Christine Caine - Take A Risk, Part 2
Jesus did not come to make us safe. He came to make us dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. That's what we are here for. We are here to plunder hell and to fill heaven. That's what this is all about. He didn't come to make a safe. It's so easy to get stuck in a rut, the same routine, same restaurant, same social circle, the same Sunday church ritual, but we were never meant to live boring, mundane lives, just going through the motions of a safe and easy life. We were meant for so much more. We were created for something so much bigger. We were made to be risk takers. I'm Christine Caine. And I have a personal mission to Equip and Empower people just like you to connect with your God given purpose and potential. I am so glad you're joining us today. Let's dive straight into the word together.
Hey everyone! How awesome is this? Well, welcome back to part two of our series on taking a risk. I am so glad that you've joined us today. You've picked a great day to tune into this program. I know that God has a word for you. We're talking about the fact that life is but a vapor. We're not here for very long, we're certainly not here forever, we are just passing through and I love that James, in James chapter four, he gives us a great visual, he says, "Life is but a vapor". Why are you freaking out? This is the Christine paraphrase version. Why are you freaking out about what the future is? Nobody knows what's going on. And if you listen to too much of the news you're going to get depressed about what's going on and half of it isn't even going to come true, anyway.
How many times have we heard I predict this is going to happen and I predict that's going to happen and then you go, it never happened? Why did I waste my time worrying when I didn't need to worry? So James says, "Look in light of eternity, I need to remind you that life is just a vapor". And when you look at it like that, half of the things that you've been stressing out about you go really, really? In our house we have little bottles around the place because if I'm getting a little bit too tense, because I'm a bit of the control freak in our family, my family just randomly go, vapor. My kids especially like it when, you know, I'm about to complain about the laundry hasn't been taken, "Mom life's a vapor, why you are worried about," and I go, "Vapor you," anyway so.
But the issue is that a lot of what we're stressing out about really doesn't matter. Really how big your house is, how important is the kind of car that you have, the kind of status that you achieve, how much money you've got in the bank? Ultimately, when you die doesn't matter, they're not going to put it all in the casket with you, like really sometimes it's just good to do a check and go, "Where am I being a good steward and where am I just being stressed out"? And there is a difference about that. Where am I putting some unrealistic demands on people? And unrealistic demands on myself, where I am not enjoying life or living life? I'm just trying to just live for the approval of somebody that's not even around anymore, or I'm trying to impress somebody that doesn't even care or I've set this really false expectation about what I want for life.
And the fact is, it's not bringing me any joy. You were created on purpose for a purpose. Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, says that. "We are God's workmanship". You know, this is really important for you to understand. Because a lot of people and maybe you've just tuned in right now, and you do not realize, that you are God's workmanship, that you were created by God for a relationship with God and it's Jesus that connects us to God. I'll tell you why a lot of us do not realize it. Because what happened was in Australia, in particular, we were brought up with a particular philosophy in our schools.
Now you have to be extremely intelligent to believe this. And you have to go to university for a lot of years, and be very, very well educated. But this is what they have taught us that many, many moons ago in the eternal nothing of the nothing, two nothing's came together and went bang and there it was your great grandfather, the cockroach, and the cockroach, just crawled around planet earth for a while and it had a genetic mutation, and it went bang, and there is was, the frog. And the frog just hopped around the earth for a while, and then it had a genetic mutation and it went bang, and there it was, the ape. And then the ape was walking around Dallas, Texas, on a very hot summer's day and it went to the hairdresser, and it had a cut, shave and blow dry and here we are today. And so basically, you need to be extremely well educated to believe that, but what they have taught us for a generation is that you came from nothing. You live for no reason, and you're going nowhere.
And if you tell a generation for long enough, that they came from nothing, they live for no reason and they're going nowhere, then don't be surprised when they start to live like they came from nothing. They live for no reason and they're going nowhere and some of you are living like there is no purpose. You are drinking yourself into oblivion, you are popping pills, you are just sleeping from one with one person to the next person, somehow looking for love looking for something, because you've been sold a lie that you are worth nothing, that your great grandfather was some kind of cockroach. But I'm here to tell you today that you are created in the image of God, you are filled with God given dignity and God given purpose.
