What are your top 3 goals in life? What are your most cherished dreams? What drives you? I was chatting with a friend recently and he told me that he desires to become CEO of one of the biggest companies (name withheld) in West Africa. What a good goal, I said. I then asked him, what happens after you become CEO? What would you use your CEO position to attain? At this point, he became incoherent.
Beloved, what keeps you going? Jesus said in John 4:34 (MSG) – “The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me...” Purpose kept Jesus going. For many believers today, it is materialism, fear of failure, fame, and money (especially) that keeps them going. While we need some material things to fulfil our purpose on earth, we should be careful not to make getting material things our purpose. It’s just like an airplane; it needs tyres to take off and land, but that doesn’t mean that it should hit the expressway because it has tyres.
I strongly believe that every believer is a full time minister. God did not call anyone into part time ministry. II Corinthian 5:18 says every believer has been called into the ministry of reconciling men to God. We are all wired for full time ministry. It’s just that our platforms and mode of operation are different. To the pastor, it may be the pulpit. To the evangelist, it may be the remote areas. To the sportsman, it may be the stadium. To the senator, it may be the national assembly. To some, their platform is their place of work, while to others, it may be a school. Just as we do not see ourselves as part-time worshippers of God because we are not choristers, we should never have mindsets of part-time-ministry just because we are not pastors. If it is not in your priority to support the reconciliation of men to God on whatever platform God has given you, then you are failing the priority test. If your topmost dream is not connected to how God wants us to impact our generation as revealed in the bible, then you need to get back on track.
– Tope Aladenusi
Excerpted from Today’s Lifeline magazine (Vol.2 No. 5): 5 ways to know if you are living a purposeful life
I will start from the questions we had to answer from the last post.
Do you know your calling?
If you do, what are you doing about it?
And if not, are you on your way to discovering purpose?
The Bible tells us that we have been called out of darkness to show forth the glory of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
I will love for us to understand what this passage means. If God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light then there must be a process. There is a process we must go through to be able to radiate that light!
After we have given our lives to Christ we must go through this process before we can ever attain any level of maturity.
The first priority of a young Christian should be building a relationship with God, learning to understand his leading, coveting the position of becoming God’s Sheep. Jesus said in John 10:27 (MSG) ‘My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me’. This means a lot of things; first as God’s Sheep you should be able to recognize His voice, know when he is speaking to you and when your flesh is speaking to you. It will be easier for you to know God is okaying your choice of partner is if you are able to hear him speak to you and can adequately recognize his voice. Secondly God must acknowledge you as His own; we all know God knows those who are His. As much as we often say only God knows who is His, in order to avoid judging another person, we also are able by the Spirit of God within us to know who is of God. So before you decide to make a choice, you need to be able to first know that you are God’s, that is, your spirit bears witness that you belong to God and His Spirit is living with you. By so doing, you can know if the Spirit of God resides in another person.
And finally the third part of the scripture: God’s sheep follow Him; so if you and I are the Christian we claim to be we should do His will at all times. Behave like Jesus would in any situation. Go back to the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and learn about the person of Christ.
In Christianity, no one may ever get to the height but the truth is that we know when we have stepped up, we know when we are no longer who we used to be. Something happens inside of us. The chances that you will be able to identify a real Christian when you meet one is completely based on your being a true one.
The first priority for any new Christian has to be perfecting this new found relationship with God Almighty.
A product of our growing relationship with God is our purpose. For many people who know their purpose and are pursuing it today, discovery of purpose did not come by sitting in a corner and expecting it. It usually comes by doing the things God says you should do per time. From there you discover it’s either your God given purpose to do the things He told you to do or that they are essential to what God has called you to actually do.
If you have been blessed with knowledge of what your purpose is, it means you know the master. He knows you and you are able to identify his voice. The next question is this, are you following the Shepherd? Are you constantly in touch with heaven for direction on what path to follow to destiny? Have you written down the vision, made it plain to see? A person armed with purpose is the most dangerous person for the pit of hell, hence a major target of the enemy. So you have to be aware of where you stand. Your active pursuit of purpose will distract people from or attract people to you. It will help a person considering you for a choice of life partner reconsider and ask questions like – can I cope with this lifestyle? It will also guide you in knowing who will fit into your future so that you can say like Adam, this is the bone of my bone…
By His grace next post we will be looking at pointers to readiness for relationship.
God Bless you.
omolola ezeifeoma