Pathway to Victory

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Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska.

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Have you ever witnessed the breathtaking majesty of massive glaciers rising from crystal blue.

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Waters or stood in awe as bald.

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Eagles soar over snow capped mountain?

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I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to.

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Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

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Visit historic ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, where wilderness and frontier history await.

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There's something powerful about connecting with God and fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness. I truly believe this journey will refresh you spiritually, physically and emotionally.

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Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm.

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Glad to study God's Word with you.

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Every day on this Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

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Folks, in some mysterious ways, when we read the Bible, the Bible actually does a work in our heart. It transforms our hearts. It is a conductor, a channel through which God's desires become our desires.

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. God has a unique plan and purpose for every one of us.

And while we often look for dramatic signs or supernatural revelations to guide the way, God frequently communicates his plan through our own transformed desires.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains that discovering God's will might be as simple as discovering your deepest desires.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

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Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Just before we get started with today's message, let me ask a quick question. Did you know that Pathway to Victory publishes a magazine? We haven't said a lot about this resource, but today I'm eager to send you three complimentary editions. Pathway Magazine contains encouraging daily devotional readings and a variety of practical articles about how to navigate your walk with God. To get started and take advantage of a free offer, just go to ptv.org.

We all treasure our ability to choose. It's a fundamental freedom God placed within us. Yet when our decisions intersect with His divine plan, we often find ourselves wrestling with profound questions. For example, how do we honor both our responsibility to choose wisely and His ultimate authority over our lives? This tension between human choice and divine sovereignty isn't just theological; it's deeply personal.

That's why I've written *How to Make Wise Decisions*. In my book, you'll discover how God's sovereignty isn't a limitation on your freedom; it's actually your greatest protection. I want to put this resource in your hands today when you partner with Pathway to Victory through your generous support. I'll send you a copy as an appropriate way for me to say thanks for your generous gift.

Well, we don't need to navigate tough choices alone. God's Word will guide us toward decisions that bring both peace and purpose. So let's open our Bibles now as I present today's message titled *Knowing God's Will by Knowing Yours*.

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Today we're going to discover that perhaps the best way to discovering God's will is by discovering your will. Wait a minute, Pastor. Can you really rely on your desires to know God's will for your life? For example, how does a young man know if his desire to marry a certain young woman is rooted in sacrificial love or in insatiable lust? How can a teenager know if his call to the ministry is really a result of his desire to follow God's will or to make up for some deficient self-esteem he has? How do you separate your desires and know which ones come from God and which ones are generated in ourselves?

Romans 8, beginning with verse 6, Paul says, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind that is set on the Spirit is life and peace. But the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. It does not subject itself to the law of God. It's not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The flesh represents that part of our life that is opposed to the will of God. But when we become a Christian, God places a new set of desires in our life, the spiritual desires. And there's this constant battle going on between the flesh and the Spirit, and the Spirit in the flesh.

Now look at verse nine. "However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone doesn't have the Spirit, he does not belong to him." What Paul is saying is before you became a Christian, you had no choice but to obey the desires of the flesh. But those desires have been transformed. When you became a Christian, there is a new set of desires, spiritual desires inside of you. And your desires can be transformed. If you're a Christian, you don't have to follow those old desires. You have a new set of desires that have been transformed by the Spirit of God. Now, God can direct our lives through our transformed desires.

When we say that God directs us through our desires, we're talking about those new desires that he places in our heart. While you're working out your spiritual maturity, God is working in your life, and he's doing two things. I like the way the Phillips paraphrase says it: "For God is at work within you, giving you both the desire and the power to accomplish his purpose." What is God's Holy Spirit in your life doing? First of all, he's giving you a desire to please God. Any desire you have right now to obey God is a desire that comes from God himself. God is putting his desire into your heart, and he's giving you the desire, but he's also giving you the supernatural power to fulfill that desire. God is working in you to give you the desire and the power to accomplish his purpose.

