Finding Your Purpose

Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.

Finding Your Purpose

God has a calling and purpose for each life that He creates. If we live in a perversion of our purpose then we will miss our destiny and our highest calling in Christ. God’s desire is to see you fulfill your destiny in concert with Him, but the enemy’s goal is to thwart and pervert the purpose God has for you. When we simply live according to our flesh then we have missed the greater calling and purpose we have been created for. We have settled for the husk when we could have had the corn.
What is your destiny, your calling and your purpose? Some people just know what it is that they are here for and to many others it may be unclear. Often our destiny is our discovery through our relationship with Christ and a living out of our lives in Him to find what it is He has for our life and what part we play in the grand view of things. Often it is tied to the passion God has put in our heart.
Never despise or berate what God has created you to be. We may not see much in ourselves, but we are just looking at the outline and the skeleton of God’s potential to work in and through us. In our weakness He is made strong. When Hebrews 11:33-34 recounts the men of faith is says, “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Never insult the Lord by underestimating your potential in Him. Often we are “nothing” that He might be the “more”. He honors His lesser members whose faith and trust are in their God. You and I are important to God’s kingdom purpose. We may not see how or why, but it is important that we press into Him until we discover who we are in Christ and the function that we have. Then do it with all of the passion of your heart in the fear and trust of God. Allow the Spirit to direct and use you in your purpose. You may already be living in your purpose and not even realize it. Our purpose is not to bring us glory, but to glorify the One who created us for it. If we can do that, then we are honoring the Lord by walking in our destiny.
You are important in the economy and kingdom of God. You have a purpose, find it and live fervently in it to the glory and praise of the Lord.

Blessings,
#kent

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When God is Silent and Understanding Fails (Part 2)

 When God is Silent and Understanding Fails

(Part 2) 

 

Job34:10-15

10 “So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong. 11 He repays a man for what he has done; he brings upon him what his conduct deserves. 12 It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. 13 Who appointed him over the earth? Who put him in charge of the whole world? 14 If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, 15 all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust. 

 

Did Job deserve all of the calamity and misfortune that befell him? Was it a judgement from God for some hidden sin?  Job 1:1 begins by telling us about Job’s character and how he was viewed in the eyes of God, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name [was] Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.”  The judgements or afflictions that befell Job weren’t about his sin.  While we may not have all of Job’s integrity we are washed in the blood of Jesus and all of our sin is taken away, so when calamities befall us, is it always because of our sin?  We often automatically condemn ourselves when bad things happen and assume it’s God’s displeasure with us.  It may be His pleasure not to condemn us, but to do an inner working of grace and purification that is perfecting His holiness in us.  As God desires to bring us into a priestly ministry, there is purification and sanctification that brings one to the altar where all one is of themselves, is poured out.  Look for instance at the life of Paul.  In 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 Paul expresses His priestly ministry, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. [We are] troubled on every side, yet not distressed; [we are] perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you.”  We have come in recent years to equate spirituality with prosperity and blessing.  Certainly we do serve a God that prospers and blesses us.  We can see that Job had been enjoying the fruits of prosperity and blessing at the hand of God for many years.  While we don’t deny His promises and His blessings, if we look we will see that there are inner blessings and workings of God that go far beyond the outward ones.  God is more concerned with the inner workings of our spiritual man than He is with our earthly comforts.  Spiritual overcomers are not raised up in the ease and comforts of life; they are raised up because they have experience and confidence in spiritual battles. They learn to stand in the test and overcome by the word of their testimony and the blood of the Lamb.  We see at the end of Job, that through his experience, Job has found God on a new level. What Job thought he knew of God and how he justified himself he realizes that there is so much more to God.  In Job 42:5-6 he says, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes.”  The more this life is consumed the more we realize our life is in Him and not of us.  Job 42:10 says, “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.”  It was Job’s friends that condemned him that God was displeased with and it was Job that God commanded to stand in the gap, sacrifice the animals for them and pray for their forgiveness.  There is that new and greater dimension of ministry that God is preparing a people for. Romans 8:18-19 tells us, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”  Are we not these sons of God that creation is waiting for? Let us not faint in the process that God is taking us through to prepare us for the glory that shall be revealed.  God loves you, Christ ever lives to make intercession for you and He is perfecting that which concerns your faith.  …”What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we notreceive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips (Job 2:19).”  In Job 40:8 God asks, ““Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?”” Hold fast and don’t give up when God is silent and you feel forsaken, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).”

 

blessings,

kent