{"id":36,"date":"2006-06-08T10:16:23","date_gmt":"2006-06-08T17:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/?p=36"},"modified":"2006-06-08T10:16:23","modified_gmt":"2006-06-08T17:16:23","slug":"interview-with-rick-warren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Rick Warren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with Rick Warren, author of Purpose Driven Life and Pastor
\nof Saddleback Church in California
\n\u00a0People ask me, What is the purpose of life?\u00a0
\nAnd I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body -- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity.
\nThis is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.
\nGod wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
\nWe were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
\nLife is a series of problems:\u00a0 Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
\nThe reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
\nGod is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life.\u00a0 The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
\nThis past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest,with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
\n\u00a0I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth.\u00a0
\n\u00a0I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track,and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
\nNo matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.\u00a0
\nYou can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.\u00a0 If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is \"my problem, my issues, my pain.\"\u00a0
\nBut one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
\nWe discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.
\nIt has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character,given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
\nYou have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
\nActually,sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder.
\nFor instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me\u00a0instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
\nSo I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence.\u00a0 He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, 2 Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
\nFirst, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
\nSecond, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
\nThird, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches,equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the
\nnext generation.
\nFourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
\n\u00a0
\nWe need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?
\nAm I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
\nWhen I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say,\"God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love
\nYou better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
\nHappy moments, PRAISE GOD.
\nDifficult moments, SEEK GOD.
\nQuiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
\nPainful moments, TRUST GOD.
\nEvery moment, THANK GOD.
\nGet along with each other, and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you.
\n\"purdriven.jpg\"<\/a>May God bless you today. Rick Warren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview with Rick Warren, author of Purpose Driven Life and Pastor of Saddleback Church in California \u00a0People ask me, What is the purpose of life?\u00a0 And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my ...continue reading \"Interview with Rick Warren\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-afternoon-tea","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry","9":"h-as-article"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}