Day 40: Living With Purpose is the Only Way to Really Live

“David served God’s purpose in his generation” [Acts 13:16] What a statement about King David.

With all of David’s faults, sins that he committed and glaring weaknesses, God said that he was a man after his own heart.

That is why we are on the planet and that is why you were born in this generation. If God had planned for you to live at any other time he would have made it so. You are not coming back as an animal or as William Shakespeare, you are here to serve your generation.

Living life on purpose is the only reason to live. Living a purposeless life is the saddest waste of life there is. Our mission is to live on purpose and you can start today. Whatever has happened in the past, your life begins when you connect into the designed life God has for you…

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone”. [Ephesians 1 :8-10 Message Version]

To help us find out how to live on purpose here are some great questions from Purpose Driven Life to answer . It would be a great thing to ponder these questions and pray over them and then go ahead and dive into God’s purposes for you!

What will be the centre of my life ? Who and what will we worship?

What will be the character of my life ? This is the question of discipleship and growth.This is a lifetime of building to becoming more like Christ. Let’s keep going!

What will be the contribution of my life? This is the question of service. Use your ‘SHAPE’ to discover how God has wired you to make a difference.

What will be the communication of my life? This is about our mission to unbelievers. We are called to be good news and bring good news to our world.

What will be the community of my life? The question of fellowship. We are called to love the body of Christ and invest in our church family.

All these questions are vital to help us understand our purpose. There is no other way to live. Purpose gives us meaning. Purpose gives us hope. Purpose gives us energy to be what God has called us to be. Let’s keep God at the centre and let his purposes be worked out in our lives.

Day 39: Blessed Are The Balanced

It’s one thing to start something but another to finish it. I don’t want to hear the words spoken about me “He was a good starter”, I want to hear “He was a good finisher”.

It takes effort, determination and commitment to stay on track. We are called to run a marathon and not a sprint.

Part of the course is investing in the lives of others. Paul said to Timothy “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others”. Reproducing myself in the lives of others is an obligation but also a privilege, we then run the course together and the baton is passed on.

Bringing balance to my life is not just learning from my own experiences but also the experiences of others. Proverbs 24:30-32 talks about passing by the garden of a lazy person, seeing it overgrown and it’s walls broken. It also says ‘when I saw it, I reflected upon it, I looked and received instruction’.

I need to evaluate how I am doing on the course that’s mapped out for my life.

Q. How are you evaluating your course?

Day 38: The Great Commission is my Commission

What on earth am I here for? This has been the focus of the last 37 days. Discovering our purpose, learning about who we are and the role we have to play for God.

There’s a fine line between becoming a world-class Christian or a worldly Christian. One group is made up of all those who understand that they have been saved to serve, while the other is full of those who are saved, but still very self-centred, and that is easy to do.

It’s a privilege that God would include us in His plans. That His commission would be our commission. To fulfil that commission we can’t continue living by trying to get God to just meet our own personal needs but by placing Him at the centre of our lives and having a willingness to lay it down for others.

It takes a shift. In thinking, yes, but followed closely by action. When we change our thinking we change our behaviours. When we change our behaviours we can bring change to our world. That is what we are here for – bringing change to people, to our world.

The challenge is to think about what we can do. In a world with so many needs it can all seem somewhat overwhelming at times but we MUST get involved – start with your own family, your local church but always looking beyond that too – there are plenty of people around the globe that Jesus wants to be found.

The Great Commission is your commission and doing your part is the secret to living a life of significance.

Day 37: God Wants to Say Something to the World Through Me

We all have a voice. The question is, what are we saying? Is it something of substance or just a lot of hot air? After all the world is full of noise. We must make sure that what God wants to say through us comes through loud and clear.

Your story might not seem much to you but to those who may hear it, the story could change their life forever. Never dismiss all of those things that God has done for you, no one can argue with a changed life. Think about where you were and where God has brought you. It’s an amazing story worth telling.

Be ready to share your life lessons. We learn things all the time – successes, failures, how we handle money, disappointments we have faced, as well as moments of pure joy. Write some down and discover what God is teaching you, extract lessons from everyday experiences.

