Purpose

So last week we started looking at our vision for 2020, Purpose. We talked about living on purpose. This week and for the next few weeks we will be looking at the aspect of walking out our God given purpose. Many people are laying awake at night wondering what their purpose in life is. Some are even afraid that they have missed it or will miss it.

As a teenager I was adamant I wanted to know what my purpose was. I was born again and loving God and I knew I had a purpose but I just didn’t know what it was. See, I had this incessant need to know things. I don’t know if any of you are like this but I had to know what my purpose was and what God wanted me to do about it then and where it would lead me. Pretty much a road map of my life. #justsaying #wouldbenice

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on how you look at it, God does not work like that. He didn’t give me a road map for my life. However, the more I walk with Him the more I realise that purpose is really about living a life that pleases God. We have so much that God has put in us that it is absolutely up to us how we choose to use it.

However, if I can explain purpose as a tree, its branches are all the things that we can do with our lives and the fruit being the results thereof but its roots are as follows:

a.       Loving God with every passion of our hearts, with all the energy of our being, with every thought within us and with all our strength;

b.       Loving others as we love ourselves; and

c.       Living in the will of God.

The last one is really a result of the first 2 which are found in Mark 12:30-31. This root system can only flourish if we are immersed in Christ. God is love and we can’t find true and genuine love outside of Him. An infected root system will infect the tree and the branches and the fruit will either be none existent or bad. It is important that we don’t go looking for purpose outside of God. We need to find ourselves in Him first. If we want to bear good fruit, we must abide in Him (John 15:4).

We were created for love and from love. So, purpose begins in love. Loving God first and loving others as yourself. The implication being, you have to learn to love yourself so you can learn how to love others. Sometimes the reason why people struggle to be kind, to be merciful, to forgive or to be generous to people is because they don’t love themselves. Only to the extent that you love yourself can you truly love someone else. It is hard to love someone more than you love you.

What’s worse is that it’s hard to see yourself the way God sees you if you do not love you. It is hard to see what God sees in you if you do not love yourself. Self-loathing, self-hate or refusing to forgive yourself of your past mistakes obscures your view of you. The year 2020 is significant, get some 2020 vision. You need to be able to see yourself right if you want to see what God sees in you. God loves you. That should be enough reason for you to lay aside all the reasons why you don’t love you and seek to know the God who loves you.  What does He know about you that you don’t know about you?

It is hard to live in purpose when you don’t know who you are. Before we get bogged down with what God created us to do in this world, sometimes we need to take the time to find out who we are in Him. Who does He say we are? We are His children, we are righteous in Christ, we are forgiven, loved, seen, protected, blessed, washed clean by the blood, empowered by His Spirit, dead to our old selves and sin, resurrected and alive in Christ… The scriptures do not give us mixed messages. God’s word is clear on how God sees us.

It is up to us to sift through scripture and go on a journey of chasing after God and finding out who He is and who we are in Him. I can honestly say that the more I know God, the more I begin to know who I am. No one can do the journey for you, you have to do it. My revelation of who I am in Jesus is not going to fight your battles for you. After all, it is truth that you know that will set you free, John 8:32. The Passion Translation puts it this way, “For if you embrace the truth, it will release more freedom into your lives.”

So, we have been tasked with embracing the truth, the truth about God, the truth about who we are in Him, the truth. There is only one truth. Jesus said He is that truth (John 14:6). Once we embrace it, we will find the freedom we need to become who God has called us to be. It is then that we can begin to walk in our purpose.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano