Be Intentional | Who Did God Create You To Be?

0:00 Hey everyone, you're listening to the Curt Landry podcast where we're going to help you discover your kingdom destiny. My name is Darrell and sitting right beside me as always it's his show. It's Rabbi Curt Landry himself and in this episode we're talking about attentionality, about being intentional about your goals and about things that you want to accomplish. The Rabbi before we get going just really wanted to see how you're doing, how was your weekend, what is up with you? Hey, it was a great weekend and you know as I prayed about discussing this subject about being intentional, I realized that a lot of times you can get so to say mystical about faith where somehow the intentionality of time, task and activity, habits and patterns can kind of go to the wayside.

0:58 If you're in the world of self-improvement and you come out of corporate behavioral training which I come from, all of that is very common, intentions, goals, time, task, activity, habits and patterns, behavior, attitude, mindsets, all of that is everything that I was trained at before I was 36 years old but understanding that the last year that I was in business, in that business before I got saved, at 35 years old, the project I was working on made $7.6 million.

1:40 So I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does generate revenue but I had no peace and no direction. And so kind of part of my testimony is that once I got saved, I kind of dropped all that and then just spent intentionally about a 10-year period of time just really studying the law and God's scripture and new and old Testament but primarily studying the law and the instruction of God and the proverbs to understand if God is the creator of all things and he is and Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived and he was, then I should be able to learn from them.

2:21 So basically I went with about a 10-year season of time where I took all that corporate training that I had and I was licensed NLP trainer and all that. I took all of that and laid it aside and totally meditated and saturated myself in the Lord and then as we were going into after that 10-year period of time, going into full-time ministry, Christy and I, I realized I was going to have to go back to some of my goal setting, back to some of my more practical intentions and applying it to the Spirit and it wasn't and it didn't mean that I was operating in the flesh. It just means I was basically being a good steward of my mindset, my time and my activity and it's really helped me.

3:11 So I'm at a place now 34 years later where I feel like I have for myself personally a decent balance of intentionality, faith and operating in things that are not seen. So that's what faith is, is operating in things that have not been seen or doing things that have not been seen. So really my intention of this podcast is to try to help people find a balance between practical intentionality and practical time task and activity management and spiritual life. Yeah, it's kind of the vision for this podcast. Obviously, dive it into stories, how those are relatable, how you can connect with people on a different level, Rabbi, but our hope overall is that, especially on the topic of being intentional, because everything that you do starts with something and it's the act of it.

4:13 And so in a second, I want to jump in that, but being intentional, I guess in terms of people deciding to listen to this podcast. It's an act of something. And so when you start ground level saying, hey, I know that I need to change XYZ, or I want something, so I need to get in proximity of that. What's the first thought of intentionality that comes to you where you say, okay, I need to do this? The first question you have to ask yourself is, you have to ask yourself, who am I in Christ?

5:00 Who am I? Because there has to be, if you're going to be intentional, you have to be intentional to something, like what is that? And then the second thing is, am I reflecting my identity in him? And what do I have to do to grow it? So one of the things is that so many times people want to create, if I do a lot of purpose activity, I'll find my identity. And I've written a book, Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage, and the whole purpose of the book, and you can get that online, anyplace books are sold.

5:44 But the reason I wrote that book, and the reason I think that book is so important is this. And like I said, I spent probably from about 21, 22, up till 35. I was blessed. Everything I did seemed to prosper. It's very hard working, but I had really good behavioral principles under me from my parents and different mentors that I had. And so, you know, I was successful. When I say that, I was able to make more money than most people at that age.

6:25 And people say, oh, he's got the golden touch. It's not really a touch. What it is, it's intentionally focusing on what I did, was doing what I was good at. So I want to say this to people, if you want to find out who you are in Christ, you need to ask yourself. It's very simple. What are you good at? What are you good at? What is it, if it wasn't for money and providing for your family, what would you love to do? I'm very blessed. Like what you're hearing me do right now, this is what I love to do.

