I was asked recently by a woman – if I have a big dream for my life, how do I know it’s from God?  How do I know if it’s real?  Isn’t this whole living your dream thing just a bit dangerous?  Now – she asks some very, very good questions.

It’s just great to be with you again on another Friday heading to another weekend. This week we’ve been looking at the subject of living out the dreams that God puts in our hearts. It’s an exciting time because I believe that God puts a dream in everybody’s heart.

God gifts us and creates us and makes us for a certain thing in life. And that dream often burns so deeply in our hearts. What I think is really sad is when people get to the end of their lives and they look back on their lives and they realise that they missed the one opportunity that they had to live the dream that God has given them.

I was lecturing about this at a Bible college recently. A woman came up to me afterwards and she asked a question. It went something like this, “What is a dream? I mean, how do you know that it’s real? What if it’s just something that I dreamed up and it’s not God’s dream for me? Isn’t that dangerous?” Now, I think that’s an excellent bunch of questions.

I heard someone say recently that God is a bit like your American Express card. You should never leave home without Him. I like that. You know, it’s interesting, all sorts of people dream dreams and some of them achieve greatness without ever once believing in Jesus Christ. I believe that’s because we’re all made in God’s image. We are made to be creative. We are made to dream. We are made as ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

Is it possible to achieve a dream without believing in Jesus? Absolutely. You just look at some of the great artists and some of the great adventurers and some of the great business leaders down through history and even today. Many of them don’t believe in Jesus.

But, if we want a dream that satisfies us, I mean really deeply satisfies us, if we want to be God’s man or woman in the place where He’s called us doing the things that He’s gifted us to do, then the questions that woman asked me about dreaming are very, very good questions.

The world is full of successful people who are unsatisfied by what they do. They get to success, whatever success is, and they discover that it’s empty. They discover that when they buy into sweet success, it tastes bitter and sour

The only way that we can find fulfilment is in the Person of Jesus Christ. God gifts us, God creates us, God calls us to be ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

The questions that woman asked me are these - “What is a dream? I mean, how do I know if it’s real and what if it’s just something that I dreamed up and it’s not God’s dream at all? That’s dangerous,” she said. I think she’s right.

So there are four markers that, for me, point to whether a dream is from God or whether it’s something that we dreamed up.

I mean, for fifteen or sixteen years of my life I lived my own dream. I was very successful at my dream. It’s just that it never satisfied me.

The first marker is this: I believe the Bible teaches us that it is normal for us to dream God’s dreams. In Acts, chapter 2, we read about Pentecost. Pentecost was an amazing time because just as God had promised way back in the Old Testament, that was the day that He poured His Holy Spirit out on all believers.

In the past the only people who had the Holy Spirit were certain prophets and certain leaders. And then Jesus came and those who were close to Jesus had a close relationship with God. But this day, after Jesus had risen from the dead and after He’d ascended into heaven, this day of Pentecost is when Jesus poured His Holy Spirit out on all the believers.

The people watching saw the believers speak in other tongues, they heard the believers talking in all different languages, they could hear the gospel, the good news, in their own language and they thought the believers were drunk.

But Peter the apostle, the one who had stood against Jesus and said, “Lord, You can’t possibly go to the cross.” Jesus had also filled Peter with the Holy Spirit on that day. And the very first sermon that was preached on Pentecost went like this, it was from Peter. And remember Peter is preaching to the Jews in Jerusalem. These are the same people who lynched Jesus, who caused Jesus to be crucified. So this is a gutsy sermon to preach a few weeks after Jesus was crucified.

This is how the sermon went - “But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem. ‘Let this me known to you and listen to what I say. Indeed these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only 9 o’clock in the morning.

“No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel. In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour My Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out My Spirit.”

In other words, the dreaming of dreams and the seeing of visions is a normal manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. It is normal to dream dreams, the dreams that God has for us. The dreams that God has for the people around us.

Sometimes when we talk about dreaming dreams, people who believe in Jesus say, “Well, hold on a minute. I don’t that that’s biblical. I don’t think I should be dreaming dreams.”

A normal manifestation of the Holy Spirit, here it is in Acts, chapter 2, is that we should dream dreams. Let’s not be afraid of that. God has made us as creative people in His image. We’re people made to dream, we’re people made to achieve extraordinary things. We’re people made with certain gifts.

To dream a dream and believe that it’s from God is a step of faith. And without faith we cannot please God. That’s the first marker. It’s normal for us to dream dreams.

The second issue is: what are my gifts? Normally our dreams are things that really make us tick, are related to the things we’re good at. It’s often other people who can tell us what we’re good at. It’s often really hard for us to judge what we’re good at. Different people are good at different things.

I think of the financial director in our ministry, David Green. David is just the best financial director, the best accountant that I have ever met. And I say to this guy, “I need a cash flow, a need a spread sheet, I need a budget, I need you to do this.” And David loves to do that and he’s so good at it. I could never do what he does. He is gifted to do that.

I think of Max Harding, the guy that sits in the studio with me day after day, week after week, recording and putting these programs together. I could never do what Max does. But he’s so good at what he does.

You know the problem is sometimes we think of something that we’re good at and we think this doesn’t sound very spiritual. I mean Berni talked about having a dream and his dream is to teach the Bible. That’s pretty spiritual. My dream isn’t spiritual. It can’t possibly be a dream from God.

I remember speaking to a woman who was in her 40s and I said to her, “What’s your dream?” And she said, “I really don’t know what my dream is.” And I said, “What do you enjoy doing?” And she said, “Well, I enjoy having coffee with people. Doesn’t sound very spiritual, does it?” And I sort of joked and laughed and said, “Maybe God has a coffee ministry planned for you.” Guess what she’s doing? She’s living out her life caring for people, meeting with them one on one and she laughs to this day saying, “I’m doing my coffee ministry.”

It may seem radical. I remember speaking to a young woman when I was a student at Bible college. I said, “What’s your dream?” And she said, “I want to work at a holistic medical center. And when I do that and help people, I want to see healing come to their lives and I want God to use me in that area.” Doesn’t sound very conventional does it?

Another man that I was talking to just recently, this man is a very, very successful entrepreneur. And over the years he has poured millions of dollars into God’s work. Just given the money so that God’s work can be done across this world. It may not sound very spiritual to say I think my dream is to be an entrepreneur, but look how powerfully God has used this man.

The third point is that your dream will always burn in your heart. It will never leave you, it will never forsake you, it will just burn.

And the fourth one, when we start walking as we must do, our dream lies where God opens the doors. God opens some amazing doors for us to live out our dreams. We serve an awesome God.