Three weeks ago I began a series called: “Living for a Purpose”.Today I want to share the fourth and final message of the series.
I want to remind you of some points from the previous message.
You and I were sent to this earth to do something valuable. I believe that we all have a calling, a mission and a purpose to live!
No human being on earth, none of us is a mistake. You were born to succeed!
You may not have been planned by your father and mother, but you were planned in heaven by an all-powerful God.
I discovered that life’s greatest tragedy is not death, but a life with no purpose.
There is nothing worse than being alive without knowing why you are alive!
And in Psalm 139 it says that before you were born, God created a plan for your life and gave you a destiny to fulfil on this earth.
The Bible says that God “predestined” us, He gave us a pre – destiny – God assigned you a life plan even before you were born!
If something has gone wrong in your life and in my life, I can assure you: it was not in God’s plans. For God has good plans for us!
Our failures and our successes are results of our decisions and our obedience to our manufacturer and creator.
There is a divine purpose for your life, you only need to find out who you are in God, what God has for you and where you are headed!
You must reach your destination and fulfil your purpose, because that’s what He saved you for!
“But you have carefully followed my teaching, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, perseverance,”. II Timothy 3:10 NKJV
Timothy was Apostle Paul’s son in faith, and so Paul writes to Timothy saying: you have been following my life and my purpose from up close. Apostle Paul lived with a purpose and he taught his children in the faith to also live with purpose!
This is why I am preaching these messages, because I want to see my children in faith living for a purpose and coming before God as “good and faithful servants.”
And you can’t just live for the sake of living! You have to live with a purpose.
You will not fulfil the plans that God has prepared for you if you do not live with purpose.
The world does not live according to God’s purpose, so they are always doing the will of their own flesh.
Christians who do not live for a purpose will easily be driven to go after the desires of their flesh and will destroy their lives and God’s plans.
Christians who do not live in communion with the Holy Spirit will be driven out of God’s plan and will live a life to please their flesh.
God’s plans will be revealed to you by the Holy Spirit. You will only find out the things that God has prepared for you through an intimate life with the Holy Spirit.
That is why you need to have time of prayer, read the word of God, read good books, attend Cell meetings, come to Saturday meetings, attend Sunday services and listen only to messages anointed by the Holy Spirit.
All these practices and obedience to the word of God will lead you to fulfil God’s call and as a result you will be a complete, happy person and because God created you to be happy!
If you listen to the Holy Spirit, He will lead you to be more involved with the Kingdom of God and you will feed on good things so that you will live a supernatural life, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
If you don’t yet follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the world will direct your life and you will slowly be more and more removed from the purpose of God. You will be living your own life, pleasing your flesh and as a consequence you can bring over yourself feelings of: anxiety, fear, depression, anguish, unbelief, unwillingness to seek God… and so you abort God’s plan in your life.
God wants to use you wherever you may be to express His glory. If you have a relationship with the Holy Spirit, he will bless you with wisdom, anointing and grace to make a difference wherever you are.
You will be used to bring the Kingdom of God wherever you are: in your school, being a great student, in your work being an excellent professional, in the church being a successful leader, a child ministry teacher or being a man or woman of prayer, always connected with the Holy Spirit.
Do you remember Daniel and his 3 friends? They were taken as captives to Babylon, which at the time was the greatest kingdom in the world. And there they were used by God, they were not defiled, they did not depart from God and they fulfilled God’s purpose and they were light in the midst of darkness.
“In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” Daniel 1:20 NIV
The king said that they were smarter, more innovative and more creative than everyone else and, that is only because they allowed God to use where they were.
I want to share a testimony from my own life. Today I am a pastor and missionary, but years ago, after my graduation, I started working in a company in Brazil.
Everyone in the company knew that I was a believer and served God. When I joined the company, there were no other Christians there. After 3 years of work, I was promoted as manager of the company, after 5 more years working for this company, it expanded and I had now become manager of two companies, 4 years later, yet another company was added and I became manager of 3 companies.
After 15 years of work, thanks to God’s Grace and wisdom, not only did the companies expand greatly, but because of my conduct and testimony, over 50 percent of the employees in the 3 companies were now born-again Christians and were serving Jesus.
You are not at school just to study, you are not at your job just to make money, you are not involved with people just to please yourself but to be the Light that will shine in the darkness, the salt that will give flavour and will bring salvation to those around you.
We need to live with a purpose! You and I are here on this earth not to eat, drink and earn money, but to fulfil a divine call which is to serve God, worship Him and bring the Kingdom of God to this earth.
God’s purpose is not about salvation only, it is not about taking you to Heaven, but it’s for you to bring heaven to Earth, to bring salvation to those who are going to hell and are far from God.
How are we going to do this? Not through our own strength, not because of our own wisdom, not because of our own knowledge, but because of the Grace of God!
“But he said to me,” My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ” 2 Corinthians 12: 9
In this verse God was speaking to Apostle Paul and God says: My Grace is what you need to have my powers!