Now, again, there are all kinds of warnings we need to give about this. So how can I know if my desires are really coming from God? First of all, if you're going to use your desires to discover God's will for your life, we need to discover what our desires are. Now, I'm not talking about spending hours contemplating your navel, okay? I'm not talking about that kind of introspection. But I am saying there is something healthy about understanding who you are and the way God made you, and specifically about discovering what you really want in life.

Now turn over to Romans 12:3. Paul is getting ready to talk about spiritual gifts to the Roman Christians. But notice how he prefaces his remarks about spiritual gifts in Romans 12:3. He says, "For through the grace given to me, I say to every man among you, don't think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." And then right after that, Paul begins discussing spiritual gifts. Did you know that when you became a Christian, God gave you a unique gift, a certain desire, and a certain power to minister in His Name? He talks about the different gifts: prophecy, service, giving, teaching, and so forth. You will never find real fulfillment in your life until you discover what your gift is and you start using it in the body of Christ.

We've got to discover what our desires are. Secondly, our desires must be consistent with Scripture. If we're going to use desires to determine God's will for our life, they always must be consistent with Scripture. God is never going to give you a desire to engage in an extramarital or premarital relationship. He's never going to give you a desire to disobey God-ordained authority. He's never going to plant a desire in your heart to engage in an illegal activity. All of our desires have to be checked against Scripture.

Number three, our desires should be checked by common sense. Our desires need to be checked or measured against common sense. Proverbs 4:5 says, "Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding." Most of the time, God is not going to lead you to do something that violates common sense. Sometimes God does ask us to do things that don't make sense. For example, look in the Bible: God spoke to Noah and said, "Noah, I want you to build an ark." Did that make sense? In the middle of a desert when it had never rained before in the history of the earth, did that make sense? Of course it didn't. But God said to do it. God said to Abraham, "I want you to take that son you prayed for for decades. I want you to take him, place him on an altar, and offer him as a sacrifice." That violated common sense. But Abraham obeyed anyway.

And here's a great rule again: If God speaks to you audibly and tells you to do something and you're not off your medication, if God speaks to you audibly and tells you to do something, do it. Follow after it. But if that doesn't happen, usually God is going to lead you in things that make sense. Desire should be checked by common sense.

Number four, and this is key: The reliability of our desires is proportionate to our spiritual health. The reliability of using our desires to know God's will is directly proportionate to our spiritual health. Let me illustrate that for you. When I go to have my annual physical, the nurse wants to know, before she ever draws any blood, does she have a virus? Does she have a fever? Because she knows that any test results can be skewed if I am physically sick. Now it's the same way in our spiritual life. The only way we can know whether our desires are trustworthy indicators of God's will is to know whether we're spiritually well or we're spiritually sick. Godly desires do not flow out of an ungodly heart.

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That's just a principle in Scripture.

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In fact, Jesus said something very similar to that in Matthew 12, verses 34 and 35. Look at what the Lord said. He said, for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth that which is good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil. Jesus said our words are a good indicator of the condition of our spiritual heart. If evil words flow out of our mouth, it means we have an evil heart. An evil heart produces evil words in the same way an ungodly heart will generate in us ungodly desires.

Many, many years ago, I was in ministry. And even though I was having what people would consider outwardly a successful ministry, inside, I was deteriorating spiritually. My relationship with God was not what it should be. I wasn't reading my Bible, I wasn't praying. It was during that period of time that out of nowhere I got this desire to do something else with my life. Maybe not full time, but part time on the side while I was in the ministry. So, I started reading books about this particular vocation, went to a couple of seminars, started dabbling in it, and began to experience some success in this particular area. I had a desire to do this, but it was a desire that was flowing out of a spiritually sick heart. Only when I got right with the Lord and my relationship became what it should be with the Lord did those desires evaporate completely. Since that time, the last 20 years, I have never had any desire to even think about doing that full time or even part time. You see, godly desires only come out of a heart that is spiritually well.

