Book Title : The Purpose Driven Life - WHAT ON EARTH AM I HERE FOR ?
Author : Rick Warren
Blessed
are those who trust in the Lord…They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the
heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go
right on producing delicious fruit. From everyone who has been given much, much will be
demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be
asked.
Life is a test and a trust, and the
more God gives you, the more responsible he expects you to be. God especially
enjoys watching you use the talents and abilities he has given you. God
intentionally gifted us differently for his enjoyment. He has made some to be
athletic and some to be analytical. You may be gifted at mechanics or
mathematics or music or a thousand other skills. All these abilities can bring
a smile to God’s face. The Bible says, “He has shaped each person in turn; now
he watches everything we do. There are three barriers that block our total surrender
to God: fear, pride, and confusion. The Bible says, “Surrender yourself to the
Lord, and wait patiently for him. You don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender
to chaos.”
Pain is the fuel of passion—it
energizes us with an intensity to change that we don’t normally possess. The
Bible says, “God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is
kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and
decay. ” This means that your eternal inheritance is priceless, pure, permanent,
and protected. No one can take it from you; it can’t be destroyed by war, a
poor economy, or a natural disaster. This eternal inheritance, not retirement,
is what you should be looking forward to and working for. Paul says, “Whatever
you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
” Retirement is a short-sighted goal.
Our greatest lessons come out of pain, and the Bible says God keeps a record of our tears. Whenever problems occur, remember that God uses them to fulfil all five purposes in your life: Problems force you to focus on God, draw you closer to others in fellowship, build Christlike character, provide you with a ministry, and give you a testimony.
Spiritual maturity is neither instant
nor automatic; it is a gradual, progressive development that will take the rest
of your life.
God uses problems to draw you closer
to himself. The Bible says, “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; he
rescues those who are crushed in spirit.” Every problem is a character-building
opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for
building spiritual muscle and moral fiber. Paul said, “We know that these
troubles produce patience. And patience produces character.” Whenever God gives
us an assignment, he always equips us with what we need to accomplish it. This
custom combination of capabilities is called your SHAPE: Spiritual gifts Heart
Abilities Personality Experience.
Remember, the greatest things in life are not
things. Meaning is far more important than money. The richest man in the world
once said, A simple life in the fear-of-God is better than a rich life with a
ton of headaches.
It is obvious that God loves
variety—just look around! He created each of us with a unique combination of
personality traits.God made introverts and extroverts. He
made people who love routine and those who love variety. He made some people
“thinkers” and others “feelers.” Some people work best when given an individual
assignment while others work better with a team. The Bible says, “God
works through different people in different ways, but it is the same God who
achieves his purpose through them all. ”
Thousands of books have been written
on leadership, but few on servanthood. Everyone wants to lead; no one wants to
be a servant. We would rather be generals than privates.
There are two kinds of people: Kingdom
Builders and Wealth Builders. Both are gifted at making a business grow, making
deals or sales, and making a profit. Wealth Builders continue to amass wealth
for themselves no matter how much they make, but Kingdom Builders change the
rules of the game. They still try to make as much money as they can, but they
do it in order to give it away. They use the wealth to fund God’s church and
its mission in the world.
God loves to use weak people. Everyone
has weaknesses. In fact, you have a bundle of flaws and imperfections:
physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. You may also have
uncontrollable circumstances that weaken you, such as financial or relational
limitations. The more important issue is what you do with these. Usually we
deny our weaknesses, defend them, excuse them, hide them, and resent them. This
prevents God from using them the way he desires. God has a different
perspective on your weaknesses. He says, “My thoughts and my ways are higher
than yours,” so he often acts in ways that are the exact opposite of what we
expect. We think that God only wants to use our strengths, but he also wants to
use our weaknesses for his glory. All God’s giants were weak people. Moses’ weakness was his temper. It caused him to murder an Egyptian, strike the rock he was supposed to speak to, and break the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Yet God transformed Moses into “the humblest man on earth.” Gideon’s weakness was low self-esteem and deep insecurities, but God transformed him into a “mighty man of valour. ” Abraham’s weakness was fear. Not once, but twice, he claimed his wife was his sister to protect himself. But God transformed Abraham into “the father of those who have faith. “Impulsive, weak-willed Peter became “a rock, ” the adulterer David became “a man after my own heart,” and John, one of the arrogant “Sons of Thunder,” became the “Apostle of Love. “God specializes in turning weaknesses into strengths. He wants to take your greatest weakness and transform it
When Gideon recruited an army of
32,000 to fight the Midianites, God whittled it down to just 300, making the
odds 450 to 1 as they went out to fight 135,000 enemy troops. It appeared to be
a recipe for disaster, but God did it so Israel would know it was God’s power,
not their own strength, that saved them.
Sometimes, God turns a strength into a
weakness in order to use us even more. Jacob was a manipulator who spent his
life scheming and then running from the consequences. One night he wrestled
with God and said, I’m not letting go until you bless me. God said, All right, but
then he grabbed Jacob’s thigh and dislocated his hip. What is the significance
of that? God touched Jacob’s strength (the thigh muscle is the strongest in the
body) and turned it into a weakness. From that day forward, Jacob walked with a
limp so he could never run away again. It forced him to lean on God whether he
liked it or not. If you want God to bless you and use you greatly, you must be
willing to walk with a limp the rest of your life, because God uses weak
people.
Every problem is purpose-driven. In
the middle of a painful experience, the psalmist wrote, “Write down for the
coming generation what the LORD has done, so that people not yet born will
praise him. ” You owe it to future generations to preserve the testimony of how
God helped you fulfill his purposes on earth. It is a witness that will
continue to speak long after you’re in heaven. “From everyone who has been
given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with
much, much more will be asked. ”
There are three barriers that
block our total surrender to God: fear, pride, and confusion. The
Bible says, “Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him. You
don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos.”
It is obvious that God loves variety—just
look around! He created each of us with a unique combination of personality
traits. God made introverts and extroverts. He made people who love routine and
those who love variety. He made some people “thinkers” and others “feelers.”
Some people work best when given an individual assignment while others work
better with a team. The Bible says, “God works through different people in
different ways, but it is the same God who achieves his purpose through them
all. ”
