Christine Caine - A Life Unleashed - Part 2
Hey, it's Chris here. I believe it is no accident that you're tuned in for today's episode of "Equip and Empower". I truly believe this is a timely word God has given me to encourage you, to strengthen you, and to help you give birth to the dreams God has placed on the inside of your heart. So let's not wait another moment. I can't wait to get started and share this message with you.
I am so glad you have joined us today. I know God has a word for you that literally can transform your life. I'm so excited about this series, A Life Unleashed. And you know we learned last week that you and I were created by God on purpose and for a purpose. No matter what our background has been, whether someone has said you're an accident, you should never have been born, you have made too many mistakes, you're a failure. So often we have listened to those voices that have limited and contained what we have done for the glory of God on this earth. But I don't believe you have tuned in by accident today. I believe you have tuned in the divine timing, plan, purpose of God and that God wants to remind you today that you were created on purpose and for a purpose. And that in fact, Ephesians 3: 20 says our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything we could ever ask, hope, or think according to that power that works on the inside of us.
Do you know there is so much more in Christ for you? God has put you on this earth for his great glory. In fact, the scripture says that it is to our father's great glory that you and I bear much fruit. And I'm believing God as a result of this series there will be people all over the world whose lives are going to bear so much more fruit because you've elevated your eyes, you've fixed your eyes on Jesus. You realize you are not your limitations, you are not your failures or your mistakes. You are who God says you are, and in Christ you can do what God says that you can do. You think Chris, you're a bit excited about all of this. Yes, I'm very excited about all of this because when I got this revelation, it absolutely changed my life.
You see, I thought I was a result of my mistakes. I thought I was a result of my past. I thought I was a result of the abuse that happened to me, the abandonment that had happened to me, the rejection that happened to me, the mistakes that I have made or the fact that I had no hope because I was part of a marginalized minority or I grew up in a low socio economic background. And I had defined myself to all of those things, but when I encountered Christ and I discovered I was more than the things that happened to me, I was more than the mistakes that I had made, I was more than the limitations that I had thought about myself, I was who God says that I am in his word. And I can do what God says I can do through his word. Well, God took that life of that very broken confused young woman, and by his great grace over the last few decades of my life, he's enabled me to be able to start a global anti human trafficking organization and a global movement that helps to strengthen women and empower women and to be able to teach words of hope and life all around the world.
Well, if I did not realize the very thing that I'm telling you, that you are more than your past, you are more than what happened to you, you are more than the things that you have done, you are who God says you are, and you can do what God says you can do, if I didn't know that then my life would not have born by the grace of God the fruit that it's born thus far. So I know there's more ahead for you, and I want to see you step up and into your God-given purpose. John 10: 10, Jesus says, the enemy came to do one thing, to steal, to kill, and to destroy. The enemy wants to steal your purpose. He wants to kill and destroy it. But Jesus said, I came that you might have life and not just a normal life, but life more abundant. All of life. And in the midst of the world in which we live, I want Christians to find that zoe life that Jesus spoke about and to fulfill the purpose and the potential that Jesus has put us on this earth to fulfill.
You know, back in 2001 some of you watching this are like did the world operate in 2001? Yes, the world was operating in 2001. Nick and I were on holidays in the Whitsunday islands in Australia. I don't know if you've ever been but if you ever get the opportunity to go to the Whitsundays in Australia, you have to go. I mean I've been by the grace of God all over the world, but there are very few places in the world that are more beautiful are, stunning than the Whitsundays in Australia, so we went out for a vacation, and I have to admit you know, I had been feeling a little bit nauseous while we were there and just even leading up to there but I was freaking out to think about what this might mean. So it had gotten so bad, I was feeling nauseous every single day, and all of the day every single day. So finally we decided to go to the pharmacy and purchase a pregnancy test.
And I remember going into the bathroom, this might be TMI for some of you so I'll be careful, but I remember going into the bathroom. We were in our hotel and we were about to go out on this fantastic catamaran to go out and tour the wit Sundays, but I was feeling so nauseous. And I just remember going into the bathroom and doing the pregnancy test and then I remember seeing this thin blue line which is in Australia, this particular pregnancy test that thin blue line it denoted exactly what you think. It denoted that there was a human being growing on the inside of me. A real live living person. There was a real live human. I just remember holding that white stick with the thin blue line. I literally went down the wall, just sat on the bathroom floor and I was just staring at that thing. I was 34 years old at the time, and I'm thinking I've got a human, like God, I've got a human growing on the inside of me. It was the freakiest thing.