How do we make sure that our heart is spiritually in tune with God? Turn back to Philippians chapter two for just a moment. Philippians chapter two states, "For it is God who is at work in you." The word "work" is the word that we get "energize." It is God who is energizing you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. David Jeremiah uses the illustration of a toaster. He says, before a toaster can function properly, it has to be plugged into the outlet. Only when it's plugged into the outlet can the power flow through that electrical cord to heat those nichrome wires in the toaster. In the same way, before God's power and desires can flow into our life, we have to be plugged into God's power. That happens when we become a Christian. We receive that generator, a person called the Holy Spirit.

For the Holy Spirit's power to come into our life, that power has to flow through two power lines or two channels or two conductors. We talked about those. We said conductor number one is the Word of God. God's desires and His power flow into our life through His Word. That's why reading Scripture is so important. It has a way of making God's power and desires manifest. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 2:13: "And for this reason, we also constantly thank God when you received from us the Word of God's message, for you accepted it not just as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God which performs its work in those of you who believe." Folks, in some mysterious ways, when we read the Bible, it actually does a work in our heart. It transforms our hearts. It is a conductor, a channel through which God's desires become our desires.

The second conductor through which God's power flows into our life is, of course, prayer. Romans 8:26-27 states, "And in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words." God's Word and prayer flow into our hearts in such a way that our desires and God's desires become one river that you can't distinguish. As God's Word flows into our life, our desires flow out. His desires become our desires, and our desires become His desires.

Many of you who have been here a while remember Dr. Bruce Walke. Dr. Walke wrote a great word about how God's power transforms our desires. He says, "As you develop a heart for God, you find that your desires change and become consonant with the heart of God." You can find examples of this throughout Scripture. The apostle Paul regularly speaks of his desires. He told the Romans, "I longed to see you so that I might impart to you some spiritual gift." He encouraged the Corinthian Christians to follow their hearts. He wrote, "If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience." Paul even shares why he made certain career choices when he says, "It has been my ambition, it's been my desire to preach the gospel where Christ was not made known." In other words, Paul simply says, "This is what I wanted to do. And so I did it." That reminds me of Martin Luther's favorite formula for discovering God's will for his life. It was very simple. He said, "You want to know what God's will for your life is? Love God and do as you please." Pretty simple, isn't it? Love God and do as you please. What he was saying is what David said: "Delight yourself in the Lord, love God, allow Him to transform your hearts, and He will make His desires your desires."

Principle number five, and perhaps the most important: Our desires are subject to God's sovereign plan. Sometimes the desires we have may correspond to Scripture. They may make good sense. They may follow the counsel of other people. And yet, as good as our desires are, they are in conflict with God's specific plan for us. Consider the example of King David. Turn over to 1 Kings 8:17. These were actually Solomon's words about his father David. First Kings 8:17 states, "Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, 'Because it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, God said, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you, he shall build the house for my name.'"

David was a man who loved God. He was a man who walked after God. He was a man who was faithful to God, except for a few notable lapses like the Bathsheba fiasco. But for the most part, he was a man after God's own heart. David had this burning desire in his heart to build a temple for the Lord. He didn't think it was right to wander around with this portable temple, the Tabernacle. He said, "We ought to build the most magnificent temple we could that would glorify God throughout the whole land." You know what God said about that? He said, "David, that's a great idea. That's a wonderful plan, and I am going to have that temple built. But you're not the one who's going to do it. Your son is the one who's going to do it."

We need to realize that no matter how good our plans are, ultimately God has the final say. Our desires are always to be superseded by God's decrees. Think about Jesus. In the episode at Gethsemane, Jesus agonized in prayer. He said, "Father, my will is for this cup to pass from me. Spare me from this expense." And yet he also said, "Not my..."

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Will, but your will.

