WEBVTT

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Hey, have you ever felt like
you were the wrong person for the job.

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You know you didn't have enough experience, the right skill set. Well,

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I know I have and you probably
have too. This is Pastor Rick's

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Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry
of Pastor Rick Warren. Now today we're

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beginning a new series called The Manifestation
of Your Life Mission. Pastor Rick is

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gonna show us that no matter how
big or daunting the thing is that God

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is calling us to do, we
don't have to run away from it.

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We can embrace it. We sure
hope you'll invite a friend to listen along

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with you today as we discover how
to embrace God's calling on our lives and

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how we can live according to His
plan and purpose. Now here's Rick with

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part one of a message called what
to do when you cause a storm.

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You weren't put on earth to live
for yourself. You need a bigger God

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than you. You were made for
a greater purpose. Then simply make money,

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retire and die. No, no, no, no. God didn't

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create you just to live for yourself. You were planned for God's purpose.

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You were shaped to serve God.
You are created in His image, and

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you're made for a mission. This
mission is what gives your life meaning.

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Now, everybody has a mission in
life, a God given mission in life.

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Unfortunately most people never discover it.
Now let me show you some verses

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here on the screen. The Bible
says in Ephesians two, verse ten,

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God made each of us what we
are. In other words, you're unique.

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There's nobody like you in the whole
world, in the past, president

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of the future. You're shaped for
a particular mission. God made each of

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us what we are, and in
Christ Jesus, God made us to do

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good works. Now that good works
is your contribution in the world while you're

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on this planet, and that's called
your mission. God made us to do

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good works, which God planned in
advance for us to live our lives doing.

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Before you even born, God had
already thought up why he was making

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you, and he made you for
a mission. As I said, most

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people never learn their mission, never
fulfill their mission, never complete their mission,

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and so they go through life kind
of drifting. Now the Bible has

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this to say. Jesus said in
John seventeen, in the same way that

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the Father gave me a mission in
the world, I give you a mission

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in the world. There's nobody alive
who doesn't have a mission that God created

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them for in life. Jesus also
said this in Mark chapter eight. If

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you insist on living for yourself,
you're going to lose your life. In

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other words, you're going to waste
the whole purpose of your life. Only

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those who give away their lives for
My sake, the sake of the good

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news that's part of your mission,
will ever know what it means to really

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live. Until you know your life
mission, you're just existing. It doesn't

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have the full meaning that God intended
for your life. And that's why Paul

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says this in Acts chapter twenty.
The most important thing Paul says, is

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that I complete my mission, the
work that the Lord Jesus gave me.

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Now this is so important that I'm
going to spend the entire next month teaching

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you about your life mission. And
it's very important. You don't want to

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miss any of the next four weeks. And we're actually going to use a

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guy in the Bible named Jonah as
an example. But you have a calling

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in life. It's what God intends
for you to do with your life,

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and it nothing matters more so,
do you know your life mission? Are

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you completing it right now? If
not, hang around because I'm going to

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help you now. I titled this
the manifestation of your life. Mission.

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Manifestation is not a word we use
a lot today. It's an old English

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word, but it's used all through
the Bible. And what it means is

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one day, it's going to be
very clear to everybody whether you fulfilled your

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mission or not. There's going to
be a day of accountability. There's going

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to be a day of judgment.
And the Bible says everybody is going to

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see my mission and your mission and
see whether we did anything about it or

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not. Here's what the Bible says. First Corinthians, chapter three, verses

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ten to fourteen. Each one of
us should be careful how we build our

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lives. Okay, we're all building
lives. Okay, we're all building our

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lives now. The only true foundation
for building is Jesus Christ. Now,

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most of you you already got this, okay. Jesus Christ is the foundation

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of your life. So you're a
believer, you're a follower, you're a

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Christian, and you got the right
foundation. But you can have the right

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foundation still build the wrong structure.
And that's what he talking about here.

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He says we should all be careful
how we build our lives. The only

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true foundation for building is Jesus Christ. But be careful in choosing what building

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materials you use on that foundation.
Now, he says, you get a

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choice and what you're going to build
your life on. You can build with

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values that last forever, like gold, silver, and jewels. In other

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words, ten thousand years from the
day, gold will still be gold,

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silver will still be silver, it
won't have rusted. Precious jewels will still

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be there. They're not going to
burn up, they're not going to rust.

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They are timeless. So you can
build on timeless values that last forever,

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like gold, silver and jewels,
or you can build your life with

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values that burn up and won't last, like wood and hay and straw.

