that He has been planning to give you since He first decided to create you.  It’s like He said to the prophet Jeremiah,

“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you.  Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you” – Jeremiah 1:5

Each of us is unique.  Each of us is a gift.  Each of us is set apart and appointed.  Each of us is chosen.  Each of us has a destiny.  God identified you before you were born, He gifted you with exactly what you need to pursue the opportunities He is opening before you. He appointed you for a significant purpose. He selected you specifically because of who you are.  It is your God-given destiny to take your life to the next level, to accomplish something of meaning, to make this world a better place because you have been a part of it.

Now, the enemy would like us to believe that we are evil, corrupted, beyond repair, and that change is near to impossible.  But the good news is that this is not how God sees us.  God created us.  God knows us with all our strengths and weaknesses.  He sees all of our potential and the challenges that stand in our way.  God knows our history, our heredity, and our circumstances and still His plans for us are to bless us, to lift us up to new levels of joy, fulfillment, peace, and prosperity.  He sees everything that is happening in our lives and He specifically tailors blessings, opportunities, and promises for us so that we can come to enjoy everything that He has been preparing for us. He is constantly moving in ways seen and unseen to provide new and improved relationships, more accessible resources, better connections, greater opportunity, richer health, fuller knowledge, deeper wisdom, clearer vision, and ever-increasing levels of success.

To embrace our God-given destiny, we must believe and embrace the fact that God is good, He is a very persistent giver, and He has promised to bless us because He loves us.   We must refuse to believe the lies of the enemy that would tell us that God is distant, not concerned with our lives, or not invested in our success.  We must reject the voices that would say that we are trapped, entrenched, confirmed, or limited by our past, by our traditional ways of thinking, by our family history, by our heredity, or by our circumstances.  Because, as we step out in faith to engage with the reality of the goodness of Jesus Christ, our God, we will discover that His plans for us are better than we have even dreamed of, His ability to reach into our lives and lift us up to new levels of well-being and success is not limited, and His willingness to bless us is not constrained to just the few areas in our lives that we think about as “spiritual”, because His work with us is all-encompassing, reaching into every area and aspect of our lives to bless us, to lift us up, and to strengthen us so that we can accomplish great things.  God is ready to take your life to the next level.  Are you?

So, if the answers you are using don’t work, they aren’t God’s.

That’s what Jesus was saying when He said,

“I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE”  - John 14:6

He could have said, “I am the Lord, the Master, and the Teacher” or “I am the Highest Priest, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords.”  All of which certainly is true, but it wasn’t what mattered to Him.  What mattered to Jesus was letting us know that He always has the answers for us, He always wants to give us those answers, and His answers always work.  He is right here, right now, ready to save.

Salvation is not about someday, somewhere.  God’s answers aren’t for tomorrow and they weren’t intended for someone else.  God has answers for you right now.  He has been with you since He created you, and He knows you better than you even know yourself.  If you feel bad about stuff that you have done, if you have seen the damage that you caused to yourself or others, or problems that really are your fault — or worse, if you have been abused, repressed, or hurt by the people or circumstances of your life, do not be afraid.  God knows you.  He knows your history.  And He has been working behind the scenes to take care of you, to bless you, and to lift you up.  He has been spending every moment of every day of your entire life to save you.  That’s what matters to God.  Results are what matter to God.  And when He hasn’t been able to achieve His will for your life, when things haven’t turned out well for you and His blessings have been made of no effect in your life, He is frustrated, He is hurt, He is sad because He loves you — deeply, passionately, and completely.  He wants what is best for you in every situation and He will use everything He has to bless you.  That is His will.

An amazing fact about God being infinite is that infinite is infinitely divisible.  That means that God can give everything that He has to every person in creation, every moment of every day forever.  What God wants to do for us is beyond what we can even imagine.  He wants to give us everything that He is, and all that He has.  That’s what salvation is — receiving the free gifts that God wants to give us because He loves us.  So don’t get hung up on trying to deserve it.  Don’t think that you have to do anything to be worth God’s time.  Because you already matter completely 100% to God.  Asking God to think of you, spend time with you, or take care of you, is asking for something that God already promised to give you, has already been doing His best to give you, and is at the moment you ask already offering once again to give you.

God is a very persistent giver. We may turn Him down. We might not notice Him. We might be prevented from accepting what He offers.  It doesn’t matter why we haven’t received His will for our lives.  God is ready right now for you to reach out and take what He has prepared for you, what He wants to give you — His blessings, His success, His health, His strength, His victory, His answers.  It’s all yours if you want it, because you are a child of God, a unique and priceless original creation – and God is trying to give you everything that He has, and that’s everything.

God is ready to give you the answers you need.  He wants to show you the way to receive His blessings.  He is ready to discuss your history and set a new course that will bring your life to a whole new level. God is not afraid of the dark side of your life because He is the light of life.  There is no challenge to hard and no obstacle too big for God.  And no matter where you are coming from or what has happened in your life, He is working to bless you.

There is a story of a man who asked God why so many bad things happen in the world.  And God took him up into heaven and showed him a great warehouse, far larger than any we have here on earth.  God took him inside and showed him aisle upon aisle, row upon row, rack upon rack, miles and miles of every good thing the man had ever dreamed of.  The man was amazed and asked God why He hadn’t given this stuff when it was needed most.  At this God was saddened and pointed out to the man that every container had the same tag on it.  The man, who hadn’t noticed this, took a closer look and sure enough every box, bag, and jar had the same card dangling from a string, that simply read, “Not asked for.”

What are you asking God for today?  Could you be asking for more?  If you are asking for enough food to feed your family, its time to start believing for enough not just for your family but for another family as well.  If you are asking for a job, its time to start believing for a career.  If you are asking for the ability to put up with a health problem, its time to start believing for restoration to a healthy body.  If you are asking for the ability to pay back your debts, its time to start believing that God wants to pay you back double for everything that you have lost.  God is a very persistent giver.  No matter what you are asking, it’s time to take the limits off cooperating with God.  He is ready to give you the answers you need.  He is ready to take His relationship with you to the next level.  He is ready to be a part of the conversation of your life.  He is ready to provide not just everything you need, not just everything your heart desires, but more than you have ever dreamed of.  God is ready to give you everything that He has to give, and that is everything.  

So ask yourself, “how well do my answers work?”  Because God’s answers always work.