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Be done. And in some inexplicable way that night two wills became one will. The Son's will was the Father's. The Father's was the Son. That's the same way for us. All of our desires are subject to God's sovereign plan.

I want you to turn over to Romans chapter 12 for just a moment. Did you know there is only one place in the New Testament where Paul ever tells us that we need to discover God's will for our life? Only one place. And it's in Romans 12, verse 2. But what's interesting is before Paul ever encourages us to discover God's will for our life, he commands us first of all to subject our wills to the will of God.

Listen to what he says in Romans 12:1. He said, "I urge you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and a holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." God doesn't want you to place a dead animal on the altar. He wants your sacrifice to be a living sacrifice, the sacrifice of your life. Submit yourself, he's saying, to God's will.

And then verse 2: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove, discover what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect." Are desires a way God speaks to us? Absolutely. But Paul is saying ultimately the only desires that we can trust are those desires of ours that have been transformed by the power of God and those desires which have been sacrificed on the altar of God.

There are some of you listening right now as you check your own spirit for your desires. There's some of you right now who have a desire to know God. You have a desire to know for sure that your sins have been forgiven. You have a sense that you need God's forgiveness in your life. If you have that desire, you didn't come up with that on your own. God's making his desire for you your desire, the desire to trust Christ as your Savior, the desire to start living for him. All of that comes from the heart of God.

And today, if you would like to become a Christian, if you would like to trust in Christ as your savior, believing that when he died on the cross he died for you, he took the punishment that you and I deserve for our sins. If today you would like to trust in Christ as your savior, I want to encourage you to act on that desire. Maybe you're ready to say, "God, I'm willing to let go today for you to work out your perfect plan in my life." If you have that desire to surrender all of your life to Christ, again, that desire didn't come from you. God is making his desire your desire. Your responsibility is to act on it today.

Maybe God has placed another desire in your heart that you need to act on today.

Father, how we thank you that even after you saved us, you didn't leave us as orphans in this world, but that you guide us in every part of our lives. Father, I pray no one would resist the calling of your Holy Spirit, for it's in the saving name of Christ we pray. Amen.

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Our prayer is that these daily studies will help you understand how to make wise choices in your life. There's much more in this teaching series to cover, and before time runs out, let me urge you to contact Pathway to Victory to request the book I've written on this relevant topic. Like the teaching series, my book is also called *How to Make Wise Decisions*. The subtitle is *The Joy of Discovering God's Will for Your Life*, and a copy of my book is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

I'm sure you can find this book in other places, but when you request the book directly through Pathway to Victory, your contribution has spiritual value. Every dollar is channeled into reaching men and women all across America with the truth of God's Word. Not long ago, I heard from Kelly, who said, "Pastor Jeffress, I really enjoy watching you on Sunday mornings. I live in a small town in Minnesota and don't have a regular church nearby. I was raised in church but have wandered off course at times. I want to get closer to the Lord and find His will for my life. I truly want to deepen my personal relationship with Him. With your help, I believe I can do that," and this is why your generous support has so much influence.

You see, when you invest financially in Pathway to Victory or when you become a Pathway partner and give a contribution every month, you're the one who's reaching men and women like Kelly. So thanks for linking arms with us. Your gift will transform a life and, in many cases, will lead people to a saving trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

Here's David with all the details.

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To join our team of Pathway partners, simply give us a call at 866-999-2965 or, even easier, you can sign up online at ptv.org. When you give your first gift as a new Pathway Partner, or when you give a one-time generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the book by Dr. Jeffress titled *How to Make Wise Decisions*. And when your generous gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's Complete Unedited teaching series on CD and DVD.

One more time, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. If you'd prefer to make your request by mail, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223, 609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. Getting married is one of the biggest decisions in life, but sometimes couples are swayed by infatuation rather than careful consideration. Find out how to choose a mate Wednesday on Pathway to Victory.

*Pathway to Victory* with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska.

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This seven day journey combines spiritual growth.

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You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word.

To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.