Finish Strong With Fearless Faith

Finding God's Purpose #03

January 13, 2021 FinishStrong Season 1 Episode 3
Finish Strong With Fearless Faith
Finding God's Purpose #03
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Show Notes Transcript

Hosts Dan Wheeler, Terry Steen, and Brian Roland discuss God's purpose for our lives and how to find it! If you feel like you are looking for direction but not sure how to find it then this episode is for you!

 They will help you live your life with purpose, change someone’s life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Everyone starts the race... but only the Fearless Finish Strong!
 
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Dan Wheeler:

But you were driving along and you were getting a little sleepy. And I said, Terry, I can take over. And you gave me a quick direction and turn the wheel over to me. That was your first mistake. That was my first mistake, because I really, I didn't realize till later that there was one key turn that I didn't tell you about that was within just a couple of miles. But I was so tired that I just laid down went to sleep. And it's like, about an hour later, I'm just I wake up and I'm looking out the window, and I'm seeing these signs and their esteem cities that I have never heard of.

Unknown:

And I'm what I kind of jerk up I go, Dan, where are we? And

Dan Wheeler:

I said, Boy, I have no idea but I am making great time.

John Matarazzo:

Live your life with purpose, change someone's life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Welcome to finish strong, the podcast designed to help you discover your unique purpose and develop a plan to leave a powerful legacy. Today, Dan, Terry and Brian discuss God's purpose for your life and how following his roadmap will help you get to the right destination. Here's Dan Wheeler to start today's conversation.

Dan Wheeler:

So they were talking about finding your purpose, what is your purpose? And I'm going to quote Bertrand Russell, who was an atheist, he said, Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless. So apart from God, it's really meaningless to even consider having a purpose. We're going to talk about that today. I'm here with Brian and Terry. And really, I think that all of us have proved that out in our lives that when we've gotten away from God, or when we're trying to find purpose on our own guys, it just falls flat Troodos so true, I can't even imagine someone who doesn't even believe God exists. It's, it's hard enough when you believe in a God, but yet feel like you fall away. And then you start to wonder, I hope you'll stay with us because we're going to tell you how you can find your roadmap to a purpose driven purpose guided life. In a little bit later on, you're going to hear a humorous story about a road trip that Terry and I took in college, the middle of the night. And it ties in beautifully with finding your purpose and finding that direction. So there, there really are two schools of thought there's a humanistic view of life. And there's a Christian view of life, guys, a humanistic life says, I'm here to please me. You know, I maybe if I make enough money, I have enough success. That done I'll really that will be my purpose. And we know that's meaningless.

Terry Steen:

Unfortunately, though, that's kind of the draw, isn't it? our human nature tends to pull that way and pull that way. And so it's tough sometimes to fight that to really find the true purpose God has for us, you know, and it's to Terry because it's, you find yourself in competition with friends, or people that you've gone to school with in that, yeah. And like, hey, they're

Brian Roland:

getting ahead here where I thought what happened here, I fell behind, I gotta get another step above and get going. I'm missing something here when you're really not. But you put that in your own mindset that that you're falling behind, and, and you try to take control of it yourself.

Dan Wheeler:

In my role as a host on QVC. for 29 years, I worked with a lot of celebrities, a lot of very successful people, guys who were, you know, in the Hall of Fame had all the money you could ever want, and yet, they were unhappy people, they just didn't seem happy about anything. And I thought, wow, these guys can't be happy then what is it and you know, Solomon prove this all out when you read. The Book of Ecclesiastes is in the Bible. He really states what happens when you try to go your own way and find purpose in chapter two? Verse nine, I'm reading from the New International Version. He says, I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing that my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work. And this was the reward for all my labor. Yet, when I surveyed all that my hands have done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sight that always stood out to me chasing after the wind. You think you're going to grass something and there's nothing there. Right. And Brian, you know, you've been around a lot of stars and working in Hollywood and, and you see people well, how many people have jumped off the Hollywood sign and committed suicide because they didn't exactly

Unknown:

it didn't fulfill them? No, anyway, and I think I've mentioned it before. I know I have to that a partner of mine who just recently passed away in a business I had out here. He came from Hollywood, he was a producer and he was an actor and, and I told him what my dreams are to go to Hollywood and be a director and that and he told him right out, he goes, Brian, it's not it's just, it's the glitter is there but it's nothing behind it. It's all facade. And he's very true, because it is just facade and you see that? And you can see it knackers out here, too. How many you're getting out of it right now two are getting out of the business, because it is it's just false.

Dan Wheeler:

I mean, Terry, you were off to a great career as a screenwriter, I think at one point with the old ballgame. Well, I was gonna hit that way. And you guys I'm not even gonna dignify that with explaining the story cuz he just never forget it. Terry was, yeah, he was in cinematography class with me. And he wrote a script for the whole ballgame, let's just say wasn't quite ready for primetime. But you decided to go another way. It was it. Let's just say that might be well, it did one thing, it helped me determine what my purpose was. And we say, that's good. So you know, the humanistic, and maybe you're listening to this and you're thinking, Man, I have made good money. I've had success in my field. Maybe I have a little bit of fame, but I'm just not feeling fulfilled. That could be because you're living for yourself. Because humanistic humanism says, I'm here to please me, man is God myself is God. But that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what Christianity teaches. And by the way, we're not religious. We believe in Christianity. Religion is man's attempt to reach God. And we'd love to go to church, we love to worship God, but Christianity is God reaching down and saying, I love you, I died for you on the cross. And when you look at life from Christ's perspective, then your whole goal becomes to please God, and you want to serve God, and you want to please others. And you know, I heard an acronym one time for the word joy. And it's really putting your priorities in place. You know, Jesus first, others second, and then yourself last. But that's really the difference. Right? living for yourself or living for God? Yeah, yeah. Like there again, it goes against your human nature. And you know, it's even more incredible that what you just read in Ecclesiastes these because that is from Solomon. And if you know anything about Solomon, he had he was the richest guy in the world yet anything he wanted. It wasn't just some, some old some Joe, Sharon, next kind of thing. This is a guy that had 1000s of wives and all the money in the world. And he still, he still had

Unknown:

money.

Dan Wheeler:

So the point that's surprising, that's surprising, but he thought it was meaningless. Yeah, that's when he got to obviously he wrote this when he was away from God, because you know, he was very close to God early on. And in his later years, he kind of slipped away. And that's one of our key messages is not slipping away in your later years from hearing God's voice. Absolutely. Solomon concludes the whole book of Ecclesiastes, he's gone halfway through verse 13, and Ecclesiastes 12. He says, fear God. Well, he first he says, Now all this has been heard here is the conclusion of the matter. fear of God, keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil. So that's a little bit of our roadmap here, how you can go from a life with no purpose to one that is filled with purpose and stay with us, because later on, I'm going to give you a little practical tip on how you can discover your gifts. But, Terry, a lot of people don't have purpose. And there are some signs that they don't have purpose. Yeah, I think there's people that don't realize whether they have the purpose they're supposed to have or not, and whether God's blessing it or not blessing it. And I think there's some practical things that we can sit and look at. And I've listed a few here that maybe our listeners are beginning to wonder, man, am I walking in the purpose God has for me, I can confidently say that if you're blatantly living in sin, you're probably not walking in God's purpose. I can assure you you're not because the Bible tells us that it It talks frequently in Isaiah 59 in Romans one about the importance of living righteously. And then if you're lacking joy or excitement in your life, I mean, you can't have it every day. De there's things that come into our, our situations in life that get us down. But as a general rule, if you don't have joy and excitement to be living, I mean, Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, it tells us in Galatians 522, if you go and read that, and it lists the fruits of the Spirit, we have to have the Holy Spirit in our life. And if we do, then we will have that joy. So if you don't have joy, then the odds are that you're not living the purpose God has for you. Or if you don't experience fulfillment, you know, like you just read Dan, Ecclesiastes, these tells us that everything's meaningless. If you feel like everything's meaningless, and you don't have fulfilment, then you're not fulfilling God's purpose for your life. Or if your work so that someday you don't have to work if all you're doing is working to be able to retire. If all you're doing is working to not work anymore, then you're missing something. And I think that's what we discovered with fearless faith that we didn't want to just retire and enjoy what we've worked for. We wanted to keep going and finish strong, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you don't want to feel stuck. If you feel stuck in your life. If you feel like there's no way out, this isn't what I want, then obviously, you're not fulfilling God's purpose. And finally, direction. If you don't have direction in your life, and you feel like you're floundering, then you probably don't have purpose. Dan, do you remember that night, Thanksgiving weekend, you were going to come up to my house I lived in I was an eight hour drive. Kind of cold, late Thanksgiving, we had a lot to do. And we couldn't leave till evening. And we were basically driving through the night to go to my house for Thanksgiving. You remember that? I remember well, even though I think it was 4445 years ago. But you were driving along and you were getting a little sleepy. And I said, Terry, I can take over and you gave me a quick direction and turn the wheel over to me that was your first mistake. That was my first mistake. Because I really, I didn't realize till later that there was one key turn that I didn't tell you about that was within just a couple of miles. But I was so tired that I just laid down went to sleep. And it's like about an hour later, I'm just I wake up and I'm looking out the window and I'm seeing these signs. And they're listing cities that I have never heard of. And I'm like I kind of jerk up I go, Dan, where are we? And I remember I said, Boy, I have no idea. But I am making great time. And we had gone probably an hour an hour.

