Welcome back to ignite and I want to pick up on this subject of you are in full time ministry and you are, whether you know it or not, you know all of us are witnesses. Some of us are witnesses for the prosecution okay? We are witnesses everything you do everything you do and say from the moment, moment you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed, everything you do and say throughout the day is moving everybody watching you closer or further away from God. You can’t get away from that. You can’t I mean, you can say I’m going to be a witness today why you’re going to be witness today one way or the other. So keep that in mind first okay. But when you understand that you realize that there are no coincidences that God is right there with you He never leaves you or forsakes you he he’s always right there and and and to think that there’s no coincidences we need to think that there are coincidences which say that some things happen outside the purview of God. That he wasn’t in that oh my golly gee, you know, wow, I am so lucky. That just worked out. I just heard there that just worked out just perfect. You know, I you know, and I heard this thing what a coincidence. I heard the pastor say this that heard on the radio, what a coincidence. When those kinds of things happen listen up, because God is speaking to you, there are no coincidences. And when something odd is starting to happen, I gotta tell you, when you once you understand this concept, which something odd starts to happen you can pretty well figure out the God is up to something he’s up to something. And that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. I looked up the definition of coincidences and and it said I remarkable concurrent of events or circumstances that have no apparent connection with one another. Okay, no apparent connection. But God, no apparent connection. You don’t think those things happen? Most times we don’t. If you’re not sensitive, if you’re not, if you’re not realizing you’re in full time ministry, if you don’t realize that, that everything’s happening, you’re, I mean, it changes everything in your life, folks. This thing of sharing your faith, it seems so mundane. It seems like it’s for somebody else, and I don’t have the talent, I don’t have a, now we have all these excuses. That’s all they are is excuses. That God said, Isaiah 43 said, I’ve appointed you as my witness, so that you will believe and you will believe it when you connect the dots when you see these are not these are not coincidences, they are God’s intervening in your life and setting up opportunities for you. And it changes everything, okay? It just changes everything. This whole thing of loving our neighbors as ourselves. You know, Jesus was asked what’s what’s the most important commandment and he said, love thee, I just love him. Love you with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and when you do that, you automatically love your neighbor as yourself. A brand new Christian, you can’t stop a brand new Christian that’s made God their first you can’t stop them from sharing their faith. And that’s how God wants you to live your life, every day of your life. When you love your neighbors as yourself you’re as concerned for their salvation as you are your own, and so, wherever you go, everywhere you go, you know, most people are lost, they got, wherever you go, you’re in the store, you’re in a waiting room, you’re on an airplane. I go the Rosebowl I’ve already missed four Rosebowl games since 1949. And every year when it starts 99,000 people, everybody’s yelling and they’re there for their team, when they got their beers in there. You know, all this stuff and I think back to Jesus when he when he was on the donkey on Jerusalem, and he and he wept, and I don’t totally understand what all what’s going through his mind. But I knee jerked to that a little bit, particularly at that moment, because I look out and I know that 80% of those people are on their way to hell. They’re on their way to hell, they don’t know it. And how are they going to know if somebody tells them? We got to get busy, okay. And we do that then God used our lives every moment of every day. And when we, when we, when we do that we’re living for God’s purpose. The most used scripture I use, you’ll hear me I’ll probably put it in 99% of all of our podcasts was this Romans 8:28, one of the most known and most most absolutely most misunderstood scriptures of the whole Bible. Oh, all things work together for good, boy God I must be for somebody else, not for me because it ain’t working together for good for me, and it hasn’t for a long time. Either you just do it for other people, I haven’t achieved that yet or not good enough for that. Or maybe the Scripture isn’t true. Maybe I can trust you, maybe I can’t. It’s because from the pulpit, it’s we just hear the first part of that scripture. What I’m telling you right now and my 80 years of going to church almost every Sunday for eighty years and Sunday nights, a woodsy item, whatever, when we had those kinds of services, and I heard sermons preached so offered on this scripture, but they just got the first part. All things work together for good I asked, I’ve asked hundreds of Christians, quote, that’s verse and about three fourths of get this for those who love God. Almost nobody quotes that last part, which is the most important part. If pastor’s, if you’re listening to me right now, I, I can’t imagine being a pastor and not repeating this every single time I’m in the pulpit. It goes on to say, for those who live for my purpose. There’s no, there’s no confusion about what God’s purpose is, he came to seek and save the lost. I talked to so many of