Our ultimate destiny in life has a lot to do with who or what we choose to be connected to. And just like being connected to the right person can inspire us to greatness, being intimately connected to the wrong person can lead us to personal destruction. The people we choose to be connected to can either propel us towards our blessed destiny, or they can hold us captive by reminding us of our messed-up history, they can either encourage us to fulfill our God-given greatness, or they can discourage us, pushing us down into a pool of self-pity.
They can inspire us to move forward into our future, or they can pull us down into the depths of failure and frustration. They can help to bring out the best in us, or they can hurt by bringing out the worst in us.
One of the greatest lessons you can learn in life is to learn how to choose the right people to be connected to. Charles Swindoll was right when he said that it’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by so many turkeys!
We need to understand today, that as we make the commitment to putting Christ first in our lives and as we make the commitment to following his plans and His purposes, not everybody around us is going to share the same passion for Jesus that we have. How many of you know that when Jesus walked this earth, He was constantly surrounded by folks who had their own agendas and their own ideas about what Jesus should and should not do?
Jesus was constantly surrounded by folks who were not interested in advancing the Kingdom of God, but they were only interested in advancing their own interests and their own desires. And, likewise, you and I are surrounded by folks who have their own agendas and their own ideas about who and what we should be and how we should live our lives, and we need to understand that once we make that commitment to following Jesus, once we make our minds that’s it’s all about Him and not about us, once we make that decision to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, that at that moment we’ve got to make up our minds who we’re going to be connected to.
If you’re trying to walk in the spirit, you can’t be intimately connected to somebody who walking in the flesh. If God has given you a vision for your life, you can’t hook with somebody who has no vision for their lives and tries to kill the vision in your life. If you’re trying to live by the Word of God, you can’t be in an intimate relationship with somebody who lives by their own wisdom and philosophy.
God desires that not only our vertical relationship with Him is right, but also that our horizontal relationships with other people are right, and if a person hasn’t made a commitment to getting their vertical stuff right, then their horizontal stuff is going to be all messed up.