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So I go out here and I
build a structure with would hay to straw.

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It's not going to be here in
fifty years, much less one thousand

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or ten thousand years. It's going
to burn up. Now, one day

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you're work on earth, that's your
mission will be inspected by God, inspected

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on the day of judgment, and
God will test it by fire, so

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that the quality of your work.
That's the quality of your life. The

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quality of your life mission is manifested. What does that mean? Everybody can

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see it. It's perfectly clear whether
you wasted your life or you used it

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effectively, whether the quality of your
work is manifested, and all will see

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the true value of what you accomplished
with your life. That's that's your mission.

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Now, if your work survives the
fire, if your mission survives the

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fire, you will receive your reward. This is eternal reward in heaven.

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But if your work is burned up, you'll lose your reward, even though

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you yourself will be saved like someone
barely escaping a fire. Now, what's

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he saying here. He's not to
talking about your salvation. If you have

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Jesus Christ the foundation of your life, you cannot lose your salvation. You

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can lose rewards. You cannot lose
your salvation because it's a gift to you.

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You didn't work for it, so
you can't unwork for it. So

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you're going If you have Christ as
the foundation of your life, you're going

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to heaven. He's not talking about
that. He's saying that in heaven that

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God is going to give rewards for
how well you used your life. Did

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you make it count, did you
fulfill your mission? Did you do what

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God puts you on earth to do? Did you even care enough to find

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out about what God put you here
on earth to do? And he says,

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if you do a pretty good job
of it, there's going to be

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rewards in heaven. But he says, if I don't do a good job,

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or I don't even care to learn
my mission, he said, I'm

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going to lose the rewards. I'll
be in heaven, but I will lose

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the rewards. See how important this
is. That's why I'm going to spend

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an entire month as your pastor who
loves you, as your personal spiritual coach.

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I want you to pass that exam. I want you to get the

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rewards in heaven that God has already
planned for you. Now, there are

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three ways you can learn in life. You can learn by you can learn

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by explanation. You can learn by
experience, and you can learn by example.

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A lot of what we learn in
life we learned by explanation. You

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go to school and somebody teaches you
how to do math. They explain math,

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and you know how to do math, they explain a language, you

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learn a language. They explain history, You learn history. A lot of

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stuff we learned through explanation. Then
some things you can only learn in life

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by experience. It's the only way
you're going to learn it. And you

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learn those things sometimes the hard way, through experience. But there are some

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things in life you should never learn
by experience. God doesn't want you to

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learn evil by experience. God doesn't
want you to learn that abuse is painful

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by being abused. There are a
lot of things God does not want you

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to learn from experience. The easiest
way to learn is to learn by example.

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And you can learn from good examples, and you can learn from bad

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examples. Successes and failures can both
teach you. It's wise to learn from

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experience, But it's actually wiser to
learn from the experiences of others. Why

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because then you don't have to go
through all the pain. Then you don't

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have to go through all of the
difficulty. Then you don't have it doesn't

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take so much time, it's a
whole lot faster. Learning from the experiences

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of others is not only less painful, it's faster. I don't have enough

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time in life to learn everything.
By making a mistake. No, that

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didn't work. There isn't enough time
in life to learn everything by experience,

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so you have to learn some stuff
through the experiences of others. And that's

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why we're going to take this book
called the Book of Jonah, and we're

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going to learn from the good and
the bad experiences of his life mission.

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Because Jonah was a guy who the
first half of his life he totally blew

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it, totally blew it, missed
his life mission. But in the second

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part of his story, he gets
on track and it ends up good.

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It ends up well. Now,
Jonah in the Bible is called a minor

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prophet, one of twelve minor profits
in the Old Testament, not because he's

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less important, because it just means
it's a short book. It's only four

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chapters. Each week for the next
four weeks, we're going to look at

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one chapter of Jonah as we learn
about your life mission. All right,

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let's look at lessons from Jonah about
your life mission. And there are ten

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lessons that we're going to look at. Some of these are so simple I

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can just state them. I don't
take half to a long time to explain

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them. Others of them take a
little bit longer. Some of them are

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warnings on things not to do,
and some of them are actually the last

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three are miracles that happen and in
your life when you fulfill your life mission.

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So let's get right into it.
Number one, My life mission will

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come through God's word. That's first
thing I want you to write down.

