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This post we’re going to look at more nuts and bolts… who has God made me to be? What is my personality and how does that factor in? Is it relevant and productive to know who I am and what my personality is like?
Firstly:
You’re not the world’s leading expert on yourself. The One who custom-designed you from before your conception is. You’re not the world’s leading expert on your worth before God. The One who has made you worthy in His Son is. Steven Furtick
You are made by God. Designed by God. Formed by God.
For His plans and purposes. For His glory.
There is just ONE expression of you-ness.
You are the only YOU there is.
Which means you are hard-wired to be YOU and to demonstrate the love and power of God and serve Him as only YOU can.
YOU will reach people that HE/SHE will not.
YOU will demonstrate the love and grace of God in a particular way.
YOU will shine in your way, doing YOUR thing.
YOU are unique.
Don’t waste your uniqueness.
Don’t waste who God has made you to be.
Don’t bend and bow to the pressure to conform or reduce your light or personality and giftings.
“There are people on this planet whom only you will be able to reach, because of where you live and what God has made you to be. If just one person will be in heaven because of you, your life will have made a difference for eternity” Rick Warren
The call of God isn’t just a DOING thing – we DO something because we ARE something.
We’re going to continue this week by examining who God has made us to be.
To refresh and recap from I AM CALLED:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Vision means: “a clear sense of purpose regarding what God wants to do through your life”
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7
You have to know you have a divine destiny – before you were born God formed you and called you. You have to know it doesn’t happen by accident – that life is intentional and the choice to say YES to God is up to you.
Let’s go into next year, with all its adventures, with an accurate perception of who we are and who we are called to be.
You are eternity changers.
You are history makers.
You are lights in the darkness.
You are citizens of the kingdom of God.
You are saved, chosen and called.
The Big Question:
What are you going to do this year to live your call and your dream?
Some questions to ask yourself:
List your lifelong hopes and dreams. Don’t limit them by your current circumstances.
As you look back over your life and evaluate where you are now, determine the clues you’ve been given to help you understand your calling. Consider the things, people, causes or situations that have brought you joy and satisfaction, and have provided personal significance and meaning to you
Identify the area(s) where you would like to see your life make a difference, and for what you would like to be remembered.
List the memorable moments that have thus far shaped your life. Is there a pattern of opportunities that have arisen?
Brainstorm what you would do if you had the time, money, effort, energy, and passion to do whatever you want. Let your imagination run wild.
Assess your natural talents, skills and strengths for evidence of your calling. Are there any patterns, indicators or themes?
Let’s go into next year, and indeed every year and every moment, by asking God WHAT can we be doing?
How can we be helpful and productive in our church?
How can we be serving?
How can we shine to those around us?
How can we open our lives up more to the purposes of God?
How can God use us MORE to demonstrate His love and power to the world?
How can we be MORE activated to change the world?
And let’s make changes. Let’s be inspired to make changes – because when we catch the fire in our hearts it overflows into lifestyle. Guilt and shoulds don’t motivate from the inside out.
It may require us to pray more.
It may require us to sign up and serve in some capacity at church.
It may require us to change some aspect of our personal lifestyle to line up with the Word of God.
Feed your vision. Feed it with obedience and feed it with fertilizer – books, conversations, worship, prayer, podcasts etc. Fuel your fire.
“You stand here as a Christ follower in a definitive moment in time you are an ordinary person called to usher a holy Kingdom into an increasingly fragmented world. Its the perfect scenario for God to move in big ways just as He always has. Just as God called Esther, Joseph and Paul to go before the world’s kings at appointed times to alter history, He now calls you. While everything changes at warp speed, the holy mandate remains to communicate the gospel in the most relevant channels available, here, there and everywhere!” @stickyjesus
Extraordinary moves of God begin with ordinary acts of obedience.
Let’s have a quick look at Moses’ call.
Moses’ first encounter with God is recorded in exodus 3. The way their meeting goes down should be extremely encouraging for anyone who has ever felt super ordinary and insignificant.
The setting is the far side of the desert.
Moses is tending sheep.
The sheep belong to Moses’ father in law.
A bush catches on fire.
Moses walks over to look…
In reality when you peel back the layers… it’s really quite ordinary. Moses is performing menial manual labour. Working for his father in law. Does it get any more mundane and ordinary?
We position ourselves for encounter by walking with Jesus every day. Being obedient and faithful in our ordinary lives. Having regular time of prayer and worship. Reading the bible regularly, if not daily! We position ourselves to be used by God as we live a life that pleases Him, being transformed and making outward the inward righteousness. Taking up our cross, dying to self daily, refusing to compromise and bow to the status quo of the world around us.
In the ordinaryness of our life God can shine – God WILL SHINE – and do amazing things.
Will you turn aside and check out the bush, like Moses did? Will you remove your shoes, draw close, and receive your assignment? Will you give the Lord permission to ignite your ordinary?
