Hallo saints, I promised that my next post would be on how to hear from God. Well, I am still working on it and since my earlier promise was to post something up once every month, I figured I could just share with you something I preached on recently. I know I have missed 2 months, this is what has prompted me to share this post first as I finalise the one on hearing from God.
I was recently asked to share on a topic of my choosing at a church whose Pastor is a friend, well he is actually more than a friend now. As I prepared, I felt God wanted me to share on the need for each one of us to discover our purpose in life. This is a topic that is quite dear to my heart especially this year, and I would urge you to read through this prayerfully and with all seriousness.
You see a lot of people just pass
through life without any sense of purpose or direction. They just take each day
as it comes expecting the best and hoping for God’s blessing. But I’d like to inform you
that every life has a purpose, there is a reason why you were created. I know you were
created for significance. I am sure many of you who are reading this post know this truth but have not
taken the time to pursue it or find out for yourself.
One of my favorite authors
Dr. Myles Munroe made some very profound statements, first “The two most important
days in your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why you
were born (in other words your purpose).” and secondly, “Life without a purpose
is an experiment.”
It is only when you find
your purpose that you will find fulfillment and joy in life. Without knowing
your purpose you will face frustration and emptiness in life, in fact your
plans will not work out as you desire and you will remain unsettled.
Proverbs
19:21 (NIV) says, “Many
are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that
prevails.” In the Amplified it reads “Many
plans are in a man's mind, but it is the Lord's purpose for him
that will stand.”
This scripture tells us 3 things:
- Purpose is more important than plans (plans should be consistent with God’s purpose)
- Purpose is more powerful than plans (despite all the plans you might have, God’s purpose will prevail, triumph over and frustrate them because God’s purpose for your life is more powerful as it is the entire reason why He created you. He designed you for that purpose), and
- Purpose precedes plans (because God’s purpose for you was set before you were able to make any plans).
This tells us that, every one
of our plans should be made in light of the Lord’s purpose. This, I found out,
is the way God works. I was reading Ephesians
1 the other day and was amazed at how even for God, purpose precedes plans.
You see this year, my prayer is that I will come to a greater understanding of what my
purpose is and by His grace and faithfulness this prayer is being answered. Take time to read Ephesians 1:9-12 and see how God
operates.
“And he made known to us the mystery of
his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put
into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all
things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we
were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who
works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order
that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his
glory.” Ephesians 1:9-12 (NIV).
From this scripture you find two things:
- God’s will was first purposed.
o
God’s will is according to a purpose, this
purpose is what informs His plans and thus His actions. His will is not without
a purpose, He is not purposeless as in He does not do things for the sake of
just doing them without any intention.
- He works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will
o
His plan is to execute the purpose of His
will, and His will is not without cause or intention or reason. That is just
how He operates and He works everything out to fulfill that purpose.
This principle was shown
in the lives of several people in the Bible. Concerning Jeremiah God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew
you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet
to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5). That word appointed tells us that
there was a purpose before Jeremiah was created. He was set apart for a
particular purpose which he was created to fulfill.
The principle is
reiterated again by David in Psalm 139:13-16
where he says, “For you created my
inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I
am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full
well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed
body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of
them came to be.”
You see this was true even
of David. When the Prophet Samuel told Saul in 1 Samuel 13:14 that God had chosen a man after His own heart to
take over the kingdom, it was 17 years before the birth of David. So 17 years
before David was born, God had already purposed that he would be born and would
rule Israel and went about executing a plan to bring that into being. The same
goes for Jesus, His life on earth was prophesied thousands of years before He
was born. That is why throughout the Bible narrative of His life we see Him as
a man of purpose such that even at the age of 12 when His parents left Him in
the temple, He told them that is where He ought to be (Luke 2:49). In fact in Hebrews 10:7 we are told that when Christ
came into the world He said “Here I
am--it is written about me in the scroll-- I have come to do your will, O God.”
This agrees with David’s statement in Psalm 139.
We can go on and talk of
John the Baptist, Samson, Jacob and many others of whom God talks about even
before their birth to stress the point.