Unknown:

Yeah. out of the way.

Dan Wheeler:

Yeah, we added two, we now had a 10 hour to 11 hour trip. Yeah. And you know that sad. We laugh at that. But the sad part is there's people going through life like that right now. They don't know the direction they're going. They don't have their purpose. But they think they're making great time. Well, you know, we didn't have GPS back then. And Brian, the problem was, we didn't have a roadmap.

Unknown:

That's right, you have to have a roadmap and, and that Bible tells us about this too. And we were talking about this the other day. And Terry even said, he goes, you know that that that is the whole map right there. This tells it all, First Peter for 10, and 11. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength of God provides. So that an all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory, and the power forever and ever. Amen. And that's what it says. And you know, it's true. And when we're going through a process, to the roadmap with there's different ways that we achieve, where we want to go. And it has to be through different things like prayer, like reading your Bible, knowing your passions, knowing your abilities, and we want to talk a little bit about that, like in prayer, or reading your Bible. Psalms 119 105 tells us Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. So when we're when we're reading our Bible, we are searching and God is opening up things to us that we read he when whenever I read my Bible, I always pray beforehand and I go, Lord, let me see it with spiritualized. Let me hear your voice, your spiritual ears because the Bible is living and it's always something new to everybody individually because it's living and it it's appropriate to what you're going through and what times that you're in. If you use that to start your process, and then on your road, to the on the roadmap to where you, you are going to live your life, then you got to start by reading your Bible. And then you got to go. And you have to use your prayer which Dan, I think you have a story about this.

Dan Wheeler:

Yeah, prayer is so important. And you know, I've been trying lately to just have longer periods of uninterrupted prayer. And because when you do that, and when you are reading your Bible, and you're just focusing on the Lord, that's when you can really hear him clearly. But you have to kind of block everything out. But prayer matters. Prayer makes such a difference in James 516. It says, Therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. And I think part of the key to prayer is faith and believing that God is there he is listening, and he is communicating back to us. You know, something that I was reminded of was even David, you know, great, David, in some of the songs that he wrote, I wrote, Psalm 25 says, to show me your ways, teach me your pads. David was asking God for purpose for direction, even as the King of Israel through his prayer,

Unknown:

yeah, that's true. And you know, what we're calling the prayer. And then with reading your Bible, you got to know what your passions are. And over and Colossians 323, the Bible tells us, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. It's It's funny, because when you're trying to figure out your passions, and what you're going to do for the Lord, there's different ways you have to go about this. And I know that with me, I, when I first went to school, I was I wanted to be an optometrist, believe it or not, and I got there and going, I don't want to do this. I didn't want to do the sciences. So then I thought, I'll go I'll go into business like Terry, I took one class of economics, and I said, I'm out of here, this isn't gonna work. And while I was really stumbling around on what to do, as a professor there, Neil eskalene, who guys know, he took me aside, and we've talked about it because I really enjoyed doing radio at the time. And they're just starting a broadcasting major, they're in communications. And he led me in that direction. And once I got into that, I was making the Dean's list. It's like, Hey, what's going on? I loved what I was doing. I found my passion.

Dan Wheeler:

I always wondered what that felt like you might need to tell us about it. Well, I had a similar story to Brian. We both ended up in the same field. But I've got a very practical tip for people, Terry, you and I were roommates. It was halfway through our sophomore year at evangel. College. And I knew at the end of the semester, I had to declare a major because for the first year and a half, all's I took were general ed classes, and I had them all taken up. And I had received a letter from my home church and the whole letter, the typing was all messed up. You couldn't read anything, except at the bottom of the page. There was a verse and it was James one, five, and I read it and I'll read it to you. Now it says if any of you lack wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. I prayed. And I asked God, I said, God, I need your wisdom. And after my prayer, I just felt God directed me to take up two sheets of paper. And if you're wondering what your passions what your gifts are, do this take out two pieces of paper, draw a line down the middle, on one piece of paper, write at the headers, likes and dislikes. And on the other one strengths and weaknesses. I wrote out everything I liked doing everything I didn't like doing what I was good at what I wasn't good at it was so clearly communications, I love speaking I loved writing, I loved working at the radio station on campus. And that made it easy. And then I also got a Bible major, because I wanted to make sure that I was really knowing God's word. And here today with fearless faith, I'm able to use a lot of that. But you know, sometimes God gives us wisdom guys in very practical forms. Yeah, that's really neat. And, you know, it's it's really a combination of passions and abilities. You know, I hate it when I hear people say you can do anything you set your mind to. That is not true. We can all do anything, you know. Yeah. And there's, it's I've heard somebody say that God's purpose for you is where your gifts and your passions intersect a combination of your passions, a combination of your giftings that's where you'll find your progress. And by the way, I just want to mention though, I said that I was going to tell you the one secret for finding your roadmap. And that secret is realizing that you were made by God and for God. And when you realize that your roadmap becomes clear. You want to please God and you want to use your abilities to serve Him. But you know, Terry, you were talking the other day about something interesting. You were talking about how God's grace can also lead to God's power. Yeah, yeah. You know, so so many times we think about the grace of God, and we only think about it for our salvation. And it talks about that in Ephesians, two, but I ran across the verse in Second Corinthians 12, nine, and listen to what it says, it says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, I'd rather boast in my infirmities than the pop that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So Grace is not just our salvation, Grace is also the strength we get from God. So our power, our ability to do that purpose that he's given us, there might be someone listening today that thinks they know their purpose, but they're too afraid, they don't think they can do it. Well, God's grace, will give him the power to do it. And in Ephesians, 320, it tells us that it's more than we can imagine in court, we can do more than we can imagine, then we can imagine ourselves according to His power, so his power will let us fulfill that purpose that he's called us to. Yeah, there's two verses in Philippians. That really helped me keep my purpose and my goal in, in focus, and I think it's for all of us who want God's will in our lives. It's Philippians. 310 says, I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection. Now you think about that, and yeah, I'm in on that man the power to overcome death. That's great. But in the same verse, he also says, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, not too many people want to do that. Right. Oh, we might be in for some hard times, we might have to go through some suffering for the Lord, becoming like him in his death. And then down in verse 14, I love it. It says, but this one thing I do, forgetting or this is 13. This one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, and then verse 14, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus, guys, that's why we formed fearless faith ministries right there.

Unknown:

That was our goal. That's right now and you're absolutely right, and it's finishing strong. And that's why we titled this finish strong, because we've given so we've taken in so much throughout the years, and it's time to give that back. And knowing what our passions are, and how we can now mold that into what we're doing here with fearless faith has made all the difference in the world to move.

Dan Wheeler:

Yeah, absolutely. And it came to you too, once you find your passion. John Matarazzo is our producer. And he's a young man, he's 35. JOHN, has any of this connected with you? I mean, you've got a good career going in Christian television, and podcasting. does some of these things ring true with you?

John Matarazzo:

Absolutely. They do. I'm always looking for wisdom from guys that are that have found their purpose and have been walking in that for many years, because you're trailblazing for me. And so I if I can kind of get in your tailwind, then I know that I can go further because you guys have led the way. Well, we

Dan Wheeler:

appreciate you sharing your talents with us to help us produce this podcast for sure. And, you know, to sum this all up, guys, it really comes down to a life without God is an empty, unfulfilled life. But a life with God at the center is really an adventure lived on purpose, and with purpose each and every day. And you're working for things that have eternal value, let's face it, everything here on earth is going to burn up one day, that's my little dog Zoey in the background. I think she's excited about this too.

Unknown:

She gets up one day,

Dan Wheeler:

she gets excited just to go in the backyard look at squirrels but you know, working for things that have eternal value. There's so many things we work for, that just disappear, you know, money can have wings and leave you I've heard so many stories of people who made it all and last at all. fame is fleeting, you know, your reputation. That's really, really important to the ones you love and the ones closest to you. But as far as other people we don't live to please other people do it. Yeah, yeah. And

Unknown:

you can't you can't do that, because that's just false. It's a false narrative all the way out. And and you find that out and people find that out in you that there's nothing real there. You got to have substance and there's no substance there. You don't have a truenorth that way.

Dan Wheeler:

And it's neat that no matter we always have to be searching for purpose because God can shift us. The fearless faith is a perfect example. As we're getting a little bit older. we're shifting gears a little bit I know I am where I've been more in the financial business administrative fields. And doing this kind of thing, and it's just exciting to find our purpose and walk in it. There is nothing more rewarding than that. And this podcast is just part of it. You can join us on Facebook at ffm 60. You can join us on our YouTube channel, just put in fearless faith ministries, we have a website, www dot F faith.org. And by the way on YouTube, we have videos, three minute videos, they're very short, but they they can really

John Matarazzo:

help your focus on a lot of problems or situations in life. And we've got them all categorized. So john, our podcast, we hope people will give us ratings right on this podcast. Absolutely. Make sure that you give fearless faiths finishing strong podcast five stars, and you can write a review. And that helps more people find fearless face finishing strong podcast and so that if you're impacted by the things that are that these guys are talking about, make sure you share it with a friend. And then there'll be blessed too.

Dan Wheeler:

We appreciate you spending time with us today and know that we're going to be covering topics that are very important to you like setting your priorities, overcoming fear, motivation, all the things we face in life as we press on for that prize for the high calling of God. We want to finish strong. Thanks for joining us