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My life mission will come through God's
word. It doesn't come from reading a

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magazine. It doesn't come from watching
TV, it doesn't come from talking with

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friends. It comes from God's word. Now, a lot of people make

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up a mission for their life because
everybody wants to have a cause to live

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for. So they got and say, this is a good cause. That's

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what I'm going to give my life
to. That's better than nothing. But

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you're never going to be ultimately fulfilled
by just a cause you picked to get

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interested in, because you're going to
put your head down at night and you're

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going to go there's got to be
mortal life than this, because there is.

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You were made for a uniquely designed
mission that only you can do.

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Studies have shown that the average human
being has between six hundred and seven hundred

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talents. You do. You have
between six hundred and seven hundred talents,

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most of them you've never used.
You might only be able to name ten

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talents in your life that you say
I'm good at this, but you have

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between six hundred and seven hundred.
You will never use all your talents unless

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you fulfill the mission that God created
you for because He made you to use

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those talents. Your job will never
use all your talent. Your career will

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never use all your talent. So
only life becomes meaningful when I get my

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message mission from God. Now,
and we're going to just go through this

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chapter, verse at a time.
There's seventeen verses in Jonah chapter one,

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and verse one one says this,
one day God spoke his word to Jonah,

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the son of Amatite. This is
how he gets his mission. Now,

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how does God speak to you?
How does He speak his word to

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you through this book, through the
Bible. The more you get in this

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book, the more you're going to
understand your mission for life. God uses

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lots of ways. When you hear
somebody teaching like I'm teaching right now,

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God can speak to you through that
teaching. When you listen to a podcast

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like Daily Hope, God can speak
to you through that. When a friend

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shares a Bible verse with you.
God can speak through that. The Bible

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says, God speaks through visions.
The Bible says God speaks through dreams,

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but he always never contradicts his word. So we start. If you want

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to know your mission, you're going
to have to get in the Bible.

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Stop looking for a vision. Start
looking for a verse. Okay, stop

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looking for a sign. God write
it to me in the sky. He's

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already written it in the scripture.
It's here, okay. Number two.

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Second thing about my mission is my
life. Mission will require a step of

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faith. It will require a step
of faith. It's gonna move you out

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of your comfort zone. It may
challenge your prejudices. It may stretch your

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mind, you're thinking. It will
certainly stretch your faith. It's going to

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pull you out of your comfort zone. Because God is only pleased by faith.

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Down verse two, God says to
Jonah, here's your mission. Jonah,

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I want you to get up and
go to the great city of Nineva.

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Now what is Ninevah. Ninevah at
that time was the biggest and most

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important city in the world. It
was the metropolis. It was the center

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of the universe. Basically, it
was the capital of Assyria, which the

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Assyrian Empire was the strongest empire of
its day. And Ninevah is on the

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Tigris River in what is now modern
day Iraq. If you go to Moses,

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right across from Moses is the ruins
of Ninevah. Ninevah was a beautiful

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city, wide wide boulevards, parks, canals, great architecture, palaces,

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temple. It was an incredibly metropolitan, beautiful city. But it was also

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a very cruel city, a very
brutal city. It was a wicked city

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because the Assyrians at this time were
kind of the Nazis of the day,

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and they destroyed everything in their path, and they treated everybody else with racial

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prejudice, and they were not nice
people. And there was a lot of

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evil going on in this beautiful city. Now, why is this mission going

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to take faith for Jonah? Well, for several reasons. First, Jonah

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is raised in a little teeny tiny, itty bitty village, maybe five hundred

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people. He's not a city dweller, he's not an urban night And God

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saying I want you to go from
your little town of a couple hundred people

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to the biggest city in the world. That's going to be a stretch culturally

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for him. Second, nineva is
about five hundred and fifty miles from where

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Jonah lives in Israel. How's he
going to get there? He's gonna have

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to walk five hundred and fifty miles. This is not going to be an

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easy journey. But more than that, it's a step of faith. Because

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Ninevah was the mortal enemy of Israel. The Assyrians had captured and dominated and

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enslaved the Jews several different battles and
times, and so the Assyrians hated Israel,

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and Israel hated the Assyrians. And
they were mortal enemies. They were

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political enemies, they were religious enemies, they were racial enemies. They did

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not like each other. And on
top of that, Jonah is just prejudiced.

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He's a nationalist. He goes,
I believe in my country and nobody

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else's, and I don't want to
go help those people. They're the enemy.

