Last week we begin a series called principle of the path.  Last week’s message is so foundational for everything else in this series that I really encourage you to go out to the website, or to pick up a CD on the information table, if you weren’t here last week.

Here’s a quick review.  We said in the principal of the path direction determines destination.  Direction, not hopes and dreams, not your prayers, not how good of a person you are, determines your destination. If you packed all your shorts and sunscreen and got on I-94 and went West, you would never get to Florida, no matter how much you pray, and no matter how much you trust God, and no matter how much you read your Bible,, because direction determines destination.

We know the principle of the path is true when we’re driving or when were hiking.  But in other areas of our lives, like finances, our marriages, our romance, our moral standards, our entertainment standards, our health, in every other area in life there seems to be this huge disconnect. We desire to go here, but we get on a path and go there, and when we get there, we say, “Oh God, I thought you loved me, and how did you let this happen to me, and why am I here?” And God and all your friends say, “Because that’s the path you chose,” because direction determines your destination, not your intentions.

So we talked a lot about that last week, and we said that there is this huge disconnect between what we do and where we think we’re going. In our culture, we hear that the path doesn’t matter, as long as your intentions are right, you’re going to somehow end up at a good place, but you don’t.

So, the question that I want to answer today is, “How do you know which path to be on, because nobody wants to wake up in their 30s and wish that they had started on a different path in their 20s.” Nobody wants to wake up in their 50s, and wish they’d taken a different path in their 30s. But you only get to be in your 20s once.  Nobody wants to end up in their 60’s and wish they had started down a different path when they were 30. Life is short; you don’t have any time to waste. The last thing we need to do is complicate our life by being on the wrong path and going in the wrong direction.

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Let’s begin by taking a little survey. How many of you, like me, sometimes have trouble with directions. If you get have trouble with directions, and maybe get lost a lot, will you raise your hand with me. If you’re with a spouse right now, one of you probably has their hand raised and the other one doesn’t, because God often times pairs us with our counterpart. I have a direction deficiency, but my wife doesn’t. If you’re dating, you need to ask the question are you lost or not lost because I don’t believe God would put to lost people together. . . I don’t think?

Me, I get lost in Crossroads Mall. I have a backwards direction gene in me, because I will walk into a store and I will walk back out and I’ll think that I am walking out in the same direction that I was going  when I went in, but it doesn’t happen that way. I mean, I’ll swear that I’m going in the right direction, but then I see the stores that I’ve already seen, and I’ll say to myself, wow, that’s really weird, I’ve never seen a mall with two J.C. Penny’s stores in the same mall. It’s true! I get lost in the mall.

Now, I want all of you who don’t get lost, or don’t get lost very easily, that those of us who do get lost easily – we don’t do it on purpose. I think that you think that we just don’t pay attention. But we try. We really try, but we’re just not very good at it.

I feel at home in the woods, because I can read a compass. I feel good on the road with a map in front of me because I can read a map and know where I’m going, but ask me to rely on my internal road map and compass is not a safe thing for me.

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This morning we are going to wrap up our series “You Don’t Have What It Takes.” This morning we are going to look at the future. 

When everything in my life was going great, I had a great job, I was making good money, I was well known in my profession and widely respected, and it was about that time when I began to hear God’s call for me to enter full time ministry. And so, I began to pray about that.  And I’ll never forget that day, because I was in my room praying when my whole room filled up with something like smoke, kinda like a cloud and God spoke out of the cloud and said, “Adam, you’re supposed to go.”  Just kidding.  There was no cloud.  There was no smoke.  I mean, some of you like all that mystical stuff.  “WOoo-ooo, he’s a man of God.  I mean, he gets a cloud in the room.”  NO, that didn’t happen.  No cloud.  No audible voice, but I did clearly hear God speak to my heart, and He said, Adam, I want you to leave where you are to go to where I want you to be,” and I did that very thing.  I left where I was and moved to where God wanted me to be. 

Becoming who God created us to be will always require us to leave where we are.  Whenever God wants to use your life in a great way, He always says, “Leave”.  We don’t have what it takes where we are. God always calls us to go somewhere else, so that he can bless us. Our key scripture is found in Genesis 12 and we’ll start reading in verse 1

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By Calvin Maxwell

How many of you, at some point in your life have heard a statement similar to

this–”Salvation is a free gift offered through Jesus Christ, there is nothing you can do to

earn it, and it doesn’t cost you anything”? Or “If you accept Jesus as your savior you will

get eternal life and will go to heaven when you die”? I know that most of us have

probably heard something very similar and many of us have said something to that affect

when talking with someone about having a relationship with Christ. I am here to tell you

this morning that if those statements are a bunch of Christian BS. I know what you may

be thinking right now, but I think it will become more clear as we make our way through

the service this morning.

There are parts of those statements that are true, but I think that those statements

give a very watered down view of what being a follower of Christ is all about.

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