Like Nick came in, and then he sat down on the floor with me. We literally didn't speak for like quite a long time. It was this realization we're going to be parents. And we're like God, do you even know what you're doing? Like really? You're going to trust a human being to us? Now, at the time while I'm holding that stick with this thin blue line, Catherine inside of me was actually smaller than a grain of rice. Can you get that? I'm looking at the thin blue line. That thin blue line is telling me that inside of me is a human being that is smaller at the time than a grain of rice. I couldn't see my baby girl, but her genetic code, her God-given potential, it was all there in that little smaller-than-a-grain-of-rice size that she was. All I could see was that thin blue line. But God had filled that seed in my womb with all of the potential that Catherine would ever need to do what he called her to do.
I want you to get that. I'm seeing a thin blue line on a pregnancy test. On the inside of me is my baby girl who I'm about to launch into college next week. At the time she was smaller than a grain of rice, and yet right at that moment while I'm freaking on the bathroom floor in the whitSunday islands in Australia, God had placed all of the potential on the inside of my daughter that she would need to fulfill the purpose God had put her on this earth to fulfill. I want to remind you today that our lives, your life and my life are exactly like a seed. You and I were born with the potential to fulfill the destiny that God had already established within us before we ever got to this earth. Remember, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You see, when God created you and God created me, he makes us with the end in mind because our God knows the end from the beginning. God works backwards. When God gives a dream to someone, he's simply calling forth from that person the thing that God has already put in that person.
You know, I love doctor Myles Munroe. He wrote a book about purpose, and so many of these concepts when I read about them in that book literally transformed my life. It was there that I understood the full grown tree was always in the seed. You see, I could not, you could not see it until you put it in the right soil, then you nurture it by faith, and then it grows, so we all see a seed and we put a seed, we plant a seed in the ground. All of the potential for the tree is in the seed, but you don't see the tree until you put the seed in the ground, until you water it, you step back and over time, you see this tree start to grow. You go, where did the tree come from? The potential for the tree was in the tree. I'm launching my daughter off to college next week.
Well, the fact is that when 20 years ago I was in Australia sitting on a bathroom floor holding a pregnancy test that told me that I have a human being on the inside of me that was smaller than a grain of rice, all the potential for Catherine whose now going to college to study business and she's got dreams in her heart, God had put it in her back then. As that seed was then planted in my womb and that seed grew and then I gave birth to that seed and then nurtured that seed and raised that seed, now I'm starting to see the fruit from her life. But the potential was always there in seed form. See, a lot of us we devalue the seed because we think man, that doesn't look like much. And today I'm trying to show you the value of understanding the potential that's in a seed.
See, the fact is to realize our dreams, we have to grow to where we need to go. I know that's hard. In our Instagram culture where it's like I had a dream! I'm going to post that dream. I'm going to put a filter on it. I'm going to crop and edit it and snap and upload it, hashtag my dream. But that's not how it happens. There's a process between the seed and the dream being realized. People say Chris, how are you doing what you're doing now with a 21 or with propel women? Well, I'm 5 five years old this month. It's been a process from the dreams I had as a 21 year old first coming to Christ, through youth ministry and serving in my local church, through growing. It's been over 34 years to get to where I am today. And what happens is if you give up in between there, there, you're never going to get there.
Genesis 8: 22 says this, it's one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible, and it says, while the earth remains seed, time, and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. While the earth remains. Well guys, the earth -if you're watching this today, the earth remains. We're still here on planet earth. While the earth remains, seed, time, and harvest. I'm going to do that again. Seed, time, and harvest. What we think is seed, I had a dream, or I scrolled through something, that's what I want to do, I had the seed today and I want the harvest tomorrow. And it's hard because we don't live in a predominantly agricultural society anymore. At least not mostly in the western world. So we live in cities and technology, and we're like man, I want it tomorrow.
Now, anyone watching this that's from an agricultural society is going yes, Christine, this is called Agricultural 101. You have a seed. You've got to put the seed in the ground and water that seed. And then eventually you're going to reap a harvest. It makes sense to anyone with an agricultural background. It doesn't make sense to a lot of us raised in the 21st century, in a time of industrialization, urbanization, technological advancement. We just think the harvest is going to happen straight away, but the fact is the principle of seed, time, seed, time, and then harvest. It's an eternal principle. It takes God to realize your God dream. The challenge is just living in an instant culture. And then we just think I'm going to give birth to this thing overnight. I was sitting last night with a bunch of young people in their early 20's. And we're talking their dreams and it was stunning to me how they thought, one literally asked me how are they going to get there by 25.