you, I’m trying to find God’s purpose. It’s not about your purpose. There’s only one purpose, it’s God’s purpose to seek and save the lost. He has a plan for your life much different than plan for my life, how we do that. But make no mistake, he has a plan for your life, how you can live for His purpose, to seek and save the last to move everybody, every day, closer to Jesus. Okay. And Romans 8:28. And when you love me and live for my purpose, I tell you, I promise you for now until you get to heaven. John 3:60, and most important scripture, but I can’t find one that second to it more than this one for now until you get to heaven. I’m going to make everything in your life work together for good. That’s everything. That’s the little things. That’s the bad things. There are no there are no coincidences. I have so many life stories, just thinking of this. I was just pondering this morning. I can’t, I have so many stories. I guess I’ll tell you a few. I got a million of them. Karen and I moved to Detroit when we were first married. Our business was all over the country, but it was our biggest customers Buick motor division. And we lost our rep in Detroit and we needed a new rep I sold the family on the concept that Karen and I would move to Detroit and quite frankly, there was about 12 people in our little family business, all relatives that it was it was a bit stifling. And I wanted to break out and get out of that and do something extraordinary. So we moved back there. We found a pastor, we knew the pastor of the church back there and he took us out we’d started looking at our homes, I’ll just speed it up real quick. We found a brand new neighborhood perfectly situated and he helped us find and we actually bought the first house in that neighborhood, okay. When the neighborhood filled out we were ended up being the only Gentiles in that neighborhood. It was a Jewish neighborhood. And we’re the were the neighborhood Gentiles and they loved on us and loved on us everybody had a cousin or somebody could get us our sod or storm windows whatever we were the young married couple that we didn’t know what we were doing and we didn’t know you need you to think about storm windows, those kind of things. And they came out and just loved on us. And we’ve had close friends and and we began to understand their culture and their humor and everything. I mean, I started to feel like I think I’m Jewish. I really love it with these people you know. I had no idea we’re going into retail at that point that was 1965 I went into retail 1973, God inspiring me to do that. And particularly at that time, would you call it on retail it was almost entirely Jewish world. And had I not known the Jewish culture and their humor and what what excited them and what offended them had I not known that I could have made a whole bunch of mistakes. Okay. But as it happened, I walked in I felt like home. And even when there were some abrupt things that were said to me, I know they were loving me they’re just trying to crack this young kid to know what he’s doing. It was so perfect, was that a coincidence? No, it wasn’t. God was directing Karen and my steps in 1965 for our world in retail, which started eight years later, in 1973. I felt God was leading us into the retail business I didn’t know anything about it. I finally tell you the family is all against me. We’re a professional brand we sell to car dealers and body shops. We don’t want to be in that gypo discount businesses. Somehow I managed to convince them with the with the truth that car guys are like professionals, they’re just like us they they want the same kind of results. We, we achieve and they don’t care about price. They’ll follow directions to do everything. There are kind of guys, I just wanted to sell them. And they reluctantly they let me go. And I got the approval that I walked out of that board meeting not having a clue about retail. Just didn’t have a clue. I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t, I didn’t know the first thing about it. And I said, God, you know, I just kind of have to trust you in this you got to bring me the knowledge. I was in a waiting room down in Dallas, Texas, and walked in and sat next to a guy about I don’t know, maybe 15 years by senior, 20 years perhaps name was Craig Benson. And we had a nice conversation then, when you’re when you’re in traveling sales, you go in these board rooms with all the buyer, all the sellers, all its primary salesmen in this room. And then the buyer calls different buyers call each one of us at a different time. So he went to his buyer, I went to mine and we say goodbye. Two weeks later, that was Dallas. Okay, two weeks later, I’m in Seattle, and I walk into a waiting room and there’s the same guy. Same guy. What are the odds? So we started talking, so tell me about your business and why trying to get into retail I have this great product is the best product in the world. But I don’t know anything about retail and so I’m struggling with all that. And he’s oh, I can help you that. I said, I got, how so? It turns out, he’s the general partner one of the general partners of the largest ad agency in the United States at that time. He’s, where do you live? And I told him and we ended up with, we met in Dallas in Seattle, but he lives about 10 miles away from me. I’m an Irvine and he’s in Newport Beach. And he said well let’s get, I said you know, I appreciate it. I have no money. I can’t afford you. He’s well let’s get together for a conversation just have lunch I said okay. So we had lunch and he said you really need help. I said, Yeah, he says why how about I come over to your house next week on a night so let’s