Everybody needs a purpose and that is why we are spending 40 days of Purpose looking at God’s purpose for your life. To God be all the glory, we just finished the second week of this spiritual-growth campaign. As we start off the week 3 of this spiritual adventure, I want to encourage you to take steps of growth in each of the five purposes as they unfold. See below a review of last week’s study on your FIRST PURPOSE: “YOU WERE PLANNED FOR GOD’S PLEASURE”.

DAY 8 – PLANNED FOR GOD’S PLEASURE .The moment you were born into the world, God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. You exist for his benefit, his glory, his purpose, and his delight.

Day 9 – What Makes God Smile? You may feel that the only time God is pleased with you is when you’re doing “spiritual” activities—like reading the Bible, attending church, praying, or sharing your faith. Actually, God enjoys watching every detail of your life, whether you are working, playing, resting, or eating. He doesn’t miss a single move you make.

Day 10 – The Heart of Worship .In today’s competitive culture we are taught to never give up and never give in—so we don’t hear much about surrendering. If winning is everything, surrendering is unthinkable. We would rather talk about winning, succeeding, overcoming, and conquering than yielding, submitting, obeying, and surrendering. But surrendering to God is the heart of worship.

Day 11 – Becoming Best Friends with God .Your relationship to God has many different aspects: God is your Creator and Maker, Lord and Master, Judge, Redeemer, Father, Savior, and much more. But the most shocking truth is this: Almighty God yearns to be your Friend!

Day 12 – Developing Your Friendship with God .Like any friendship, you must work at developing your friendship with God. It won’t happen by accident. It takes desire, time, and energy. The first building block of a deeper friendship with God is complete honesty—about your faults and your feelings. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, but he does insist on complete honesty. Every time you trust God’s wisdom and do whatever he says – even when you don’t understand it – you deepen your friendship with God.

Day 13 – Worship That Pleases God. God doesn’t want a part of your life. God is not interested in halfhearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money. He desires your full devotion, not little bits of your life.

Day 14 – When God Seems Distant .It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your life—when he has provided food, friends, family, health, and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million miles away? The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted, surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant. How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears?

We Thank God for the incredible turn out at the opening day of the 40-days of purpose on Wednesday 1st February 2012. The Bible says “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power…..”(Psalm 110:3)
We give God the glory for the present move of His power evidenced by the interest and hunger for this spiritual growth campaign such that the two set of orders over 250 copies of the Purpose driven life book was sold out by the first day of the campaign.
Key highlight of the first day presentation were the expositions to the fundamental questions of life below:
- Question of Existence. “Why am I alive”?
- Question of Significance. “Does my life matter”?
- Question of Intention. “What is my purpose”?
The consequences of not knowing as well as the benefit of knowing ones purpose in life were highlighted with real life examples.
We were then encouraged to exemplify the purposeful life of Apostle Paul as recorded in the Bible:
“And I’m going to keep that celebration going because I know how it’s going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don’t expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose.
As long as I’m alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I’d choose. Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better. But most days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that it’s better for me to stick it out here” (Phil 1:18-25 MSG)
Our memory verse for the week is:
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV)

Points to ponder: It’s not about me.

Verse to remember: “Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him” Colossians 1:16b (Msg)

Question to consider: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself.

Share your thoughts, leave comment below!