40 Days of Peace # 1
Sept 17-18 2005

Message at Saddleback Church

These 3 paragraphs are in the exact order as spoken by Rick Warren. Paragraph 2 is the key paragraph.

"We"re blessed to be a blessing. Now that"s the basis. God commands us to learn to love. He wants us to become like Jesus. He wants us to practice love. He wants us to be a blessing to others. So what keeps us back? Why don"t we spend more of our effort, helping others, serving others. What are the barriers that keep us from making a difference with our lives? Well, there are 6 barriers. But all 6 can be summed up into one word and you can write this word down. It is this, fear. Fear. Fear is what keeps us from making a difference with our lives. Fear is the most crippling emotion. It is your greatest enemy. It is a self imposed prison. It robs you of so many joys that God wants you to have on this planet.

Let me tell you what my definition of hell would be. Hell would be if God were to show me all the blessings in life that I"ve missed because I was selfish or afraid. To me that would be hell. I missed that just because I was afraid, just because I was insecure." 

We need to look at these fears as we look at these 40 days together. Now the truth is 40 days of peace has some of you in anxiety. You"re thinking of 40 days of anxiety. And you"re going what is Rick getting us into now. It is not that big of a secret anymore folks. Since the twenty-fifth anniversary the peace plan has been discussed on TV and radio and has been covered in Time Magazine and U.S. News & World Report, and The New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal and all other kinds of magazines including today"s Register (ed. Orange County Register). It"s not like it"s a big secret. But we need to clarify what it is and what it isn"t.