Purpose Driven Life Food For Thought

The Purpose Driven Life

To start off 2010 with a bang over the next 10 weeks we will be looking at the series “A Purpose Driven Life” Do you know what God created you for? Are you following God’s will for your life? This series will give us what we need to know to reach our full potential in God. For interested people we will be doing this same study over 40 days where it will show us what God wants us to do in 2010 and beyond so starting 6.00pm Adelaide time as of the 8^th January 2010. If you would like to be part of this we need to know as it will be done in a closed room so that we will not be distracted by letting us know when we are online or by sending an email to church.at.home@hotmail.com

What on earth am I here for?

Chapter 1 It all starts with God

 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. Colossians 1:16

Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose

In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind Job 12:10

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Romans 8:6

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:25

You were made by God and for God and till you understand that, life will never make sense.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 1 Corinthians 2:7

It all starts with God

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will Ephesians 1:11

Thinking About My Purpose

Point to ponder: It's not about me.

Verse to remember: All things were created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16b

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.

Chapter 2 You are not an Accident

Thus says the Lord who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you: Isaiah 44:2a

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Psalm 148:8a

15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Psalm 139:15

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. Psalm 139:16

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings Acts 17:26

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love Ephesians 1:4

Long before you were concerning your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God.

You are not an accident.

For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the Lord, and there is no other. Isaiah 45:18

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.1 John 4:8

"Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth, Who have been carried from the womb Isaiah 46:3

Even to your old age, I am He, And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you. Isaiah 46:4

Thinking About My Purpose

Point to ponder: You are not an Accident

Verse to remember: Thus says the Lord who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you Isaiah 44:2

Question to consider: I know that God uniquely created me stop what areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?

 Chapter 3 What Drives Your Life?

Again, I saw that for all toil and every skilful work a man is envied by his neighbour. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind Ecclesiastes 4:4

When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth." Genesis 4:12

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Psalm 32:1

For wrath kills a foolish man, And envy slays a simple one. Job 5:2

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

Nothing matters more than knowing God's purpose for your life, and nothing can compensate for not knowing them.

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

Then I said, 'I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, And my work with my God.' "Isaiah 49:4

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, And are spent without hope Job 7:6

I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, For my days are but a breath. Job 7:16

What drives your life?

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us Ephesians 3:20

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches. Proverbs 13:7

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:17

If you want your life to have impact, focus it!

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead Philippians 3:13

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Philippians 3:15

You were not put on Earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Romans 14:10

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God Romans 14:12

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6

Thinking About My Purpose

Point to ponder: Living on purpose is the path of peace.

Verse to remember: You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3

Question to consider: what would might and friends say is the driving force of my wife? What do I want it to be?

Chapter 4 Made to Last Forever.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heaven 2 Corinthians 5:1

This life is the preperation for the next will

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Philippians 3:7

When you leave in the light of eternity, your values change.

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" 1 Corinthians 2:9

Made to last for ever

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matthew 25:34

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations. Psalm 33:11.

Better to go to the house of mourning Than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart. Ecclesiastes 7:2

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come Hebrews 13:14

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:6

Thinking About My purpose

Point to ponder: There is more to life than just here and now.

Verse to remember: And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:17

Question to consider: since I was made to last forever, what is the one thing I should stop doing in the one thing I should start doing today.