I'm like 55 sitting there thinking I don't know how you're going to get to where you want to be at 25 because it's impossible. It's actually impossible. There has to be a process between the dream and the realization of the dream, and the fact is why would you want to get there at 25 if it's not the right timing anyway? Because then you're going to have to nurture the thing that you've prematurely birthed and it's going to take a whole lot more work to keep going. What we have to understand in this generation everything starts with a seed. We grow to where we need to go. We don't start there. We can't snap and upload our way to our God-given purpose. We cannot Amazon prime our purpose or Amazon now, I want it now. There is no overnight delivery. You cannot download an app and then press a button and say I want my purpose to happen. We have to grow to where we need to go.
So I wonder, what are you doing to nurture the seeds of potential that your God has placed in you? Potential, it's the difference between what is actual and what is possible. It's the unexposed ability, it's the reserve strength, the unused success, the dormant gifts and the hidden talents that lie on the inside of you. It's the person that you are still yet to become. It's where you can go but you haven't been there yet. It's what you can do but you haven't done it yet. It's where you can reach but you haven't even aimed for that place yet. I want to unapologetically stir up the expectation in you today. You know, so many of us and specially over the last few years we've had so many years that have been shattered, so many challenges and struggles and disappointments and loss and grief, I deliberately dropped this series in right now because I believe it's time for some of us to start dreaming again.
The enemy wants us to forget that we're full of God given potential. The enemy does not want us to thrive or flourish. We've been caught in so much loss and grief and suffering and pain, so much chaos, so much divisiveness. It's like we have forgotten what it is to dream. It's like we've lost the capacity to think forward to a great future. We've been so caught up in the temple, so caught up in the pain and the pain and suffering and the loss and the grief and the hurt, and it's real. I'm not denying it, but I am saying I believe it's time that we start to dream again. It's time we remembered Jesus Christ came that you and I "might have life and life more abundant", John 10:10 says. I believe it's time to look up again.
Man, we have just spent so many of the last few years looking down, looking back, looking around. It's time to lift our eyes and to look up again. It's time to fix our eyes on Jesus. It's time to remember who we are in Christ again. It's time to remember what we're called to do. It's time to wake up again. It's time to step up into our God given purpose. There's more in you. God has more for you. Don't settle. Don't stop. Don't quit. Let's stir it up again. Some of you are watching me on the other side of this screen, and literally all you've wanted to do is give up and quit. You have thought your greatest days are behind you and not in front of you. You have just been so overwhelmed by the disappointment and discouragement and disillusionment and the loss and the grief and the pain and the suffering, and you think this is it. But I have been sent I believe by the Lord today to remind you not to give up, to remind you not to quit, to remind you your greatest days are not behind you or they are ahead of you in Christ. I believe there is so much more in you. This is not the end.
You know, recently Nick bought me a new computer, and if you know anything about me, you can ask any of my team, I am seriously the most tech logically challenged person that you have ever met. Basically as my husband tells me very often I use my computer as a glorified typewriter. That is what we do. Some of you don't even know what a typewriter is. That's how old I am. And basically Nick is we could have saved the trouble and we could have just bought you a typewriter. My computer has the potential to edit movies. It's got the potential to analyze data, and I want you to know all I do is I use it to type messages. We could literally edit a movie on my computer, but I'd have no idea. I just type basically in my word document, I just type. I have to ask my kids to help me with anything else. But this is my point, just because I don't know how to do it doesn't mean the computer can't do it.
So much of the computer's potential remains dormant because of my ignorance. The computer has the capability to do it. I simply have never made the demands on my computer to do it. It was designed for so much more than I am using it for. And I believe that you and I are designed for more, and if we spend intimate time with God through prayer and in his word and in community, you and I can begin to conceive the God dream again, the dream that he has placed on the inside of us. I want to remind you that conception flows from intimacy. We need to know God. We need to know his word. We need to know his will. We need to know his ways so that we can begin to conceive what it is that he has for our lives. And I am believing that your life will be unleashed for the glory of God and you will fulfill your God-given purpose and God-given destiny.