Purpose Driven Life (Day 4-6)

Day 4 – Made to last forever
“God has…planted eternity in the human heart” Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT)

Our earthly body is just a temporary residence for our spirit. The bible calls our earthly body a “tent”, but refers to our future body as “house”. Life on earth offers many choices but eternity only offer two : heaven or hell. Our relationship with God will determine our relationship to Him in eternity. If we learn to love God and trust Jesus, we will be invited to spend the rest of eternity with Him. On the other hand, if we reject His love, forgiveness and salvation, we will spend eternity apart from God forever.

Basically from this chapter I learnt that if we understand that we live to prepare for eternity, we will live differently. Our value and lifestyle will change.

Day 5 – Seeing life from God’s view
“What is your life?” James 4:14b (NIV)

The way you see your life shapes your life. Different people will have different few of life. Some people said that life is a journey, a roller coaster, a minefield, a minefield, etc. And the image that people have about life is their life metaphor. It influence us more than we realized it.

From here I learnt three metaphors from the bible that teach us God’s view of life. Life is a test, life is a trust and life is a temporary assignment.

* Life is a Test
This life metaphor seen in stories throughout the bible. God continually tests people’s character, faith, obedience, love, integrity and loyalty. For example is God tested Abraham by asking him to offer his son. God tested Jacob when he had to work extra years to earn Rachel as his wife. And many other examples.
Our character is both developed and revealed by tests. We are always being tested. God constantly watches our response to people, problems, success, conflict, illness, disappointment and even weather!
However, we can be sure that He never allows the test that we face to be greater than the grace He gives us to handle.

James 1:12 – “Blessed are those who endure when they are tested. When they pass the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” 

*Life is a Trust
Our time on earth and our energy, intelligence, opportunities, relationships and resources are all gifts from God that He has entrusted to our care and management. We are stewards of whatever God gives us.
Everything we enjoy is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands.
Our culture says, “If you don’t own it, you won’t take care of it.” But Christians live by higher standard: “Because God owns it, I must take the best care of it that I can.”

At the end of our lives, we will be evaluated and rewarded according to how well we handled what God entrusted to us.
It’s important to remember that money is both a test and trust from God. =)

Day 6 – Life is a temporary assignment
“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away.” Psalm 39:4 (NLT)

This is the third metaphor that Bible teach us.
To make the best use of our lives, we must remember that compared to eternity, life is extremely brief and earth is only a temporary residence. We won’t be here long, so don’t get too attached.
We have to understand that our identity is in eternity and our homeland is heaven.

The Bible says, “We are Christ’s ambassadors.” Sadly, many Christians have betrayed their King and his kingdom because we have concluded that we live on earth and we thought that earth is our home.

It’s fatal to assume that God’s goal for our lives is material prosperity or popular success, as the world defines it. The abundant life has nothing to do with material abundance, and faithfulness to God does not guarantee success in a career or even in ministry. We can see from the Bible that Paul who is faithful, end up in prison. John the Baptist was beheaded. And million of faithful people have been martyred, have lost everything, or have come to the end of life without nothing to show for it. But the end of life is not the end!

In God’s eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

When life gets tough, when you’re overwhelmed with doubt, or when you wonder if living for Christ is worth the effort, remember that you are not home yet. At death yo won’t leave home – you’ll go home.

 

This chapter is so powerful and I did learn a lot from here. I have to always remind myself that life is a test – so I can assured myself to always win the test; life is a trust – I really need to improve myself in managing all the things that God has entrusted to me so that I can be a faithful servant; life is a temporary assignment – to be content and give thanks despite of all the situations because it’s only temporary!

** taken from Purpose Driven Life Book by Rick Warren.

Purpose Driven Life (Day 1-3)

Wohoo.. Decide to read this book again (Purpose Driven Life) by Rick Warren.!

In the last few days, God has reminded me to always seek His Kingdom first and here I am deciding to read this book again =) I thought this time I will write down what I learnt from the book each day.

Day 1 – It all starts with God
“For everything absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, … everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him.” Colossians 1:16 MSG

Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose.  We are created by God and for God. Only in God that we discover our origin, our meaning, our identity, our purpose, our significance and our destiny. We need to ask God if we want to know the purpose of our lives. We must turn to God’s Word and not the world wisdom to find our purpose. Ephesians 1:11-12 MSG said that “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, He had His eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose is He working out in everything and everyone.”

Day 2 – You are not an accident
“I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.” Isaiah 44:2a CEV

We are not an accident! Long before we were conceived by our parents, we were conceived in the mind of God. We are alive because God wanted to create us.

Poem by Russell Kelfer – 

You are who you are for a reason.
You’re part of an intricate plan.
You’re a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God’s special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.
Our God made no mistake.
He knit you together within the womb,
You’re just what He wanted to make.

The parents you had were the ones He chose,
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God’s plan in mind,
And they bear the Master’s seal.

No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into His likeness you’d grow.

You are who you are for a reason,
You’ve been formed by the Master’s rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God!

Day 3 – What drives your life?
“I observed that the basic motive for success is the driving force of envy and jealousy!” Ecclesiastes 4:4 (LB)

Everyone’s life is driven by something!

This chapter defines five most commons things that drive people’s life:

1. Guilt
Guilt driven people are manipulated by memories. We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. He turned murderer named Moses into leader and a coward named Gideon into a courageous hero. He can do amazing things with our lives!  God specializes in giving people a fresh start.

2. Resentment and Anger
They hold on to hurts and never get over them. We have to release forgiveness to people that hurts us.  This is so true – “those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through.”
For our own sake, we need to learn from it and let it go!

3. Fear
Fear driven people often miss great opportunities because they’re afraid to venture out. We have to move against it with the weapons of faith and love.

4. Materialism
People tend to believe that having more will make them more happy, more important and more secure. But all of them are untrue. They only provide temporary happiness. Our value is not determined by our valuables!

5. Need of approval
One key to failure is to try to please everyone.

From this book, we want to learn how to live a purpose-driven life.  Because all other forces can drive our lives but all lead to the same dead end.

The benefits of purpose-driven living:

1. Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life.
Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.

2. Knowing your purpose simplifies your life
Our purpose become the standard that we can use to evaluate which activities are essential and which aren’t. When we have no purpose, we have no foundation on which we base decisions, allocate our time and use our resources.  People that don’t know their purpose try to do too much and that causes stress, fatigue and conflict.

3. Knowing your purpose focuses your life
It concentrates our effort and energy on what’s important. We become effective by being selective.
Never confuse activity with productivity. We can be busy without a purpose, but what’s the point?

4. Knowing your purpose motivates your life
Purpose always produces passion.

5. Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity
What ultimately matters most will not be what others say about our life but what God says. We were put on earth to prepare for eternity.
God will ask us two crucial questions.
“What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?” He won’t ask about our religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is whether we accept what Jesus did for us and  whether we learn to love and trust Jesus.
“What did you do with what I gave you?” What did we do with our talents, gifts, opportunities, energy, relationships and resources that God gave us? Did we spend them on ourselves or did we use them or the purposes God made us for?

“You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in You.” Isaiah 26:3 TEV