7:07 So it's because I was, it's who I am in Christ. I'm a teacher. And so my identity needs to reflect the fact that I'm a teacher. And so what happens is, how do I grow as a teacher is, here I am, basically, have been asked to speak at all levels of society. And yet I'm very unsatisfied with my communication skills. I'm constantly, actually, I'm going the opposite direction as most speakers. I'm trying to become more simple and not so complex. I'm, I'm trying to be more grassroots and more real. And I'm not trying to be more sophisticated because I really think that the key to an audience, if my message is, and it is, that you're going to unlock your destiny, then you have to unlock why did God, who did God create you to be and how do you find it?

8:03 What's the practice of being intentional? I mean, is it, is it something while you're in the moment of having a conversation or, you know, preaching or giving a public speech? Is it something that is, is you have to be intentional, being intentional in your own head to slow down and hit a trigger point? I mean, like, what's a good technique to put yourself into that zone? Two habits and patterns. Habits and patterns will either strengthen your intentionality so that when you do something, you're more effective or it will weaken it.

8:46 So these are two real basic things. Always end on a good note. Whatever you're doing, I do this with my grandkids and sometimes they don't understand. But even at two, three, four years old, I was doing this with them with the eight year old. Now she understands that if we're shooting basketball hoops as an example or we're swimming, we're trying to hold our breath for a minute underwater and we only get to 45 seconds. We're not getting out of the pool until we get to that 60 second with the eight year old and she can't hold her skin older breath actually now longer than a minute.

9:30 But the point is, is that she's not leaving the pool defeated as a quitter. She didn't quit. So her intention is if she says she's going to do something and it's within her practical ability to accomplish it, then she needs to quit everything she does. She needs to finish on a good note. Third, when you go to bed at night as a Christian, you need to go to bed and you need to pray this simple prayer. Father, I thank you for everything you've done for me this day, but also forgive me for the areas that I've messed up. Forgive me of my sin. Do not go to bed with sin. Do not go to bed with offense. You're going to bed and then ask the Lord, Father God, send your messenger and ministering angels to me as I rest and sleep with downloads and witty inventions.

10:22 Ask for it so that that Lord, I can be a better person the next day. The next morning when you wake up after you use the restroom and you get your coffee or whatever your tea or whatever your practice is, give that first 15 or 20 minutes to the Lord. Those are real basic habits and patterns. If you quit, you always finish on a good note, ask the Lord to forgive your sins, thank him for the day, good and bad, and start the day off with him. Those three things, if you did that for 12 months, you will be a completely different person in 12 months.

11:02 All right. So let's move to, well, let's put this way. Let's get a little bit deeper. Okay. Let's get to practical type of things, something that's systematic, right? Something we can follow. And I absolutely love this guide, this resource that Curtin Landry Ministries has. And it's something that you've taught for a really long time. It's called goals to grow. And for consistency, for the intentionality of trying to grow spiritually. But the part I love about it, Rabbi, is that it helps you win and achieve your goals for yourself throughout the year, if you can be intentional.

11:47 And so kind of introduce us to it a little bit and where someone that is going to download this guide. And for the quick link on that, that's just CurtinLandry.com forward slash grow 2024. But where would somebody start with this guide? Okay. If this guide, first of all, I'm very proud of it. It's basically, I've taken about 45 years experience out of the world and the different systems that, of self-improvement that I've, books I've read.

12:28 And I basically circumcised it, so to say, and made it biblical. I took out the, the, um, unbiblical stuff out of behavioral change and mindsets and kind of made it kosher. And, and, but the steps are really simple. In fact, in the first chapter of this, it says today we are intentional steps together to apply acts. And this is a teaching principle that I've used for years called acts, ACT, apply, change and transform. So what happens is you have to be able to ask the questions that are in this workbook and the questions will identify what your goals are.