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I don't like them racially, politically, spiritually, religiously, I don't

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like anything about it. I don't
want to go help those people. God,

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so we got a problem here.
Because your mission will often challenge your

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comfort zone. It it may challenge
your politics, it may challenge. It

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may challenge your prejudices. Now Tom's
going to come and talk about the next

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few principles. But number three write
this down is my life mission will somehow

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help others. My life mission will
somehow help others. So God has given

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us a mission to help other people
because he loves everyone. A life mission

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that helps only me, that's not
really a life mission. It's okay to

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have personal goals. You should have
personal goals for business, for how much

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you're going to save for maybe retirement. But life mission is different. It's

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about how God wants to use you
to help other people. And the truth

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of this is when you think about
helping other people, God loves everyone and

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he cares about people that are in
pain. And so in our life mission,

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God is going to use us to
express his love, to express his

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care to people that are in pain. God cares about injustice that's in this

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world. He cares about injustice because
he knows how it's hurting his children.

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And so this was part of Jonah's
life mission. What we learn about life

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mission from Jonah second half of verse
two, God says, get up and

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go to the great city of Ninevah
and tell them that I see all the

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evil happening there, and I won't
ignore it. So Jonah's thinking, oh,

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that's going to be a really popular
message God. I mean, really,

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thank you very very much. I
don't want to go and then this

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is the message that you give me. This message stinks God. I don't

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want to share this, but God
is having him share it because he cares

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about the pain that that injustice is
bringing. God loves cities. He loved

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every person in Nineveh, but he
also saw and he hated how injustice and

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evil was hurting people in that city. He hated it. The reason God

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hates sin is because it hurts his
children. That's why he hates it,

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because he loves us so much.
When you look at our lives. God

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sees all the evil in every one
of our lives. He sees all the

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bad choices that we make, and
he is patient with those choices. I

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mean, if he wasn't patient,
none of us would be here anymore.

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If God zapped us out of existence
in a minute we did something wrong,

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I'd have been gone a long time
ago. There'd be nobody sitting here today.

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But God is patient with us in
that, and he continually says to

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us, I love you. Look
at these next couple verses up on the

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screen. Bible says in Neemia nine
seventeen, God is a god of forgiveness,

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gracious and merciful, slow to become
angry, and full of patient love

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and mercy. He does not abandon
people in their sin. That's part of

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our life mission is to remind people, remind ourselves. God never abandons us.

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And then two Peter three, verse
nine says God is patient with you,

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you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

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Repentance is turning around, turning my
mind back towards God, away from

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the injustice or the evilness in my
life. Now, God is patient,

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but he will not indefinitely delay the
judgment that he has against evil and injustice.

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So that's why the life mission is
to say God has not abandoned you.

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There is a way out. That's
part of the mission. Number four.

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My life mission may scare me at
first. It might scare me because

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think of this, this is God's
mission for your life. So it's because

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it's God's vision. It's bigger than
you, and that can be scared to

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us. A lot of us know
exactly what this is all about. It's

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certainly scared Jonah and verse three,
but Jonah ran away from the presidence of

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the Lord. He heard about it. God says, you got to go

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to ninev And he says, there's
no way I'm doing that. God,

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that is the last thing in the
world that I'm doing. I am not

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going to Ninevah. I don't want
to be there. I'm scared to be

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there. And he ran the opposite
direction. When you get afraid, when

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you're frightened the flight or fright syndrome. He is running away as fast as

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he can from God. And he
reminds us, reminds me to ask myself

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a question, a question all of
us need to ask ourselves from time to

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time, And that is what am
I running from? Right now? In

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my life? Is there something that
I'm running from? Am I running from

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my past? Am I running from
my problems? Am I running from even

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some opportunities that might be in front
of me that scare me? Am I

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running from the expectations of other people? And in all of it? Is

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there some place that I'm running from? God? And so I ask myself

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the question we all need to ask
ourselves. Is there something God has told

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me to do that I'm not willing
to do, and I'm running as far

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away as i can from that thing
that he has told me to do.

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When we do that, we think
we're hiding from God. Somehow we're not.

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Of course, he's so great.
He sees everything. It's sort of

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like play and hide and seek.
Whether two are three year old, you

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know, they go, they just
hide their face from you in the corner,

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and you can see them still,
but they think they're hiding. And

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we do the same thing with God
because we can't. We're not looking at

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him. We think he can't see
us. But he sees everything. He

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knows. Write what you're going through
right now. Look at what the Bible

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says up on the screen. And
some one thirty nine, Someone thirty nine

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says, I can never escape from
your spirit. I can never get away

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from your presence. If I went
up to heaven, you're there. If

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I die, you're there. If
I flew as far as east or west

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as possible, even there, your
hand will guide me, and your strength

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will support me. I could ask
the darkness to hide me, but even

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in darkness, I cannot hide from
you. To you, the night is

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as bright as the day. Darkness
and light are the same to you.