Get excited about your Godly passions. We are all uniquely shaped to make a difference, to extend His Kingdom further. Not everyone will be as passionate about the same things as you, but most people are willing to listen to passionate people, and more than, listen to people who live out that passion too.

Never miss the opportunity to talk about your faith, the Good News of Jesus. Is anyone going to be heaven because of you? As you reflect on your personal story, who does God want you to share it with?

Day 36: I Was Made For Mission

You may build great cathedrals large or small

You may build skyscrapers grand and tall

You may have all the things that one could ask

But only what you do for Christ will last!

We used to sing that in the Gospel choir and have even sang it on the streets of Berlin, Germany. Ah, what memories! My life was changed as a young man of twenty two going on a ‘Short Term-Mission’ to Germany and other parts of Europe!

Mission is what we were made for. Sometimes though we can think that mission is only ‘short term’ for ‘short bursts’ or for ‘missionaries’.

I remember ‘missionaries’ coming to our church when I was a kid and they brought slide shows and stories that were hair raising and I really respected them, however their mission seemed very detached compared to what I could do.

The truth is that the mission field is the field of where you are. Jesus said that we are to be “his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth” Acts 1:8. Therefore it starts where we are in our local street, village or town and moves outwards.

I love what Scott Wilson said last week on the Great British Churches Tour. We can choose to have an impact or we can be an influence. Impact is short bursts and short term, influence is multi-layered and takes longer but has greater effect. That’s the role of the church. We are the church, made for a mission!

Let’s find out our assignment and be those missionaries for Jesus in our communities.

Day 35: God Works Best When I Admit my Weakness

I love the fact that God takes ordinary, even weak, insignificant people to work for Him and bring glory to His name.

Often we can disqualify ourselves from being used by God because we think that He only looks for the rich, the powerful, or the greatly talented to accomplish His purposes.

In fact, the opposite is true. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says ‘So you see that God chose those whom worldy people call foolish to have a wisdom greater than they possess. He chose those whom others call weak to have a greater power than human power’.

This means that not one of us is disqualified from being used by God.

If we think of Gideon in the Old Testament, he was filled with fear and low self esteem. In Judges 6:12 the angel of the Lord came to him and said ‘The Lord is with you mighty warrior!’  Gideon’s response in verse 15 was, ‘How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family’

God delights in taking those who recognise their own insufficiency to accomplish great victories for Him. God uses Gideon and his 30 soldiers to defeat the whole Midianite army.

Today, lets not concentrate on our own weakness or incapability, but instead look to the One who dwells within us and is able to do all things by His strength and power. Whether it’s in our finances, our job situation, a family problem or whatever, the God who is for us is far greater than all that can be against us.

Day 34: To Be a Servant I Must Think Like a Servant

Serving is thinking of others more than yourself. Jesus is our ultimate example of what it is to serve. Serving is not just in the doing but it is the being. I believe true serving comes from the heart. Jesus had a servant heart. He proved that when he said great things like “The son of man did not come to be served but to serve” and “I am here not to do my own thing but to do the will of the Father”

His serving came out of a love for his Father and for the people. He was focused on who he was doing it for.

In whatever capacity we are serving in, we have to realise that firstly it needs to be towards God. God deserves our best in our service to him and to others.

I think sometimes we can serve and forget why we are doing it and who we are doing it for. This can result in us serving with a wrong attitude. We can very easily see things as beneath us and think of ourselves more highly than we ought to. We can become frustrated if we are not receiving recognition and thanks. If that is our mindset then it has become about us and therefore we have missed the point.

To help keep us on the right track, we need to take a tip from the apostle Paul who said to the Philippians, ‘Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.’ As we live a life passionate to serve, I can guarantee we will see our lives rewarded both here on earth and in eternity [2 Corinthians 5:10]. God has given you breath to live and to make a difference wherever you place your foot. If we all serve as He wants us to, what a difference we will make.

Day 33: I Serve God By Serving Others

Servanthood is not a word commonly used in today’s society where ‘self’ is king and an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude is prevalent and considered acceptable.

