Tag Archive - teaching

The Four Ways

October 1, 2009 in Bible, Personal with 0 Comments

Number_4

Earlier this week I wrote about finding your source before you find your purpose. It’s a great a misstep to think that if we fill our lives with activities, objectives, and functions that eventually we’ll discover our purpose.  Purpose must preceed the planning!

The key is in knowing God and allowing Him to determine and direct your life. It all starts with knowing Him.  How can we find purpose without knowing God?  You can’t.  We need to concern ourselves with what God concerns himself with.  Then, and only then, will God’s purpose for us be revealed.

Now that we’ve established this important principle, let’s look at the four different ways that we can begin to find purpose.  I’m sure my readers are smart enough to figure it out, but three of them are wrong and only one is right:

1.   Deduction -These are the people that live their entire lives without purpose or direction.  They live with no thought to what they are doing or why.  They have decided to live their lives until the end, and then “add up the score” at the end.  Think of it as “postmortem purpose.”

When I was in college I volunteered at the local Hospice.  Being a perfectly unqualified 19 year old, I then sat by the deathbeds of men and women and listened to them talk of their lives.  I remember one lady in particular that was so upset because she couldn’t figure out what she wanted said at her funeral.  She had never taken the time to find her purpose, and instead sat on her deathbed drying to deduce what it might have been.  What a sad way to live.

2.  Association -Purpose gained through various associations: family, neighborhood, friends, school, churches, etc…  These are great purposes, that are worth supporting and furthering.  But rather than develop personal purpose, these people simply comply with the corporate purpose.  Think of it as “adopted purpose.”

3.  Emulation -Looking to “heroic figures” or other individuals whom they seek to pattern their lives after.  Easily seen in hair styles, fashion, language, etc…  I see this in my kids, as they will mimic my tone of voice, hand motions, and act like they love the things I love.  Until of course I eat some grilled asparagus, then they distance.  Think of Emulation as “vicarious purpose.”

These three ways of finding purpose all have one things in common.  They’re all EASY.  None of them require great thought or ambition.  If you live your life by deduction, association, or emulation; you will experience burnout and tend to blame others for your own failures and disappointments.

4.  Personalization -Developing personal convictions.  Correct purpose is not determined by technique, but by the source.  When a statement of Godly purpose on a personal level is derived, fulfillment follows!  Think of it as “individual purpose.”  God has something that is unique to you as in individual.  You’re different, and it’s time we look at our differences as our strength!

To establish Godly purpose depends upon knowing God intimately, and in order to know God one must apply the Scriptures.

John 14:21 “Those who know my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, and my Father will love those who love me. I will love them and will show myself to them.”

Are you actively seeking His will?  Are you intimate with His Word?  Have you asked for purpose?

HT: Establishing Your Purpose, CMBC.com Ministry in the Marketplace Manual (This is OLD, but great stuff!)

The Source of Purpose

September 29, 2009 in Bible with 2 Comments

Purpose

John 17:4 “Having finished the work you gave me to do, I brought you glory on earth.”

Philippians 3:14 “I keep trying to reach the goal and get the prize for which God called me through Christ to the life above.”

Many people have been taught how to manage life via a “goals and objectives” model, but few have been instructed to give thought to the SOURCE of those objectives.  Scripture teaches that purpose precedes planning.  So how do we balance the activities of our life with the purpose from God?  Which comes first?

Purpose is NOT the adding up of new activities.  It is not realized while trying to meet certain goals.  An objective is defined as a basic aim that a person takes in order to accomplish a predetermined end.  Just as activities without objectives are unfulfilling, so are objectives without purpose.  Staying busy racking up successes is not helping you find your purpose.  Consider this a warning: Achievement can be stimulating, but it is not fulfilling over the long haul of life.

What is purpose?  Purpose is simply what God wants our life to add up to and why.

The only difference for the non-believer is who he is pleasing with his purpose.  Purpose is gained by understanding the program and story of God.  If you don’t know God, you can’t know how to participate in His purpose for your life.  It’s so simple, it’s hard.

Paul (Saul of Tarsus) perfectly illustrates this for us in Acts 9.  As he is traveling on the Damascus road he has a supernatural encounter with Jesus.  After Jesus gets his attention, Paul asked these two questions: “Who are you Lord?” and “What do you want me to do?”  The first question is one of purpose, and the second question is one of objectives and activities.

The key is in knowing God and allowing Him to determine and direct your life. It all starts with knowing Him.  How can we find purpose without knowing God?  You can’t.

We need to concern ourselves with what God concerns himself with.  Then, and only then, will God’s purpose for us be revealed.

How much of your life is directed by eternal focus (sensitive to what God is concerned with), and how much is strictly temporal focus (survival, getting ahead, doing what looks good)?

Fear of Commitment

September 16, 2009 in Bible with 0 Comments

opportunity

In a previous post I addressed the idea of seizing opportunities, and the two fears that keep us from grasping those opportunities when they come available.  The first fear that leads to us missing opportunities is the fear of our own weakness. The second fear is the all too common fear of commitment.

Numbers 13:32 “The land is too large to conquer.”

The Israelites used this as an excuse, because they were afraid of the commitment they would be making.  They looked at all that God promised, and wondered how they could ever achieve all of that.  The sad truth is that God never intended his promise to be an overnight project.  Instead of seizing the opportunity to take the promised land, the Israelites were scared away by the audacity of the task before them.  The had their eyes on the destination, but failed to see the value of the journey.

Moses would later address this to the children of the missed opportunity.

Deuteronomy 7:22 “When the Lord your God forces those nations out of the land, he will do it little by little ahead of you. You won’t be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will grow too many in number.”

I love it.  Little by little.  What a great promise to me as I sometimes get spooked by what opportunities God might be setting before me.  God isn’t asking me to be an overnight success as a father, husband, or servant.  He’s asking me to seize the audacious opportunity, and have faith that he will help me little by little.  Don’t be scared of the bigness of your own dreams!
Learn to see the value in the journey.  After you’ve seized the great destination that this new opportunity presents, it’s time to enjoy the ride.  Let God speak to you day by day, little by little.  See the journey by spending less time always looking ahead at the difference being made, and spending more time letting God teach us through the journey.

Fear of Our Own Weakness

September 15, 2009 in Bible with 5 Comments

weaknessYesterday I addressed the idea of seizing opportunities that are in front of us, and how we often let two fears keep us from taking hold of those set of circumstances that enable us to do something amazing.  The first fear that leads to us missing opportunities is the fear of our own weakness.

Numbers 13:31 “They are stronger than us…”

The spies that were unwilling to enter the land promised to them by father God, were actually right on.  Those people living in the new land were indeed stronger than them.  We know that in reality, they were bigger, taller, and better equipped to fight a battle.  The Israelites were recently released slaves, not a fighting band of warriors.  Here’s where they were wrong: Their weakness was NOT their liability.  It was their unique advantage!

II Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, my power is made perfect in you.”

Our weakness gives God the opportunity to do what he does best. In fact later in Deuteronomy 8:17-18, Moses warns the children of the missed opportunity generation of what can happen when they forget their place in the story.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 “17 You might say to yourself, “I am rich because of my own power and strength,”18 but remember the Lord your God! It is he who gives you the power to become rich, keeping the agreement he promised to your ancestors, as it is today.”

So what is the correct response when faced with your own overwhelming weakness?  Remember that your weakness is your advantage.  Begin to see your disqualifications and inadequacies as the gift that God will use to make His story complete.  I’ve been working through a book on purpose with some friends of mine, and stumbled upon this quote.  It’s taken from a small book that is distrubuted by the CBMC.  It perfectly sums up the idea of your weakness not being worthy of being the fear that keeps you from God’s next opportunity, and instead is worthy of being the advantage.

“If, through the living out of your purpose, you sense less dependence on God, you can be confident you are out of the will of God!  For though a life of purpose makes you more aware of your gifts and calling, it at the same time highlights your inadequacies and amplifies your great need for God and His grace.  The path towards God is dependence; the path away from God is independence.”

Opportunity is Here

September 14, 2009 in Bible with 3 Comments

opportunity
opportunity |ˌäpərˈt(y)oōnitē|
a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something
I’ve been reading through the story of Moses and the Israelites over the past few weeks, and while working through Deuteronomy something in Moses’ writing tone has struck me.  Deuteronomy seems to be a last will and testament for Moses to the children of Israel, and there is an overriding sense of regret out of Moses.  Moses continually laments the missed opportunity of the Israelites to take the promised land 40 years earlier.  For those needing to catch up on the story, when the Israelites left Egypt in a blaze of glory; they came to a moment in the wilderness where action was required of them to take the land promised to them.  In Numbers 13, you can read the story of the spies returning from investigating this ‘promised land’ and you can read where overwhelmingly they convince the Israelites that they will never be able to take this ‘promised land.’

Numbers 13:31-33

But the men who had gone with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”32 And those men gave the Israelites a bad report about the land they explored, saying, “The land that we explored is too large to conquer. All the people we saw are very tall.33 We saw the Nephilim people there. (The Anakites come from the Nephilim people.) We felt like grasshoppers, and we looked like grasshoppers to them.”

They totally missed it.  This missed opportunity eventually led to them never getting a chance to see what God had for them.  In Deuteronomy Moses is speaking to the children of these that missed the opportunity.  I believe that there are two big fears that kept the Israelites from the great opportunity that was before them.  And coincidentally enough, they are the same two fears that often times keep me from seizing opportunity when it presents itself.

Over the next two posts on www.jonathancliff.com I will be addressing the two fears, and what we can do to step over them into the set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.

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