13:16 And then you will apply the scriptures and the habits and patterns together. If you take, and you have a scriptural base, okay, I'm just giving you an example. You're facing a fear. You're, you're, you're wanting to go into public speaking. Okay. And, um, you really feel like you have something to say, but you're one of those people and it's one of the most fearful things as people to, to public speak. So you have to face the fear. So what you do is the key to public speaking is to own what you're going to speak on. You have to own it, not just know it, not reading a teleprompter.

13:59 You have to own it. Okay. So you have to invest time. Preparation is the key. You know, is, uh, uh, for me on a Friday night, I'm going to speak for 45 minutes to an hour. I usually have eight to 10 hours of prep time for that. And my problem is I have too much information. So what I have to do, but I've been doing this forever. So what I have to do is narrow it down to what I really think people can absorb in this session. So, so what you have to do is you have to own the information, but then the, the other key to it is when you get ready to, to deliver it, you need to pray a prayer like this saying, Father God, I ask you to remove all fear, all doubt, all unbelief that I can deliver this message in a way that would bring glory to you.

14:48 I decree and declare that I am truly more than conqueror through Christ Jesus. I, I buying that spirit of fear because I take authority over, I cast it off my mind. I decree, let this mind be in you who is in Christ Jesus. And Lord, your word says, Lord, in the Psalms that you will give me the tongue of a well and ready writer. So what happens is now that what I just did with you, I do that almost every time I speak, I am more than a conqueror. I have the tongue of a well and ready writer and his word shall not come back void, but shall prosper in that which it is sent to do. His word is spirit and life. I am anointed of God to break every yoke of darkness over those who I'm speaking to.

15:32 You have to be able. So what's happening is I've, I own the message. I have good notes. I know it's going to fit within the timeframe that I'm asked to deliver, but I've also backed it up with scripture. And that's really what goals to grow by is it gives you the applied change and transform and the scriptures you need. It gives you the ability to ask questions like, what is it, who you are, what do you need to be doing? And here's the scriptures to back it up and we'll be right back. It's a new year and a new you. Have you ever wondered how to stay consistent with growing spiritually, but also winning and achieving your goals you have for yourself this year?

16:17 Get your free download of my goals to grow by visiting Curt Landry.com forward slash grow 2024. That's Curt Landry.com forward slash grow 2024. I'll help answer questions like, where do I start? How do I walk in the spirit? Or how do I do spiritual warfare? Or how do I believe that I'm more than a conqueror? Meaning that Matthew 633 positions us for success in this year ahead. That's Seek He first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be added onto us.

17:00 The fruit of the Spirit is evident in His covenant. Know this, that if you can establish His covenant in your heart and in your mind, you will be successful this coming year. So get your free download for goals to grow 2024 by visiting Curt Landry.com forward slash grow 2024 or visit the show notes in this episode. There are some projects that really touch your heart and this is interesting because our son-in-law, Paul Marcelino, his dad, Yoke and I Marcelino, helped to produce this book and the whole purpose of this book, Jerusalem Rising, is to be able to bring visual evidence that Jerusalem and Israel actually belongs to the children of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that this is the land of Isaac.

18:02 And the miracle power, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words and this book captures that. So listen, I'm really blessed for a limited time and why supplies last. You can get a 30% discount by entering the promo code of Rising. And so what you need to do is go to CurtLandry.com forward slash rising and you can be able to claim your discounted copy of Jerusalem Rising. So that's CurtLandry.com forward slash rising. Get a 30% discount now why supplies last.

18:44 All right now back to the show. What's the impasse you think with people in general creating goals, right? You know, it's kind of like starting a one-year Bible or like a daily devotional, you know, I mean like January's upon us, right? And a lot of Christians have purchased multiple guides, right, to help them just read Scripture consistently, right? And I mean, I know for myself, but like most Christians go into it with excitement, right?

