Subject: Ponder this message from Rick
Warren!
(REMEMBER HE WROTE
'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')
You will enjoy the new
insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now
having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book
sales. This is an absolutely incredible short
interview with Rick Warren,
'Purpose Driven Life '
author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren,
Rick said:
People ask me, What is
the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell,
life is preparation for eternity. We were not made
to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in
Heaven.
One day my heart is
going to stop, and that will be the end of my body
but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100
years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of
years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the
dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth
what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and
for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't
going to make sense.
Life is a series of
problems: Either you are in one now, you're just
coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go
into another one.
The reason for this is
that God is more interested in your character than
your comfort.
God is more interested
in making your life holy than He is in making your
life happy.
We can be reasonably
happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of
life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ
likeness.
This past year has been
the greatest year of my life but also the toughest,
with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that
life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark
time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and
forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life bein g
hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like
two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you
have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good
things are in your life, there is always something
bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad
things are in your life, there is always something
good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your
purposes, or you can focus on your problems.
If you focus on your
problems, you're going into self-centeredness,'which
is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the
easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus
off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly
that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of
thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay
or make it easy for her.
It has been very
difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her
character, given her a ministry of helping other
people, given her a testimony, drawn her cl oser to
Him and to people.
You have to learn to
deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes
learning to deal with the good is harder. For
instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the
book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly
very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of
notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.
I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for
your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God
what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety
and influence. He gave me two different passages
that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9
and Psalm 72
First, in spite of all
the money coming in, we would not change our
lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped
taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up
foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace
Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist t he
poor, care for the sick, and educate the next
generation.
Fourth, I added up all
that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I
started the church, and I gave it all back. It was
liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask
ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions?
Popularity?
Am I going to be driven
by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am
I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my
life)?
When I get up in the
morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God,
if I don't get anything else done today, I want to
know = You more and love You better. God didn't put
me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more
interested in what I am than what I do. That's why
we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE
GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments,
WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every
moment, THANK GOD.