Purpose

(This one’s a bit long, but worth the time, so get some coffee and carve out 10 minutes—it will change your life!!!)

Purpose has so many benefits to a life well lived. So why do so many people seemingly live without a purpose? Well often it’s because we get caught up in life that has its own agenda and we forget to command our own ships. We let something or someone else take control and we lose sight of our purpose. It’s time to regain your purpose back, or get it locked on for the first time. So here are a few pointers that can help you spot where your purpose is. (Disclaimer: Before you start, remember a life lived for a purpose beyond ourselves first surrenders that to Jesus Christ and consistently seeks His will for His purpose to be lived out through us.)

1. It ought to start with you.

Often when we start to think about purpose our minds wanders into an abyss of grandiose dreams and visions. As wonderful as those lofty ideas are, they rarely help you spot your real purpose. They only give you a clue. So where do I look?

Well, my first advice for you is don’t look anywhere except right where you are and start right with yourself. Look first with these six key areas. (Excerpt from John Maxwell)

Talent

Basically, talent answers the question, “What can I do well?” Every one of us has talents and there are some things that we can do very well. So when you are going to discover your purpose and significance in life, start there. “What can I do well?”

Desire

What do I want to do? I learned that talent without desire will never achieve anything. You’ve got to not only be able to do it and be talented with it, but you’ve got to have a heart and a desire to do it.

Results

You say, “Pastor isn’t number one and three the same?” No. Talent is what I can do well. A result is what I do well. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you’re doing it well. I know an awful lot of talented people who aren’t getting results with their God-given talent. So just because you have talent doesn’t mean that you are going to achieve the purpose in your life. So it’s more than just what I can do, it’s what I do and do well.

Recognition

What others think I do well. When people come alongside of you, what do they talk to you about? What do they say is your strength and what you do very well? What do you do well? There are certain things that you do well that even others will come along and recognize in you.

Circumstances

That’s what I have an opportunity to do. You see, I’m convinced that most people look at their goal and purpose and they think they have to skip life to get over there to it. Take life right where it is. What’s around me? You know, the Bible says, “Whatever your hand finds to do...” What does your hand find to do? It finds what is opportunistic, what’s right there, what’s right around you. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might. Therefore, you and I have to look around and say, “Okay, what is the opportunity that is given to me at this time?”

Fulfillment

What I enjoy doing. Now, I promise you if you can work those six words into your life and into the purpose of your life, you’ll begin to have a sense of significance and you’ll begin to find yourself, so that you can begin to take the next step.

2. It ought to contain life-changing convictions.

When I’m talking about a purpose or a meaning, I’m talking about life-changing things. We all have little mundane desires that we try to fulfill in our life. But I’m talking about living for something that is life changing. Not just convictions that you can live for but convictions that you can die for.

John A. Howard who was the past president and counselor of the Rockford Institute said this: “Having spent a career trying to understand and help young people, I am convinced that the one primary cause of tragic self-destruction of so many of our youth is that they do not know the work and satisfaction of living for something larger than themselves. The human psyche cannot stand up against moral neutrality. If nothing is truly good, right, or worth striving and sacrificing for, life is meaningless and no course of action can build a sense of one’s own self-worth. Without large goals, life is barren. Without large goals, life is a burden.”

I believe those words, just like Jean Valjean in Les Miserables said, “It is nothing to die, but it’s an awful thing never to have lived.” So let me ask the question, what would you die for? Your answers may differ, but here is how I answered this question.

Four things worth dying for:

1. Faith (It’s worth living for and it’s worth dying for.)

2. Family (It’s the place you originate from, you must start here)

3. Freedom (In my limited travels overseas I know that I would rather be dead than be under the oppression of other people.)

4. A few close friends

Now I don’t know what you’d live for and I don’t know what you’d die for. But I’ll tell you this; anybody that has a purpose worth living for probably has a purpose worth dying for. Don’t be just like a sailboat tossed back and forth out there on the water. Get an anchor and get a purpose and get a direction.

3. Our purpose ought to include others.

If we are going to have a mission and really be significant, it certainly has to include others besides ourselves. Or as Albert Pine said “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us. But what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

4. Our purpose should be bigger than ourselves.

We ought to be living for something much bigger than what we are. So it not only includes others, but it should also be larger than your lifetime. God wants to accomplish something greater than what can be done in a day, a month or a decade. He wants to accomplish something from generation to generation. How do we accomplish this, well its simple—day by day, that is why the Apostle Paul stated, “I die daily…” (1 Cor 15:31)

5. Our purpose ought to have eternal value to it.

In an interview of a Rose Bowl Parade worker, the interviewer asked, “ “Would you like to do this for a living all of the time?” And they said, “No, I would never want to do the rest of my life something that’s only going to last for two weeks.” There was a survey recently taken of people that are 95 years of age or older. They asked these 100 people, 95 years and older, if they could go back what would they would do differently in their life? Three things surfaced from these elderly people. If they could go back and redo their life over they said:

1) I would reflect more.

2) I would risk more.

3) I would do things that will last after I’m dead. Don’t live with any regrets.

Boy, when they said that I thought “How true.” Because of Jesus, I want to make my life count for something that has eternal value, just like the Apostle Paul.

(Philippians 3:7-9) “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…”