There is so much more to you than you even realize as a son or a daughter of the King of kings and Lord of lords and the interesting who you belong to, you begin to act like the person you belong to. And if you think that you belong to some, you know, cockroach race and you're part of some evolution cycle, then you know what, you're going to live like an animal. But when you know that you were created on purpose for a purpose, then you're going to treasure this gift called life, a whole lot more. You and I were not just created to exist. We were created to live a passionate, purpose driven life, but so many of us, we live such boring lives. And it frustrates me when Christians are boring, when Christians are like beige, and Christians have no personality and they're just like, "Oh, I'm saved". I'm just like, "I'm saved, I don't do anything and I have no personality in my life, but I'm a Christian, and you too can be boring like me".
And so some of you, you don't you go to work the same way every single day, every single day. You know, you eat at the same time, every day, you haven't even tried a different sort of food, like you just eat the same thing, at the same time. You wear the same colors. We hang out with the same sort of people, our life is so boring, it's so routine, it is so predictable. And then we fight to hang on to our routines. And you get into a routine long enough, you're going to make a rut, you get into a rut long enough, you're going to fall into a grave and that's how most people spend their life on this earth. It's just this normal routine, this rut described and Jesus says, "I came," in John 10:10, "That you might have life and life more abundant". Not a boring, predictable existence.
So many of us are just existing, rather than living the life that God has called us to live. You know, Nick and I went to a, frequently traveled to South Africa for ministry and on one of our trips, we went out to a safari. Now I have a bit of an aversion to animals you know, I know that, we see on Instagram, I've got my dog Ezra Blake, but I don't really touch him, my kids do, so, okay, I did it for their sake, you know, because apparently, you need to have an animal in the house. Okay, so and they've been really responsible and he's cute. He's a cute little mini golden doodle, just in case you're interested, all the dog lovers okay. And, so I really am not into animals, my husband loves them.
And so we go out on this safari and the man that's leading this safari is very, very particular, to say to us, "You need to be very careful, don't draw any attention to the animals, you know, last week there was a tourists that had been killed, because they got out of their Jeep and went to photo". I mean, just really, how stupid can you be and still. "And took a photo of the lions". And so we're coming up to all of the lions and my husband who is a rebel, could you just imagine being married to me, you are not normal, and so he comes in and he starts like banging the Jeep and I'm like, it was almost, our marriage was really over at that moment. I'm just going to say, we had some intense fellowship. That's all I want everyone to know. Deep fellowship at that moment.
And so, and Nick was like loving it but what was amazing was to watch these wild animals in their native, it was crazy, they were beautiful, really beautiful. I mean, they were just wild and undomesticated and free. And it just looked awesome. I mean, you spend, we spent hours just watching them, because they were just flourishing and everything about the whole picture. We saw the big five, saw so all of them but the lions and the tigers and it just was such a glorious, truly God's creation is remarkable, it really is. Well, a few weeks later, we were back in Sydney, Australia. And we had some friends coming over from America. And so every time you have friends coming over, that have not been to Australia before, and we live in Sydney, you want to take them to this place called Taronga zoo, you can make a note of it, because Taronga zoo the giraffes at Sydney's Taronga zoo have the best real estate in the whole of Australia.
So they overlook the harbor bridge, the harbor, the opera house, and I'm like, "Who gave the giraffes the view"? But anyway, so the giraffes have got the view. So we were, I was taking my friends through Taronga zoo. And then we came. We came to the lion cages. And I'll never forget it, because we stood there, and you saw these lions, and then the tigers were near 'em. And they were like docile. They were just kind of lying there. They were just domesticated. And they were so tame. And I turned to Nick, because we'd just come back from Africa, you know, and I said, "This is what happens to Christians". I said, "God called us to live wild, untamed undomesticated lives".
And we get into our cages and our Christian legalism and our cages and we end up with these nice, safe, boring, comfortable lives. I need you to understand, Jesus Christ did not come from heaven to earth, die on a cross, shed his blood at Calvary, be separated from the father for three days and rise again from the dead, just to give me a nice, comfortable, safe life. Just to give me a nice white picket fence, 2.2 and the mortgage. Jesus did not come to make us safe. He came to make us dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. That's what we are here for. We are here to plunder hell, and to fill heaven. That's what this is all about. He didn't come to make us safe.