19:25 The intentionality of like, I'm going to finally do one year perfect. I'm probably going to win one year of just reading my Bible. But I guess my question to come back to, what's that impasse in general with creating goals, right? Because everybody's going to have them around the first of year, many or few. But like what's that area to like where people don't succeed? I, this is just my opinion. Okay. I'm just giving you, you know, because I've watched. I'll share it to a story, testimony.

20:07 Years ago I was at TL Osborne's house and a lot of people may not know who that is, but he was one of the world's largest evangelists, led more people to the Lord than anybody in his generation, a tremendously wise man, very smart and very simple. And he lived in Tulsa and I was blessed to have about 10 year window of time with him. We were truly friends and our connection and friendship was that we absolutely like, like you can have friends that you play golf with. You can have friends. My, my, my relationship with TL was he and I loved to unpack scripture and the deeper, the better that was our relationship.

20:58 And, but he, he gave me this advice. It's kind of a long way of going about to answer your question. We're sitting in his, in his living room there at his house and he points over at the light switch and he says, rabbi, you see the light switch? I said, yeah. He says, it takes absolutely no faith for me to turn that light switch on out of habit. I will go, I flip it and I know the lights coming on because I trust that the action of flipping that switch and the electricity to turn the light on, I trust it's not faith. I said, wow. And he said, can I give you some advice? I said, sure. He said, now realizing this was probably maybe 16 years ago, he said, if you'll make a choice of one thing every year that you're going to turn from faith to trust and identify it in your life where you actually put it in your goals to grow by and you say, I am going to not have to like believe for, uh, I'll just give you an example.

22:09 My, one of my things is per physical protection. You know, I'm a target. I'm a public figure. Um, I have security. I have security really for the people around me more than myself. But there was years ago where I said, I'm just going to trust the Lord. So we just came back from this trip from Israel. How can you go where you went? Because my trust in the Lord isn't by faith. I own the trust in the Lord. I own it. It's like the light switch, but it was on purpose. It took like a whole year of actually meditating on scriptures. It's like, it's like wealth.

22:51 If you have to remember it's God who gives you the ability to create wealth. I don't worry about money. Okay. Uh, it's, I don't have a lack of money and I haven't for years, but it's, it's the revelation of it is Deuteronomy eight 18 through 20 for it's God who gives you the ability to create wealth. Why? To establish his covenant. When you realize that God wants to prosper you to, to actually vindicate that his ways work, then it's easier to follow. So I own that. So I don't worry about my protection. I don't worry about my finance. Think about what, what a, a blessing to not have to exercise faith for protection and money where most people are sweating money and they're sweating faith.

23:41 I mean the protection that came from TL Osborne because what happened is I basically took kind of a goals to grow by and I say this year I am not going to be afraid of finance. I am not going to be afraid of health. I am not going to be afraid of relationship. You need to just, so what I'm saying to you Darrell is when I see people fail is because what happens is they have too many goals. You need to choose one goal and say, listen, it's 2024. It's the year of the door. And I look at my personal inventory and what's my biggest fear? Why don't you tackle that, identify it and get all the scriptures that is whatever that fear is and start to crean over that believing for that one thing and guess what 16 years from now you're going to be sitting here with TL and now I've got 16 things.

24:35 Christie and I just talked about the other day. I told her, I said, do you remember when TL challenged me with that? I remember I was in such a hurry then I thought, oh, I gotta have faster. But literally I just do it every year. And so you just work on it. It's interesting. Like for me, my goal for 2024 personally is working on relationship. I want to be able to have more skills to be able to interact with more different people in a very practical way. I want to be able to trust the Lord that I can become more of a crescent wretch, that I can talk to a Muslim.

