Discovering Your Purpose

This morning we continue our series entitled, “Refined Focus”, with an emphasis on “Focusing on God’s Finished Work”.  We have been looking at the following five scriptures for a few days now.  Next week I will begin to teach through each one.  For today, as we close out the week, I will share a message about discovering your purpose.  

Please read these scriptures carefully and prayerfully:

(Jer 1:5 KJV)  Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

(Ps 139:16 MSG)  Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

(Isa 49:1 NLT)   Listen to me, all you in distant lands! Pay attention, you who are far away! The LORD called me before my birth; from within the womb He called me by name.

(Gal 1:15,16 NLT)  But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles.

(Eph 2:10 ERV)  God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.

So what does this mean to you today?  A few things.

1.  You are not a mistake.  Whether your natural parents planned for you or welcomed your arrival into this world or not, God planned for you and He welcomed you with open arms.

2.  Your assignment is already blessed.

a)  Instead of coming up with an aim, goal or purpose for your life and then asking God to bless what you came up with, it is much better to seek God concerning what He already planned for you.

b)  Once you discover your purpose you don’t have to ask God to bless it.  His plan for your life is already blessed.  Everything you need is already stored up.  The grace you will need is already allocated.

c)  When God tells you to do something you don’t have to ask Him to bless it.  The fact that He told you to do it means it is already blessed.

3.  You cannot choose or decide your purpose in life, because God chose and decided before you were born.  Therefore, purpose cannot be decided, it must be discovered.

4.  You will have to accept and pursue your divine purpose by faith.

a)  Once you discover your purpose, there will be times when when you don’t ‘feel’ like the person God called you to be.  On these occasions you must choose faith over feelings, because you are who God says you are, whether you feel like it or not.

b)  There will be times when you don’t feel worthy of the call of God on your life.  But you must accept the fact that Jesus made you worthy.

c)  There will be times when you feel like the call of God on your life is simply too big for you to accomplish.  God will step in and tell you that you are right.  But He never expected you to accomplish it without Him.  If you die to self, He will be the one doing the work through you.  You can’t, but He can, and He will, if you will allow Him to flow through you.

Closing Confession:  Father, this is a season of refined focus for me.  I bring my life into focus in 2016.  I am not a mistake.  I am on this planet for Your divine purpose.  My purpose is not something I decided.  It is something You decided and I discovered.  Since You decided it, I don’t have to ask You to bless my path.  It’s already blessed.  The grace is already there.  The favor is already going before me.  All I have to do is accept and pursue the assignment by faith, because the victory is already prepared.  So I declare that I do.  I embrace the grace to live as the person You called me to be.  Even when I don’t feel like it, when I don’t feel worthy, when I don’t feel up to the task, when I feel like the assignment is way too big for me, I make a decision to live by faith and not by feelings.  I enter this day and the rest of my life ready to enjoy Your Finished Work!  I declare this by faith.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

This is Today’s Word!  Apply it and Prosper.