Make Your Day Count

CPS:  Well, isn’t it, as a teenager, and life in generally really, but as a teenager, the one thing we hate the most is for somebody to tell us what to do.  I mean, it’s like, you want to say this even though sometimes we’re not smart enough and we’re not to that position in our life, but we say, “I’m an adult.”  I may be 15 or 14 or 18 or 19, but you think, “I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions.  Don’t tell me what to do.  Don’t tell me what to do.”  And yet you’re allowing your body and/or the devil or both to tell you what to do.  You’re letting the devil tell you you’ve got to take drugs.  You’re letting him tell you that you have got to drink or you’ve got to party to be accepted, when all you really want is to stand up and say no, I can tell myself what’s right and what is right is to leave all that alone and be who I am.  

RC:  Another thing that teenagers right now have their parent, parents to discipline them and they’re in the age where maybe punishment for being out too late, and so when Jesus Christ, they learn about Jesus Christ, they think of Him as someone out there that’s going to shake His finger.  They don’t realize Jesus is not out there to hurt you. He’s out there to help you.  And like you said, He’s not out there to take everything away from you and send you away and maybe, oh, some people think, He’s going to make me a missionary or something.  He wants to give you the desires, (That’s right.) the desires of your heart.  And like, I would watch that TV and watch like Miss America be crowned and that was just a dream I never imagined that it would happen, and He allowed it to happen to me, to reach out to the other people. And so He’s not out there to shake His finger at you.  He wants to make you the happiest.  Don’t take God’s second best, take His first best.

CPS:  It’s a tool.

LR:  That’s right.  I had a little puppy that had a, we made, we took, you know they call them tube socks, they’re like sweat socks, and we tied a knot in it and the sock was so much bigger than the puppy, we thought he’d never be able to manage it.  But he grabbed that with his little teeth and he wasn’t going to let go.  I’ll tell you, I thought we’d rip the teeth out of his mouth before we’d get the sock out.  He was so strong in his conviction to hold on to what was his, that he wouldn’t turn it loose.  You know, we’ve got to become so strong in our convictions that no matter what the world says, we won’t turn it loose.  When I was 18 years old I was like you, Rhonda, they called me Miss Goody Two Shoes.  They called me every name they could think of, Susie Won’t, you know, all of it, the whole nine yards.  And when Iturned 18 years old, nobody would take me anywhere for my birthday.  I was the kid in school without a date.  Why take her out, she won’t drink, she won’t party, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t do drugs.  I was the kind that was no fun, so I didn’t have any dates.  But, you know, that didn’t stop me because I believed that the Lord had something for me.  I didn’t know what, but I didn’t–yes, but I didn’t–do you know what I said?  It was so silly, but it was so real to me.  “Why should I pay good money to get drunk and make a fool of myself, when I can make a fool of myself for nothing?”  I really meant that.  Why should I waste hard-earned money if you’re just going to excuse me–but go throw it up later, you know.  All my friends would drink until they got sick, the people that I knew.  They would drink until they got sick and then they were sick.  I didn’t want to do that.  Look at it in the natural.  If you’re on drugs, are you really happy.  Do you enjoy what you’re doing to yourself?  See, God said our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and if you’re doing something that you don’t even believe in yourself that it’s right, then it’s very simple to stop.  Don’t worry about the peer pressure. I made it without a date in high school.  I lived through it.  I thought it would kill me, but I made it.  You can do it.  You can make it and you can make what I call reverse peer pressure.  You put the pressure on them for being silly enough to do it.  You can say to yourself, self, I’m worth more than this destruction of drugs and alcohol.  I’m worth more than that.  There’s more to life than getting so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing or getting so high on drugs that I’m out of control of myself.  God created your body and He wants you to take care of it so He can exalt you and He can make you something.  Don’t destroy God’s working tools.  You are God’s tool.  You are God’s instrument. Don’t mess up the instrument.  God loves you and He loves you even if you’re on drugs right now.  But He wants to straighten that mess out so you can become something really wonderful for God. And He will make you happier than you’ve ever been.  He will make you more prosperous than you’ve been.  He’ll put a crown on your head like one you’ve never seen before because you’ve submitted your life to God strength to do it if you believe it. (Applause)  He will give you the strength.  He gave you the strength, Rhonda, and the faith to reverse these.  He put a crown on your head.  (That’s right.)  God will do it.

LR:  Amen.  You know, the world tells us when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’ve got to give everything up.  That is not the truth.  It’s not.  You don’t have to give up one thing, except the things of the devil.  You don’t have to give up your joy.  You don’t have to give up your finances or your peace or your crown or your glory in Jesus.  You see, the world tells you you’ve got to give something up to get something.  Let me tell you what you do, you give up the destruction of the devil’s territory and what you get in return is God’s glory into your own territory and He can work the miracles in your life.  Cheryl didn’t lose Miss America.  She, you had the boldness.  In fact, the other day when Cheryl was moving we were flipping through some of the things of her Miss America year and we were looking through the scrapbook and you know, the newspapers had the nerve to carry your healing testimony and that didn’t destroy you. You still won.

CPS:  No.  They thought it would hurt me and it helped me.

LR:  They’re going to laugh at you.  They tried to make a mockery out of some silly little girl getting her leg healed with a face full of stitches thinking she could be a Miss America.  And they laughed at you.  And you know what?

CPS:  They printed it headlines, thinking that it would be against me. And the Lord turned it around and made it for me.

LR:  That’s exactly right.

CPS:  Which He’ll do every time in our lives.

LR:  God can turn our tragedies into miracles.  He really can.  I believe that with my whole heart.  (Applause)  But, you know, it begins with us.  It begins with our self-image.  It begins with our–I call it tenacity.  You’ve got to be tenacious against the devil.  I used to–

CPS:  The milkman.

LR:  The milkman said, “Some day you’re going to be Miss America.” But a car accident said, “You will never make it.”  If you believed your circumstances, you would have–well, first of  all, you would have died physically.  You would have died in thenatural.  (That’s right.) But, first of all, God saved your life. If God can spare her very life, He can certainly spare the details around it.  If God can change our lives and keep us whole and safe in the midst of a total disaster, then God can take care of all the little details around it.  I really believe that.

CPS:  And there are a lot of teenagers that are watching, I believe a lot of teenagers are watching today.  A lot of parents have pulled those teenagers down and said, “Sit down and watch Rhonda today,” because I believe in my heart that you have something good to say to them and you go around and you speak and you get to sing and you travel a lot all during your year.  What is it that you say to a teenager above all else?  I mean, you know where teenagers are. You’re right there.  I mean, you may have a crown on your head, but their life between happiness and sadness every day?

RC:  What teenagers are looking for and most of them don’t realize it, is Jesus Christ.  They’re looking for happiness, they’re looking for peace, and that’s in Jesus Christ.  And they get caught up in the drugs.  And, first of all, what I try to tell teenagers is set your values.  Don’t wait around for your friends to decide them for you. Set your values and like she said, whatever your dream is, envision that dream.  You have to expect that dream.  Set your values and then stick with them and with the Lord you can stick to your values.  And if you don’t want to drink, don’t drink.  And people will stand with you. When I made my stand, the Lord gave me other friends, and we stood together.  And then, like she said, you can be the peer pressure for the world and they can look at you and say, “How can she be having so much fun at that party and she’s not drinking?” Because of the Lord, you don’t need that stuff, and that is what I want to tell teenagers, that if they’re looking for happiness, looking for that emptiness that they have, they’re looking for something to fill that emptiness, and it’s Jesus Christ.