“As your life continues you will suffer greatly. People are by and large going to reject and hate you. You will be beaten for your faith. Brothers and sisters will want your authority and try to keep you from ministering. You will be hungry often, near death, shipwrecked. Your life will wind down in a prison.”

“After years of preaching you will be falsely accused, put in jail, and be executed by beheading.”

Destinies. Sound familiar? Yes, the lives of Peter, Paul, and John the Baptist, for example.

I assume we mean by the word destiny an appointed course which our lives must take.

Well, Jesus gave the destiny of the 11 remaining disciples, and to us in large measure, in John 16. “They’ll put you out of the synagogue. They’ll kill you.”

The destiny of every true believer is a true cross. Pain and suffering. There are ways around all that, but a lessening of reward seems to be the outcome for trying to circumvent true Christian destiny.

As I listen to messages and prophecies in our day, I have become painfully certain that the cross is not what is envisioned by destiny-seekers. One feels eerily uncomfortable listening to talk of fulfilling of dreams, seeking our destiny. In fact there is a vague, and sometimes downright obvious, resemblance to the kinds of things the world tells its own. Fleshly, carnal dreams that have me in the center, serving a God who hangs around on the periphery, always looking out for my goals and dreams.

“You will speak to thousands.”

“Your words will be heard around the world.”

“ You will go to the nations.”

Hey, good things happen to God’s kids, don’t get me wrong. But we’re talking destiny here. Ultimate arrival. Where is my life going?

Whatever happened to Heaven as a destiny? Meeting Jesus? Being re-united with believers of our past? Seeing the splendors of that city? Hearing “Well done.”?

What happened was, that the promoters of “Kingdom now” have become the promoters of “Destiny now” also. A painless destiny that brings all my childhood dreams to the fore and promotes me as the one the world awaited.

Others may wish to go that route, demanding God bring them into their “real” place, a place where they are honored and appreciated because of their wonderful gifts and efforts. Who wouldn’t be drawn to a goal of this nature?

But the Scripture is silent on such a destiny. Oh, the word is there, by the way. It’s hidden in that pesky verse about Calvinism. Well, that’s how some see it. You know, Romans 8? Foreknown and because of foreknown, also pre-destined? Oh we do have a destiny! It is to be conformed to Jesus in every way.

But we also have a ministry, a thing to do on the way to that destiny. And that ministry involves a cross. How many of God’s greats in the Book were told to “eat” the Word of God? You remember, they ate it and it was as sweet as honey! Mmmm, love that word! Mmmmm, love that preaching and teaching and sharing of that word.

Then what happened? It got into the digestive process and proved to be too much. Bitterness. Pain.

That’s the pattern. That’s the destiny of the true. You’ll speak to your millions. You’ll be known to the nations. But it won’t be what you thought. They will hate you if you tell the truth. They will kill you if they can. Silence you, at the least. No picnic here. The cross hurts. Talk about joy and peace, and even the world will love you. Talk about sin and death, and other hard truths about people and the church, and it’s “Bye-bye.”