pick Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday, whatever I forget, whell Wednesday I was at church so, so he would come over he started coming over once a week and spending an hour or two with me and gave me a full education like a like a master’s degree education on the retail market and and design and what to look for and discount structures and marketing and how strong your ad is on your product and all this stuff. I gotta add guy just brought him into my life. Was it a coincidence that I met him in Dallas and then Seattle? I don’t think so. I got a million stories like that. You know, you’re you’re driving along you’re caught in traffic. You’re late for an appointment then all of a sudden you have a flat tire you can say really God? I think you know what, where are you when I need you, you know? And then you realize God’s and it and the AAA guy comes and he’s in a mess, personally, and you get to minister to him, and God gives you the right words. Yes. Get back to your car. You make the call you find a that appointment was cancelled anyway. That’s the way God works, you know? A couple others right quick. There are no coincidences. Okay, so Karren and I are flying to Manchester, New Hampshire to go on a car rally was a really close friends of ours up in New England in the fall. And we get hung up in Chicago, easy to do. And we ended up being the last flight that comes in the lands in Manchester, okay. And now we’re the last flight but all the bags came off the plane and our our bags weren’t there. Finally, after a long pause, and we had almost given up we would say God, we know our bags gonna be there too, the last two bags. You know, you’ve probably had that happen sometime. Two bags come off. So we walked out to get in our car. We got a car organized. We walk out there, he’s not there. So I call the guy that organizes our cars. He said, I’ve been trying to reach him. Mr. Meguiar we can’t find our driver. We’ve been calling him for the last two hours. We can’t find our driver. Really. Now he’s so hanging in there, we will keep trying to find somebody but now it’s it’s right about one o’clock. Okay. And I got on the phone and all sudden we hear the airport is now closed. And we were so focused on what this phone call was we had not looked around and the lights go boom, and they’re out at the airport. The doors are locked. And there’s not a soul. We were so focused that we looked around and there’s not one person, there’s not one car. Not one person it’s deserted and fairly large airport, the big sweeping horseshoe, not one person there. It’s one o’clock in the morning. But Karen and I had been through this so many times. And so we laugh. And Karen says I wonder what he’s up to now meaning God. And I said yeah, you know he must have somebody for us to talk to. So I’m finding my secretary Kathy called us and said I found somebody he had had a write up, he took some folks up to Boston, he’s dead heading back. He lives in your area he lives in, and the Manchester area, and he’s heading your way to pick you up. So it’s funny while we were waiting, we were laughing. We were relaxed. We didn’t we didn’t know what God was up to. We knew we’re gonna be fine. We were wondering, I mean, we talked about well, when you live in this world, it’s like God’s always there so that there’s nothing to get upset about. There’s no bad news. God’s in the bad news back. He’s more in the bad news than the good news sometimes. And I joke with Karen and say, hey, guess what there’s two benches here. There’s one for each of us. And it was warm that night, so we wouldn’t have been cold at all okay, though, that works for me. My wife has been with me through this so we share this experience together. It’s It’s freedom, folks. When you’re when you’re when you’re in the business, when you’re in the life when you’re committed to moving everybody everyday closer to Jesus, you live in the favor of God you live in, in the fog, I call it the favor of God where you just know there are no coincidences that everything’s happening for a purpose. And finally, this gentleman came by and he picked us up and we’re driving down the road and and he said, Well, what was going on in your, what was going through your mind? I said, funny you should ask. I tell him we just very there must be somebody that needs to know more about Jesus needs to be brought closer to God. That’s amazing. I said what he said my life is a wreck I’ve had all kinds of problems. I haven’t been to church for years. And I just praying to God the last couple several days, I need to get back to you God, I need to get into church, I need to talk to somebody. And I’m picking you up at two o’clock in the morning we drove for the next hour. And that ride seemed like about 10 minutes. We had so much fun. We got out we prayed with him and loved on him and we walked into our bedroom we’re getting into our bedroom about three o’clock you know, instead of being exhausted and worn out and upset or whatever, we’re just praising God we were so excited we could hardly go to sleep. That was not a coincidence that all those things happen in a row you think they’re not related and we got hung up in Chicago. What’s that have to do with getting in the later? What’s that have to do with their bags been the last bags off and all that stuff? You follow my my drift but every day is an adventure. There is no bad news. I gotta tell you, there’s no bad news. There’s no coincidences when you see bad things happen. Look up and say okay, God, what are you up to? Because, you know, he’s into it. And he’s going to turn the bad news into good news no matter what it is. And the key for all that is moving everybody every day closer to Jesus. See you next time.