25:17 Like it doesn't make any difference like whoever it is, if I have to share the information that's in me with somebody else, I want to be able to have relationship skills that I can trust that I am more than conqueror through Christ Jesus. So because it's not about protection, it's not about money and it's not about health. Those are areas that I've kind of feel like I'm comfortable in. I want to deal with relationship. So whatever it is with you, whatever your question is for young people, money, your marriage, you have to be intentional about your marriage because if you're not intentional about your marriage, then everything else falls apart because you and your wife, you are in the math.

26:06 When I do counseling and do weddings, I only marry people in the House of David. But the few that I've done, I always say the same thing. You have to understand the math of biblical marriage. One plus one equals one. You have become one and you have to learn how to, through the seasons of time, operate in that. So you may only be operating in faith that you can operate as a loving, honoring, respectful partner in marriage. But how about if you just trust that God sent you this person? Where that's important is when you disagree and you get offended and it will happen.

26:50 And particularly if the other person is being used to so to say, sand down your rough edges, you have to be able to say, no, the Lord, I trust the Lord, he gave me this person. And our goal as a couple is not to prosper is not to be financially. It's great. Listen, I'm good with all the financial goals and the stuff. All of that is secondary. Your marriage is there is to be, to come together, to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. If you'll seek first that kingdom and that likeness and you say, Father God, you sending us these children, our job is that they reflect you, not us.

27:38 Then what happens is all of the things, the money, the influence, the resources, the health all falls into place. So one thing that really stuck out to me is your basic number one goal for 2024 that brings it to a really unique spot. Not only at Curt Landry Ministries, but just in theology, church, ministry, just the whole side, right? When it comes to content and communication and developing relationships, something that's really unique that we've been working on on the creative media side is basically taking your Shabbat.

28:23 So like a lesson that you'd preach on a Friday night and turning that into different languages. Not just like, oh, okay, I hear someone dub over the top, which is basically people that know exactly what that is, speaking over the top of your audio in, say, Spanish, right? But actually using technology to take your actual lesson and, hey, I didn't know Rabbi spoke Spanish, right? To take that to the next level, did you ever think that like, I mean, I don't know, I mean, maybe it would line up with your 2024, but like how cool you kind of think about an opportunity to reach a completely different audience of people to spread the gospel?

29:14 I mean, like, did any of that kind of come into like your number one goal or am I just kind of shooting at a left field of this? No, it has to do with my relationship is being the voice. You know, on this recent trip to Israel, I shared my testimony with about 250 soldiers. And so, and they had all received my book in Hebrew. And I just shared with them, I said, I made a decision in 1991 to be a voice to speak for the Lord. And I said, and you, your soldiers, I said, your, your actions are helping fulfill that voice because a lot of what I speak is prophetic words and prophecy fulfillment of God's word, particularly involved to the land of Israel and the people of Israel.

30:10 That message, I think that the most important thing for businesses, families, and particularly spiritual churches and ministries, your alignment with standing with Israel being blessed because you do it unto the least of these, my brethren, you bless Israel and you'll be blessed. That revelation needs to be in every language, absolutely every language. I mean, you know, there's, there's bizarre things happening. You have one of the ministers in Turkey here just last week and he gets up and he's cursing Israel.

30:57 He's at the pulpit there where it, at their government meeting. It's like they're in, he's in their Congress room and he's, and he's just spilling out, spilling out all this hate. You know, we're going to, we're going to annihilate and remove Israel. He finishes, he folds up his message. He literally took one step to the left and falls to the ground and dies with a heart attack. Okay. And it was in Turkish and they had the thing. So the whole world's watching this, but wouldn't it have been good if the people in Turkey would have heard some of the messages that I've speak about in Turkish about blessing and standing with Israel.

31:48 There has to be something that I mean, it's, we can't do it right now, but that was a prime time where the whole nation and the Middle East is watching this guy. He gets up in this violent rant and literally turns around and falls to the ground. Now I'm not saying that God took them out. It could have just been a coincidence. That was his day to go, but it would have sure been good if we could have had our message on Genesis 12, three and about blessing Israel. All right. So let's bring it back now. So we, we've talked about attentionality, made it relatable, some stories from your life, your career, and we've looked at some different perspectives on it.