God refers to his Grace as his power. And this grace gives Paul the strength to do everything he did, that is, he had no human capacity but the Grace of God was enough for him to fulfil his calling.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ” 1 Corinthians 15:10 NIV
Apostle Paul says: I worked harder than all the apostles, but it was not me, but the Grace of God.
Why did he have access to that grace? Because he believed!
We need to connect to this grace by faith!
“Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5: 2 NKJV
Access to the Grace of God is by faith, it is by believing!
If you do not have the faith to connect to the grace of God you will do everything by your own natural and human abilities.
Grace is God’s empowerment in order for you to fulfil your purpose. Apostle Paul says: I worked hard, more than the other apostles, however it was not by my strength, but by the grace of God in me!
Many see the grace of God just as forgiveness of sins, but Grace is God’s empowerment! Grace is the empowerment of God.
How are you going to live God’s life and His purpose if you don’t believe that Grace is empowerment?
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor 12: 9
Grace is the empowerment of God and without His Grace you are nothing, without His grace you are weak, you are bad, without his grace you will do it by your strength!
All you have to do is believe! Believe and the power of God will manifest in your weakness!
One day God came to Gideon and an angel of God appeared to Him
“When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said,” The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. “” Judges 6:12 NIV
Here the Angel appears and says to him: The Lord is with you, Brave Warrior !
He looks back to see if there was anyone “brave” standing behind him. “Me Brave?”
He asks: If the Lord is with me, why are things going so badly?
Gideon was afraid of enemies.
Many scholars believe that this “The Angel of The Lord” here is Jesus. This angel came where he was and said, “Gideon Brave Man”. But he saw himself as weak, defeated, cowardly and a failure.
Now he has a contradiction in his mind, he is seeing two different things: what he thinks of himself and what the angel is saying about him.
“ Pardon me, my lord, ”Gideon replied,“ but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. ” Judges 6:15 NIV
Gideon said: I am the weakest of my clan, I am the smallest of my family, I am weak, I am small, I cannot do this!
But the Angel said: I am with you and you are brave!
Who was telling the truth? Because one of them must be wrong. Who was telling the truth? The Angel of God or Gideon?
Of course it was God who was telling the truth, but we are often mistaken because we are following our deceitful hearts or listening to what people are saying.
How are you feeling about your problems? Who are you listening to? Are you listening to what people say or what God is saying?
God says to you: The only Truth about your life is in Me! When God says who you are, not even your mind can believe it!
You cannot believe the truth about your life, because you have believed for a long time in many lies about you!
When the Holy Spirit speaks, it’s hard to believe it. Every person mentioned in the Bible whom was called by God did not believe in God’s words at first, but they believed in themselves.
God called Abraham and said: Abraham, you will be the father of many children, but what did he say? My wife is barren!
God called Moses and said: You are a warrior and a deliverer, take my people away from Egypt! But Moses saw himself as nothing but a shepherd and he hid from God.
David was called by God to lead a nation and be king, but he was a young shepherd who worked for his father.
God calls Rahab, who was a prostitute, and because she believed in God she entered the lineage of Jesus Christ. (Joshua 6:25)
God calls us, He has a purpose, a plan for you and me, He tries to tell us what we are, but we try to convince God what we are not.
The truth about us is so incredible that we have a hard time believing in God’s plan.
The truth about you will define your future and that is why you need this relationship with the Holy Spirit; because He alone can reveal all the plans that God has for your life.
Without this relationship with the Holy Spirit you will do things that God did not call you to do, you will only waste time.
The most important person on the face of this earth is the Holy Spirit. Why? Because He is the One that the Father and Jesus Christ, our Lord sent to complete God’s work on this earth.
The Holy Spirit is the One that God sent to finish His work.
The most important work on this earth is the work of the Holy Spirit. And we need to know Him and learn more about Him, have a relationship with Him, for this is the key for you to fulfil your purpose here on this earth.
Only He can reveal everything that has been written and determined for your life! Many Christians have no revelation of God’s grace because they have no relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Without Him you will make mistakes, you will do what God did not tell you to do, you will waste time.
You need to have a revelation of God’s Grace! For what God has written about your life goes far beyond your cognitive abilities!
I want to finish up by saying: What God has prepared for you to do is much greater than your own abilities, why? So that you have to rely on his Grace to fulfil it!
Many Christians, because they do not understand this, are trying to fulfil the calling of their lives by their own abilities and they end up frustrated!
We will all stand up and we will have a time of prayer.
God has good plans for you; you were born to succeed!
Unfortunately, we often fail because of our decisions and lack of listening to the Holy Spirit.
Other times you fail because you had no faith and did not believe in God’s Grace, you have tried to do God’s work through your own strength, wisdom and skills.
Pray to God and ask Him: Help me in my lack of faith! Ask the Lord to pour out his grace upon your life. Approach the throne of grace asking for His Grace!
Remember that You and I were sent to this earth to do something valuable. Fulfil your calling, your mission and live for a purpose!
May the Lord bless and keep you !