So He has gates, which has to do with intentions; fruit, which has to do with being honest enough to ask ourselves: is the way we're living working; and three, foundations. If it's not working, and you hear a better way to live, are you willing to be courageous enough to change it?
I did not choose where I was born, and I could still be choosing to live that way, to this day. It would have been not that hard of a choice to choose that; but I realised that that was not me - I was challenged by God's word.
I know this is going to sound funny, but the day I realised Jesus wasn't white, was unbelievable to me. I thought to myself: flip! He's not white! I mean, we all pray to the Jesus we picture, so for me it was: dear blonde haired, blue eyed, cleanly shaven or lightly bearded Jesus, who smells of sweet lavender and dove soap. Like, it was that.
When I realised Jesus wasn't white, it was like: flip! I had a choice. I could either keep going my way, or I could make a choice to do something else. I was 14 years old when I realised, that God had called me to love all people, and to treat all people with the dignity afforded to them, because they're all made in the image of God; and all, every living soul, belongs to God.
I remember having to make that choice, but if I had the ability to hear that, and then walk away and still live a different way, it makes your life shaky. You think about it.
We could go around the room, if I said: what's your story? What's your story of when God rocked your world, and you were given a moment, a critical moment, to make a decision to change things? When is that story? Every one of you, who were winning in life in any direction, you have a story that you could tell. You have a story. You have something. You say: oh look, I was this, and now I was this.
I remember the day, I remember where I was sitting, the day I decided that I would live debt-free my whole life. It didn't matter if I drove a piece-of-crap car, I will live - I choose to drive a cheap car over having debt in car payments. I just choose to do it. I remember where I was sitting that day.
I remember all my friends making fun of me, because my car was so horrific, like the floorboard actually had holes in it. I had to put a two by four between the console and the door, to make sure that my feet didn't go through the bottom of the thing. The ceiling felt was coming down, and all my friends, they're like: Shane, what's wrong with you? Everybody has a car payment; and I'm like yeah: but if everybody has a car payment, and by statistics, everybody is broke, maybe this is the better way to do things.
While they were paying $400 a month, with interest, on something going down in value, I was paying the same $400 a month to a savings account that I'd created, called Shane's Car Fund. Within a year I had $4,800, and then I went and bought a $4,800 car, which was by far much better.
After that, I still put the same $400 in the same account. Two years later I traded in the $4,800 car; took the $9,600 I'd saved up, and bought a much nicer car. So five years later, their six year old Ford Focus was now paid off, and I was driving a much nicer car, because I had a plan.
Now I have a paid for Cadillac Escalade, and people look at me and go: you're so lucky! Lucky? No! I made a strategy, and a plan, and lived with full intention. I chose to live without debt. I can tell you, I never regretted it, never - but it took guts.
It takes guts, when you know God's challenging you to do something, and then you have the ability to walk away and not do anything. That's easy, and it will shake your life up; but when you have the guts to do something about it, it makes your life more and more solid.
What three key decisions have you made, in the last five years, that have changed your life; and it's because of a challenge God gave you. How many of you regret ever doing it? We never do. We never regret when we respond positively to God's voice, never ever ever.
Let's say it this way. Your intentions are just the starting point. Pure motives, and consistent obedience, mixed with focussed intentions, will lead your life to a life that cannot be shaken.
It's not just the attention of your heart that is the starting point. It's also making sure that your behaviour matches up with your intentions.
If you intend to be financially secure, yet you go to the mall every other day, and buy things you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress people you don't like - that is not a good plan. It's not a good plan!