2 Timothy 1:7, "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control". Our fears are the cages that hold us back. If we're talking about the lions were in that cage, the bottom line is I think for many of us, we are caged in by our fear. If God has not sent us a spirit of fear, and fear is so rampant on the earth, do the math, guess who sent it? And if you were the devil, and you wanted to cripple and immobilize the body of Christ, what would you send? You would send a spirit of fear, you would send the very thing that God did not send, in order to take Christians out. And so what we need to do, is stop being scaredy-cats. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear.
There's a reason why God tells us this is not from me. God doesn't want us locked in caged and trapped like those island, like those lions at Taronga zoo. That's not what God wants for our life. So many of us are just paralyzed by our fears, rather than living the abundant life that Jesus Christ has called us to live. We are paralyzed, by the fear of what other people think. That would be one of the biggest ones. And you know what, ultimately, it really doesn't matter what other people thinks, what does God think? I would not be doing anything I'm doing today, if I cared what other people think. My family thinks I'm crazy in case you wonder what they think. Not my husband or my kids, but my family of origin. Because you know what, if I tried to please them, there would be no a 21 there would be no Propelled, there would be no TV program because I would be the good Greek girl sitting at home cooking baklava right now, breeding many more children, well, not anymore because I can't, but back in the day, okay.
But you know what, not that there's anything wrong with that, but that wasn't the only thing, God had called me to do. And so many of us we settle, because our mom might not be happy, or our father might not be happy, or the teacher might not be happy, or our friends. How many of our destinies have we put on hold in order to impress our friends, and to stay down where we are? Fear that I'm not good enough. So many of us just think we're not good. Look, let me put you out of your misery, to do what God has called you to do, you're not good enough. If you we're good? I'm good enough. You know, what God has called us to is a supernatural destiny. You cannot fulfill a supernatural destiny with natural ability, so your best natural ability is not good enough to do what God has called you to do. The gap between what God has called you to do and where you are is here and there will always be the gap. It's called the God gap and so on I need God. That's the faith gap. That's where God takes me into doing what I can't do. But that's where his strength is made perfect in my weakness, that is the grace gap.
Do you think I could run 15, a 21 offices in 11 countries around the world? No, no. Do you think I could be putting traffickers in jail or rescuing? No. Do you think I'd be running Propel Women around the world? No, I don't have the ability. It is all outside of my skill set. I've never been trained in television. I've never been trained in that kind of communication. This is all outside of my skills, if God does not show up, I'm toast. So let me put you out of your misery. You're not good enough, okay, so that settles that, in case you think I'm not good enough. Fear of failure, that is a really big one. Fear of the unknown.
Well, the fact is, if we're walking in faith, we're always walking into the unknown, the Bible says of Abraham that he went forth, I love this part, not knowing where he went, to a land that he would recognize when he got there. When was the last time you didn't know where you were going? We are so fearful, I've got to have it all mapped out. Here's my five year plan, here's my 10 year plan, this is where it works out, I'm going to have this much money, I'm going to do this, you have a box for everything. You have an app for everything. What happens if the app breaks? The fact is, you know, I don't even live that kind of life and I run major global organizations. I have a basic trust in God, in fact I do all diligence. I do a basic plan, but I'm like, "Father, this is yours". I don't really know when people go, "Well where are you go". I don't know. But I get up every day and I say, "Jesus, I don't know where you're going today, but I'm coming wherever you're going".
That's my bottom line, if you're wondering, that's about the extent I'm going wherever he's going. And so that means don't box me too much. Is she just rescuing victims of traffic? Yes. And is she helping women? Yes. And is she doing tele? Yes. And is she teaching the Bible? Yeah, yes. The answer is yes, wherever. You're not going to fit me in a box because I'm not here to fit into your box, I'm here to obey Jesus as he walks forward and so, that's what we need to do with our lives. And so everything that I have done, everything has been out of my comfort zone just so that you know, anything that is bearing fruit, that remains, has got the touch of God on it, it's not what I've been able to do.