32:33 Let's bring it back to, let's say, step two. Okay. So we know that this resource exists. It's obviously, if you want to go back, listen to different parts of this episode, you can go back and listen. But if you want to find this actual guide, it's a free download, CurtLandry.com forward slash grow 2024. Let's end it on this note. What's step two? Because we'll have other podcasts to where we can come back and 2024 just started. So let's really dive deep into the goals to grow. But what's step two for the listener right now to say, Hey, Rabbi, download your guide.

33:18 I picked that one thing. What's step two to that one thing and their goals to grow? Being in the fruit of the spirit intentionally. I will walk in the fruit of the spirit. I will walk in love, peace, joy, uh, long suffering. I will walk in covenant with God. That's it. Because so what happens is when you get angry or you get frustrated and you're wanting to sin, you have to be able to have that knee jerk reaction that stops you and says, you know what, I cannot afford to walk in the flesh because what it's going to do, it's going to erode my timetable of the goals that I set because God's trying to establish his covenant with me.

34:09 I pray, I write it down, I believe, but what happens is my walk, I need to intentionally, it might be a great goal for some of you to say, okay, what, what area of my life do I want to, um, uh, make like one goal. You might want to say, you know what, my goal for 2024 is Galatians 5 22 through 23, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control against such. There is no law and that may be your goal and your goal would be to say, I'm not going to walk in the flesh intentionally because if I do it, I know it's going to cost me my covenant blessing.

34:54 I mean, what a, what a huge life changing single goal. I'm going to walk in, I'm going to walk in the spirit. Man, tons to unpack in this episode of the Curt Landry podcast. If you have questions, uh, if you have direction, you have show topics, anything that you want to really shoot to us, uh, send it over to podcast at CurtLandry.com, uh, you know, do us a favor, put whatever you kind of want in the title and the subject line of those emails because right about, we get a ton of requests, we get a ton of response and you know, that's, that's kind of one of the hopes of this podcast.

35:41 Um, getting feedback, helping people discover their kingdom destiny. You know, it's something that the ministry is incredibly, um, excited about as we release different types of content and, um, you know, I mean, different languages and really pushing the envelope in terms of just reaching that next generation. Uh, Rabbi, lasting thought for this episode and then we're going to skip out. Uh, my lasting thought is make sure that you, part of your goals to grow is to have fun. You're going to have to have some leisure and some fun time and you're going to have to schedule it in.

36:24 And the reason I say that is I'll be bringing a prophetic word on 2024. Uh, in fact, I'll, I think I'm going to be recording it for a ministry here this week. And, and part of that word's going to be, you're going to have to maintain the joy of the Lord, which is your strength. So you, you can't just, uh, this is going to be a rough year. There's going to be a lot of bad news and there's going to be a lot of good opportunities. So you, in the midst of the bad news, there's good opportunities, but you have to intentionally on purpose figure out how to have fun. Whatever that is, whatever it is that you do that you, you, uh, make puzzles in the winter, I don't know what it is.

37:12 You play golf, you fish, um, uh, what, whatever it is you cook, whatever that you love to do, be watchful over it so that you intentionally do it. So protect your joy and per, because here's the thing is we're coming to an end of a season of a major sin that is death and that harvest is the Lord is going to harvest the tears with judgment and you just need to keep your head bowed, stay full of joy, knowing that the best is yet to come. One last thing, if you've made it to the end of this episode, every single link, every single, uh, resource that we've mentioned, you can find in the show notes in the description on this episode, um, of this podcast again, Rabbi, it was a pleasure.

38:04 This episode on intentionality being intentional goals to grow. Uh, just a reminder, you can go to curtainlandry.com forward slash grow 2024. All right, Rabbi, until next time. Thank you.