As Christians we must recognise that serving others must be at the very core of everything we do. Why? Because serving was at the very heart of everything Jesus did – the ultimate example of a servant. If serving was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us. Jesus specialised in menial tasks, nothing was beneath Him.

I can remember striving in my 20’s to be what society would deem successful, what job I had, how much money I was earning, how many people reported into me at work etc. However, the bible tells me that success has nothing to do with any of that! Success is measured by how many people I serve. Mark 10v43 in the Message says ‘Whoever wants to great must become a servant.’ John 13 v15 tells us that Jesus came to serve BECAUSE of his greatness, not in spite of it.

Mother Theresa said ‘God did not call me to be successful but to be faithful’ and I love that! Faithfulness is hard to find these days, but the bible says our faithfulness will be rewarded in eternity.

I’m sure all of us have at times in our lives, missed opportunities to serve one another in church and in the community. We may never get these opportunities back. So today I challenge you to open your eyes, see a need and meet it, don’t wait until tomorrow or Sunday. It doesn’t matter how little or meaningless it may seem, the most significant service is often the service that is unseen. Jesus said ‘If you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.’ What an amazing promise.

Day 32: God Deserves My Best

We’ve probably all enjoyed the scene when a small child puts on dad’s boots and comes walking into a room. The child feels bigger in dad’s boots as they proudly stumble along but inevitably fall over.

Imagine how silly it would be to let the child stumble around, trying to walk in those boots every day because they wanted to be just like dad. If we’re honest, we’ve probably tried or watched someone try to walk in someone else’s shoes and we know that it’s never a good idea. It never turns out well.

We are not supposed to fill someone else’s shoes. We are supposed to just fill our own!

Each of us needs to accept who we are in Christ and what our unique shape is.

You may be thinking… ‘If I only knew what my unique shape was’.

Well discovering your unique shape isn’t as hard as you may think. If you want to discover your shape… have a go at something! Yes, it is that simple.

Remember your mother saying ‘How do you know until you’ve tried it?’ when you refused to eat what was on your dinner plate. Well take your mothers advice and have a try at something. In my experience, it’s not until you actually get involved in serving that you find out what you’re good at (or not good at!) Try volunteering in a team, if you don’t already or get involved in organising an event or learn a new skill but whatever you do, do something. You’ll never discover what’s there, if it’s not first explored.

Once you find what you’re good at, keep doing it and keep doing it until you’re the best that you can be at it, no matter what it is. After all, to be an expert you only need to be very good at one thing.

God has deposited something unique in our life. It’s our responsibility to be a good stewardship of it.

Day 31: Nobody Else Can Be Me

Only you can be you. You have been shaped by God for service.

Your ATTRIBUTES are those natural talents you were born with. They come from God, to be used for His glory. It’s incredible to think that studies have revealed we each have between 500-700 different skills and abilities: words, writers, speaking well, creative art, painting, maths, science, mechanics, carpentry, cooking, looking after children, IT, admin, media, practical helps, cleaning, visiting people, listening well, sports, etc…..

If we are able to do something, then we need to think about how we can use that something to serve God.

Don’t fight your PERSONALITY, use it. We can have similarities but we are all different and that’s amazing. God loves variety. Introverts & extroverts, those who love routine or love variety, thinkers or feelers, otters or beavers.

The Bible puts it like this: ‘God works through different people in different ways, but it is the same God who achieves his purpose through them all’

The beauty of it all is that there is no right or wrong, There is just YOU. Don’t work against yourself, that will just annoy you. Go with the grain. Learn about yourself. Recognise your strengths and work with them. Plus there is no better feeling than doing what God made you to do.

Employ Your EXPERIENCES. Life shapes you, stuff happens. How wonderful it is that God can take any kind of experience, good or bad and use it to help others. God never wastes a hurt. Who better to help another than YOU, someone who has travelled the same or similar path & come out the other side.

 2 Corinthians 4:1 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us [NLT]

The only thing we must do is allow God to use us, whatever shape we are. What do you think you bring to the table?