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You can run, but you can't
hide from God. And one of the

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great lessons of life I'm still learning
this one is when I get afraid,

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I run to God. I don't
run away from God. Jonah made that

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mistake. He tried to run away
from God, and you can do that.

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God will let you do that and
his patience. You can try to

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run away from God for the rest
of your life, but then you're going

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to run into number five. Number
five is running from my mission. It

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causes bad consequences. Running from my
mission causes bad consequences. So God says

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to Jonah, go. Jonah says
no. God says, oh, there

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are always consequences to every decision.
You see. One of the things that

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God did is he gave you the
freedom to choose. I can choose to

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totally ignore God with my life.
I want to. I don't have to

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love God, I don't have to
obey God. I don't have to even

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acknowledge God. I can pretend God
doesn't exist. God gives you that choice

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and gives me that choice. Why
because He wanted people who voluntarily love him

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not have to love him. So
he gives you the choice, so you

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can mess up your life all you
want. God is fine, that's you

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know, have it your way,
Burger king, and He'll let you mess

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up your life. You are free
to make any choice in life you want.

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God gave you that freedom, but
you are not free from the consequences

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of those choices. And that's what
we don't understand because we think because we're

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free to make choices, we're free
from the consequences. No, the moment

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if I'm free to jump off this
thing, I'm free. But the moment

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I jump off, I'm no longer
free. There's a law called a law

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gravity that's going to cause me to
fall and I'm gonna hurt myself. What

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a fantastic message from Pastor Rick.
And now this really is one of my

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favorite parts of the broadcast. Letters
from our listeners. Here's Rick. Did

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00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.440
you know that you can listen to
Daily Hope every day through our podcast?

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00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:59.920
Many of our listeners say they make
this part of their quiet time each day.

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00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:06.160
You can actually download the podcast at
Pastorick dot com and then you could

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00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:10.759
listen on the go whenever it's convenient
for you. For instance, Debbie,

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one of our listeners, says that
she listens on her lunch break. Here's

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what she wrote, Hey, pastor
Rick, your podcast is the perfect way

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00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:21.759
to just relax from a busy job, and it refreshes, it fills my

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heart with hope and energy. Helps
me be a light for Jesus and what

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is sometimes a stressful and tiring day. And Debbie continues in the note,

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she wrote, I recently came out
of a two year period of depression and

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chronic stress brought on by my mother's
passing. I'm sorry, Debbie, and

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00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:41.039
she said, it took a long
time to rebuild my confidence and hope and

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00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:45.440
to restore my daily connection with God. But the format of the Daily Hope

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00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:51.480
podcast is just perfect in that it's
twenty five minutes of godly, practical,

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00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:56.799
biblical teaching that I can absorb now. Having it available online for free,

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00:25:56.799 --> 00:26:00.319
she says, has been such a
blessing. It's made such a signific an

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00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:04.359
impact on my personal healing, and
so I'm happily sending money to support this

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00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:08.680
podcast because I know it's a good
soul and spirit food for anybody who listens

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00:26:08.680 --> 00:26:11.960
to it. Bless you and thank
you for teaching me how God works through

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00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:17.359
the pain that life sometimes brings,
you remain a spiritual lighthouse to me.

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00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:19.640
Well, Debbie, I know that
God's going to continue to help you grow,

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00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:23.640
help you learn, and I'm blessed
that He's using Daily Hope podcasts to

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00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:27.039
do that in your life. Thank
you, Thank you, Debbie, and

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00:26:27.079 --> 00:26:30.799
thanks to all of you for supporting
Daily Hope. Your financial gifts make it

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00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:34.720
possible for us to tell people around
the world that there's hope in Jesus.

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00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:40.720
Thanks everybody for listening today, and
I pray that you'll receive God's blessings because

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00:26:40.759 --> 00:26:44.839
I know that even when you can't
see them, God is pouring his blessings

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00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:48.480
into your life. Would you like
to help support Pastor Rick in this ministry

362
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:53.599
financially? We'll go to Pastorrick dot
com or text the word hope to eight

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00:26:53.680 --> 00:27:00.359
hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Once again, Pastorick dot com or

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00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:04.039
text the word Hope to eight hundred
six hundred five thousand and four, and

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00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:08.480
thank you so much for your support. We hope you'll join us next time

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00:27:08.599 --> 00:27:14.519
when we look into God's word for
our Daily hope. This program is sponsored

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00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:18.759
by Pastorick's Daily Hope and your generous
financial support,