You Have a Purpose

Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

You Have a Purpose

What has been worked in us by the grace of God is a God-thing. It has not been birthed out of man’s wisdom, strength or ability. You are a God-thing. You are His handiwork and design, not just because He created you, but because He created you for a reason and purpose. You are not an accident, but a God intention.
Sometimes we can get pretty down on ourselves. We see the difficulties and challenges that this life constantly poses. We see our own weaknesses and failures. Sometimes we may tend to think what real good am I to myself or anyone else? There are times we want to just give up and either just live like the world or even give up on life altogether.
The enemy of our soul always wants to magnify and condemn our faults. He is always trying to get our eyes off of Jesus and on to self. We can always see self for more than it is or less than it is. If we put our eyes and minds where they belong, upon Him and upon His Word then it gives us His perspective. Verse 10 says, ” For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You were prepared in advance for a mission and a purpose. Get your eyes upon the One by whose power you can carry out your purpose. Your purpose is good works, His works, the will and do of His good pleasure. It is no longer about us, but Him. He is the One we live for, we serve and we delight to please. He is our Papa and He loves us dearly in spite of all the reasons why He shouldn’t.
You and I have a purpose today. He is our purpose and it is His work that we have to do. We can’t carry that out as long as our eyes are upon us. Let us fix our eyes on the prize of the high calling that is in Christ Jesus. Psalms 119:15 says, “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” Only He can lead us into the fullness of our purpose and destiny, but it is only as we fix our eyes upon Him and walk fully in the calling He has set before us. Your purpose is good works. They are good because they are His works and the Holy Spirit will lead you in how to carry them out as you yield your heart and life to Him. The accomplishment of your calling is centered in your identity with Christ. 1 John 4:4 declares,” You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
You are the object of His grace. Make Him the object of your life’s purpose.

Blessings,
#kent

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God Breathed

2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

God Breathed

Have you ever thought that as you read the scripture and meditate upon it that you are in effect inhaling what God has breathed? The Holy Spirit that was breathed to inspire the writers of His Word is now inhaled through these words to become the breath of His Spirit within you. We know that without our air we would cease to be. It is necessary to sustain our natural life. God’s Spirit is the air that our spirit man breathes. It is what sustains him and upholds him. Whatever is Spirit purposed and God anointed has been breathed upon by the breath of God.
Have you ever walked down a back alley behind restaurants where food has been thrown out and become putrefied and rotten? It creates an atmosphere where there is a horrible stench in the air. It is not some place that you care to remain, because it is repulsive to your sense of smell. This is the atmosphere and stench that is created by sin and ungodliness. It should be repulsive to our spiritual man. He delights in the atmosphere of worship, praise, the word of God and the fellowship of the saints. This is the air that the spirit man loves to breathe, because in it he smells the sweet incense of the presence of God. It is like breathing in oxygen. It regenerates and empowers that spirit man.
Deuteronomy 9:5 tells us why the Lord brought His people into Canaan to drive out the inhabitants. It was because it had become a stench. Their sin rose up to the nostrils of God and He abhorred the smell of their sinfulness and wickedness. It says, “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It wasn’t because the people of Israel were so righteous or upright it was so that He might perform His Word which He had promised to their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His Word would clear out the stench of sin and renew the atmosphere of His presence in this land of promise. It is His Word that clears the air of our soul. It teaches us, rebukes us, corrects us and trains us in His righteousness and His ways.
Perhaps a scripture that is so descriptive and exemplifies this principle of living and breathing in God’s Word is found in Deuteronomy 30 as Moses describes the blessings and curses of God. We choose the air that we breathe into our spirit man. As we conclude with this passage of scripture, be mindful of how it applies to our lives today and the choices that we make concerning the Word of God.
“When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. 7 The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. 8 You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. 9 Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, 10 if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30

Blessings,
#kent

Take Hold of Life

Take Hold of Life
Poverbs 2:6-19
For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, 8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. 9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. 10 For wisdom will enter your heart,and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse 13 who leave the straight paths to walk in dark was 14 who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, 15 whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. 16 It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, 17 who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. 18 For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. 19 None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
The questions this morning is why do we embrace death when the Lord has proclaimed and laid before us the path and way of Life? Blindly and ignorantly we accept whatever the world tells us and follow its mandates like it has the answers to Life. There is one source and fountain of Life. It is contained between the covers of your Bible and the Spirit of Life that quickens it to our understanding. Wisdom is spiritual life and understanding. Wisdom is not in us embracing every device and ad campaign of man that promises so much and delivers so little.
Where are we at today concerning our health, our life, our future and our finances? Are we walking in faith searching out and embracing by faith the Word and promises of God or are we listening to a spirit of death that tells us how we are dying? The Word of God has a good report; who are we going to believe. Do we find ourselves dependent upon the ways of man? Are our lives now ruled and in bondage to medications, prescription drugs, loans and debt, materialism and the philosophies of the world’s success? Are we moving in the realm of liberty and freedom of the Spirit, embracing God’s Words of life or are we giving ourselves self-appointed doom and defeat, because we embrace and profess with our mouths words contrary to the Life God wants to give us. We are a Kingdom of God people that should live in a kingdom culture and way of thinking. You see we have been conditioned by the lies of the enemy and our temptation is to believe that we have to go the way of the world and death. What we fail to realize is that what we are saying is man is true and God is a liar. I don’t think many of us come out and say it verbally, but our lives, habits and behavior are saying it.
Listen to what the today’s passage is saying. Do we really believe and embrace that? My wife has a wonderful habit. Almost daily she is putting on CDs of the Bible and playing them. Constantly she is putting the Word in her mind and heart, awake or sleeping, rather consciously or subconsciously it is feeding her spirit. The exhortation for today is for us to examine our lives and let go of the death and wrong thinking that we are embracing that is ministering death to us and not life. Feed upon the Life, embrace the Word of God and let it be your standard for every aspect of your life. The adulteress of this world’s system will lead you into death, “None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.” God has purposed us for Life, lay hold of it with all that is within you and hold fast to it that it might deliver you out of this life’s destruction and death. We are called unto life and godliness. If you lose you vision, you will lose your way.

Blessings,
#kent