All this to say that the
same is true for you and me, our frame was not hidden before God and the days
ordained for us were written before one of them came to be. Your design, the
time and place of your birth, the family you were born in all this is for you
to fulfill a specific purpose in life. One of my favorite scriptures Acts
17:26,27 (AMP) says “And He made from
one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men to settle on the
face of the earth, having definitely determined [their] allotted periods
of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation (their settlements, lands,
and abodes), So that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after
Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us.”
I believe God wants each
one of us to know that we were created for significance and to come to an
understanding of what our purpose in life is. He doesn’t want us to live by
experimentation anymore. Proverbs 20:5 (NIV) says “The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of
understanding draws them out.” This means that the purpose of a man is
hidden within him for as I have pointed put it is a part of the construction or
composition or make-up his being. You only have to look at your makeup for you
to determine your purpose and this means going back to the one who knows your
form. He is the one who fashioned you for that purpose.
But, what is purpose?
Purpose is to put something in place before you take further action. It is the
original intent, cause or reason for doing a thing. The creation of the world
and the universe was motivated by purpose. Everything in life was created for a
specific assignment. In other words, God first decided the reason for the
existence of each one of us and then created us.
Any manufacturer will
first determine the purpose for something before he designing and producing it.
They have a function in mind and then set out to fashion something that will
fulfill that function. It is the same with God and in Ephesians 1 the word translated purpose stresses on the personal
interest which God had in doing something. So in other words we can say that we
are looking at God’s personal interest for your creation and salvation, what
was His intention?
As I have already quoted Dr. Munroe,
“Life without a purpose is an experiment.” Life becomes an experiment
because all you do is try things out in the hope of finding success, whereas
when you know your purpose you don’t try things out. You make plans in line
with that purpose, your choices and decisions in life are based on that purpose.
Purpose is so powerful that it constrains you to do certain things that are in
line with it. Consider Jesus in John
7:1-9 let’s read it. The Bible tells us, Jesus purposely stayed away
from Judea, this was a man full of purpose. He chose, decided to stay out of
Judea because of purpose. Is this true with you and me, are we purposeful in
the things we do everyday? The people we have around us, are they linked to our
purpose.
John
7:6
tells us how Jesus functioned and why He purposely stayed away from Judea. The
time was not right for Him He says but for the man living without purpose,
every time is right. Defining your purpose will, therefore, help you to
determine the activities that you should be involved in. Like Jesus, you should
not involve yourself in activities that contradict His purpose for your
existence. Consider Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 6:12 (KJV) “All things are lawful unto me, but all
things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not
be brought under the power of any.” (Read it from NIV) Your life should be
controlled by what is beneficial, and you know what is beneficial when you
discover your purpose. That is the power of purpose, it constrains you and
informs your actions and plans, in other words, it makes you disciplined.
As we have seen from Ephesians 1: 9-12 and Proverbs 19:21, purpose precedes plans.
In light of all this, how
do you proceed? Proverbs 16:1 “To man belong the plans of the heart,
but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue.” What
does this mean? God is telling you and me that once we understand our purpose
and make plans accordingly their establishment is dependent on God. He is the one
who will explain how those plans will be established. He will give the reply
not only to yourself but also to those who ask you, how those plans will be
established. Look at verse 9 “In his
heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Why does
God determine the steps? He determines the steps because He alone knows the end
of the matter from the beginning. Psalms
138:8 in the NIV says “The Lord will
fulfill His purpose for me…” (and elsewhere God says He orders the steps of
the righteous.)
I want to encourage you to
take time to seek God about your purpose, it is not too late. The mere fact
that you are reading this today proves that He wants to reveal it to you. Spend
some time praying about it, and I assure you He will answer. As He reveals His
purpose, start taking steps to see it fulfilled in your life, plan accordingly,
invest time in things that will enable you to fulfill and you will find
fulfillment. As He reveals your purpose, it will seem greater than yourself,
and indeed it should be, but as I the Bible says He will give the answer of the
tongue.
Grace and peace
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