Jesus chose ordinary people to be His first disciples. Fishermen. Blue collar workers. Tax collectors. In the same way He chooses ordinary people now to serve Him. One of my “life verses” (a passage that defines who i am and the life i live!) is 2 Corinthians 4:7 – “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” We are but jars of clay. Humble vessels. The great power is of God. The light is of God. The glory is of God and from God and for God and to God!
God’s mandate for changing the world and saving the lost is to use seemingly ordinary people going about their ordinary lives – but we are not ordinary. While the world around is dead – we are alive. While the world around is lost – we are found. While the world around us is natural – we are supernatural. As children of God we represent our Father and are called by Him to tell others about the Good News we have experienced and found ourselves. The invisible element of our lives is the most important part because it’s eternal. Life is just a blink but what is won and done spiritually will last forever. One day the fabric of this world will tear, the sky will roll up and the physical earth will disappear and we will have accurate perception of God and reality.
Your vision will probably flow from something you’re already doing – relationships you’ve already established, priorities you’re already passionate about.
Vision starts with a seed of inspiration that takes root in our imagination. It starts with us being inspired to DO something and BE someone that is then confirmed and pruned and grown by God. When a defining moment happens – like a prophecy or God speaking to us it is usually a confirmation of what God has already planted in our hearts.
Our lives are not our own. We are brought with a price. The blood of Jesus has redeemed us from our sin and death and eternal destruction so that we can now live in connection with God in this life and after earth. And the great plan of God to spread this good news of salvation is to use the people that experience it. We are his advertisements and witnesses. We are living testimonies to His work.
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3
Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiselled into stone, but carved into human lives. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 MSG
You are a walking talking billboard for the reality of God.
You are demonstrations of His love and power.
You are created for something more than just breathing. God has called you to greater things – amazing supernatural encounters – not just personal quiet time ones but ones that shout out to the world HEY GOD IS REAL and HERE!
Vision defines the parameters of our life.
Vision means: “a clear sense of purpose regarding what God wants to do through your life”
Vision is all about knowing God and making Him known. In whatever way we’re called and passionate about. It MIGHT be ministry. It MIGHT be business. It MIGHT be as a stay at home mum. It might be as a teacher, doctor, journalist, artist, plumber, banker, barister… the main thing is to live out our lives glowing in the dark for Jesus that that world can see He is real and relevant!
Your job might facilitate great generosity that enables people called to missions to go to the nations.
Your job might place you amongst lost people who need to SEE that God is real and experience His love and grace and power.
Your job might provide for you and your family so that you can volunteer with childrens church or worship or give a day a week to just serve down at church.
Your life might be used to pour out to a housegroup or a youth group from which a Joshua called to lead his generation emerges.
The possibilities are endless!
“There is no thing as secular employment for the believer. Once we are born again, everything about us is redeemed for Kingdom purposes. It is all spiritual. It is either a legitimate Kingdom expression, or we shouldn’t be involved at all.
Every believer is in full time ministry – only a few have pulpits in sanctuaries. The rest have their pulpit in their areas of expertise and favour in the world system.
The call of God is important, not because of the title it carries, or doesn’t carry. Its valuable because of the One who called us. An assignment to be in business is as valuable in the Kingdom as is the call to be an evangelist. The privilege to be a stay at home wife and mother is equal in importance to being a missionary. Embrace your call with the faithfulness and thankfulness worthy of the One who has called you.” Bill Johnson – Dreaming With God
I want to end this year by celebrating who we are and acknowledging the great work of God in each of us and through each of us and to each of us and surrendering ourselves afresh to the priorities and purposes of God for this year ahead and our whole lives.
I want to look forward to 2012 recalibrating our focus and corresponding lifestyle.
I want to begin next year with fresh fire and passion for the purposes of God.
The vision of our church is:
From the throne room of God into all the earth in every generation: connected, revived, equipped, pouring out
The heartbeat of our church is first and foremost that you know God AND then that that flows out into the world around each one of us.
No one is exempt in the kingdom of God. We’re all called. If we’re breathing we’re called. If we’re saved, we’re called. If we’re redeemed, we’re recruited.
You have to know you have a divine destiny – before you were born God formed you and called you. You have to know it doesn’t happen by accident – that life is intentional and the choice to say YES to God is up to you.
So let’s spend this first part of the year getting revived and then intentionally equipped so that we can pour out and live out our God-given purpose. Let’s make 2012 the greatest year of our lives to date! Let’s build the Kingdom for God’s glory!
Normal Christianity is a doing thing, not a personal closet thing.
You are like light for the whole world. A city built on top of a hill cannot be hidden, and no one would light a lamp and put it under a clay pot. A lamp is placed on a lampstand, where it can give light to everyone in the house. Make your light shine, so that others will see the good that you do and will praise your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16
We are all unique and created by God to be who we are. We are created for a purpose and a plan.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
“God has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,”- 2 Timothy 1:9.
The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:4-5
The big question is:
Do you have a vision for your life?
Do you have a direction you are heading in?
Do you have a purpose and a priority that defines who you are and what you are doing?
One Passion One Devotion 