You know, when I went to church in, when I was 21, well, you know, for a Greek orthodox school to walk into a protestant church, and to, then give my life to Christ and continue to walk on route, that was, I was ostracized, people, my family members did not speak to me for three years. I was not included in any family, you know what it was a step of faith to go. I didn't see this in my future. I didn't know what was ahead. I couldn't see 30 years in advance, I could just see that my family wasn't talking to me, that my friends ridiculed me because they thought you're the loser, how did you become a Christian? Where'd your brain go?
You know, that's what kind of happened and now we look at it 30 years later and go, wow. But I didn't know what was here when I started, but I had Jesus there and that's who I was following, and Jesus brought me here. That's how it goes into the future as well. I left my job to go into ministry, I was at a very high paying lucrative job to go into ministry where I wasn't paid, but barely for seven years. It didn't make any sense, but it took risk because that's what God called me to do. You know, when I started the youth center, I didn't know anything about youth ministry, and had to trust God to grow. When I was a youth evangelist, filling arenas, talking to thousands of young people about Jesus, no one trained me, I didn't know what I was doing. When we started a 21, there wasn't a course I went to. How to grow global anti trafficking organization.
When we started Propel Women, I didn't go and read a textbook on how to run a movement for women who lead and to help women internalize the leadership identity. You know, everything I think about when I got married, with my broken past of abuse, and abandonment, it was a huge faith to trust God, that this was the next step for me. I never thought I would have children, because I didn't want that I was so broken. So then when I really felt the Lord say, "Okay," and then he gives me two daughters. I can't tell you what a risk of faith that was for me, to think I don't want my kids screwed up in any way.
So the fact is, to become who God wants you to become, to do what God's called you to do, it's always going to take risk personally, emotionally, relationally financially, physically, in every realm of life, some of you are so caged by fear, that you're not going to step into that relationship because your parents got divorced or because there was some brokenness. And what you've done is you've allowed that to trap you. You haven't given your heart, you won't trust serving in church because somewhere along the line maybe someone hurt you or abused your trust somewhere along the line. It is amazing how we have just become like those lions, caged in by our fear, what if what if? What if? How about you replace what you do not know about the future with what you do know about Jesus?
And you know that your God is good, you know that your God does good and you know that your God, will work all things together for good, so why don't you trust the goodness of God verse what you don't know about the future? The world is cray cray, there is no doubt here is red alert, it's just going to get increasingly cray cray, so why don't you put all your eggs in the basket of Jesus and trust Jesus who is good and who does good, step out of the boat, take a risk of faith and do the thing that God has called you to do.
I have discovered that what is impossible with man is possible with God. I have discovered that our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything that you could ever ask, hope or think, I know that my eyes have not yet seen nor my ears heard, no hasn't entered into my heart the things that God has for me. I know that with my God, I can advance against the truth and I can climb any wall. I know that I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me, I do not have to bow down to fear. Self doubt, will kill more dreams than anything ever will. Self doubt will kill more dreams than failure ever will.
You know what you're going to have to press through your limitation. You're going to have to work with what you've got. You're going to start where you are. You need tenacity, we need courage, we need resilience, we need patience, we need boldness, we need to take risks. I love this scripture in Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verse six to eight, the Lord said to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be in dread of them for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, he will not leave you or forsake you". Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous for you shall go with these people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them and you shall put them in possession of it".
It is the Lord who goes before you, he will be with you, he will never leave you, he will never forsake you, I said it twice, because it's worthy of being said twice. God will never leave you. God will never forsake you. It is God that is calling you to cross over. It's time to get up, step up, step out in faith, take a risk, do what God has called you to do, become who God has called you to become, don't listen to the naysayers, don't let fear, doubt or negativity, keep you here, trapped, it's time to cross over, it's time to break camp, it's time to advance and go in and possess the promises of God for your generation, in Jesus name. In Jesus name, amen, amen. Come on, let me pray for you.
So Father, I thank you. I thank you that you are a faithful God, that has called us to live an adventurous, daring, purpose driven, passionate life, full of risk and full of faith and full of hope. Thank you, God, that you've not called us to attain domesticated, boring, religious existence. But you've called us to our wild, glorious, unpredictable, faith filled adventure. And we thank you that you've promised to never leave us or forsake us. Thank you that you are with us, in very situation give people the strength and courage just like you said to Joshua, the strength and courage to do the thing that you've called them to do. In Jesus name. Amen, amen, amen. You're all good? Amen.