If your goal in life is to drink good coffee - then do it. You've gotten what you want, but you can't drink $6 coffee, and then go: I have no money. Well of course you have no money. I had these young people in Australia go: we have no money; and I said: how many coffees do you drink a day? Two. That's $12 a day, times 30 days a month. You're spending $360 a month in urine, and you wonder why you have no money?
Is it Satan? Is he attacking your finances? Well look, if your goal is to drink good coffee, have at it; but if your goal is to live with financial abundance, then you have to make a decision to build a distaste for $6 coffee, and drink coffee at home! Hello!
You can't say: I want this; and then act in a way that does that. Jesus says: that's very shaky. If you know what you want, and then you don't behave that way, that's very shaky, and it's going to feel like you fell suddenly - but you did not fall suddenly. You've been on that road the whole time. That road was leading off the cliff the whole time.
How about let's say it this way: to be a yes person on our dream, means no to spending time on things other than our dream - even if those things are good.
People who win are focussed, and intense, and they're living on purpose - fully intending to meet their dream and their goal. To be a yes-person on purpose, means no to anything that moves us away from it. It's not that what you're saying no to is bad; it's just it's not leading you where you want to go. But people who have no clear definition of where they want to go, they have no power to say no, because who knows?
Why would I say no to that, I have no goal, I have no dream, I have no vision. The Bible says it this way: where there's no vision, people perish. Was that literal, like if you don't have a dream for your life, you're going to die? No. It's a euphemism. It leads you to disrepair. Actually, in the original language, it says this: where there's no vision, people cast off restraint. In other words, the only thing that gives you the power to say no to something is that you're saying yes to something else at a greater level - which leads me to this question.
What are you saying yes to? You want to be an overcomer? Here's my first question: What are you living with full intention to accomplish? What are you giving your life to?
I only slept in my own bed 38 days last year. What gives me the power to do that? What gives me the power to do that is I have a dream, and I have a vision, and I have a mission, that I want to spread the gospel throughout the nations; and even more so than that, I want to feed the poor.
I want to restore dignity to those who don't have it, and for me to do that requires me to speak a lot. It requires me to do that. The Lord put it on my heart, He challenged me. He said: I want you to work one month a year for the poor; so from June 15 to July 15 this year, everything I'm going to do is for them.
So it's a dream in my heart, it's a vision. It's a passion, it's an energy, that drives me here, so that I could say no there. I have to. I have to.
Let's say it this way: some patterns of life are obviously destructive, leading to darkness and disrepair and death. Things like: hoarding riches and chasing after it; things like comparison; these things are obviously destructive, yet - and we know that right? Is that even controversial, that chasing after riches will destroy your life? It sounds pretty much like Jesus, correct? So then if we know that, why do we spend millions of dollars doing it?
There's a website called uglypeople.com. It's a website that is dedicated to random - some of it is people doing it themselves - but it's dedicated to random photographs, of picking on people who are ugly. Now as soon as I say that, how many of you, you're sort of like: that's nauseating right? That's as bad as that drink right? If we all believe that, then how is it that the owners of uglypeople.com are multi-millionaires?
We know it's destructive, yet we engage in it. We know chasing after riches is destructive, yet the top reality TV show on Network Cable is: Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Listen to the title, Keeping Up with them - that's our goal in life. Really? Have you ever seen the show? Anybody want Bruce Jenner's life? Are you kidding me - and a house surrounded by high maintenance women, oh my God! Who would want that? No. No.
See when we engage in things like this, it's just evidence. It's not that you're bad; it's just that you're not yes to something more important. The way to do it is not to beat that. It's to say yes to this.