Discovering God’s Purpose for Your Life

Words carry meaning. They carry our thoughts, ideas, themes that are of a much bigger concept. Without communication, life would not be much. We would not reach our potential, if we didn’t have words. Engineers can turn ideas into words, into coded information, which are translated into skyscrapers, tunnels under seas and so on. These are just men; what about God Himself? His Words have creative power. His Words are spirit and life (John 6:63). When God wants to do something, He speaks. The Words of God are a medium also of exchanging what God has from His end to our end.

When you hear God’s Word, it’s not just words you’re hearing. This is God transferring His nature to us. As we start today, I want you to listen today, listen knowing that these aren’t just words, but life from the divine being.

The totality of God’s Word is a Person, and His name is Jesus. He embodies all that God is. Through Jesus, we understand what God's intention/purpose for mankind was all about.

Purpose means “aim”, “intention”, “reason”, “meaning”, “value”. Purpose is a meaning that is important and valuable for you. Purpose is the ability to plan and work successfully towards achieving something. Purpose has different connotations, and synonyms are principle, function, intention, single-mindedness, drive, resolution, determination and so on.

How has God made provision for us to know what He is interested in, and His purpose for our lives? Yes. He made provision for us to know what He has called us for. When God starts something, He figures out the end, then starts from the beginning (Is. 46:10). God’s intention was to create man. To start, He first started with light (Gen. 1:3,14-16). He knew that man would need the light to move around, and see. And on and on God went on to create all that man would need, for that time and for all generations. Before man came, all the provisions that man would need had been provided by God.

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

By the time God arrived to this point, He had already provided everything man would ever need. I call this divine initiative and divine intention. Before any need exists, God’s divine intention and initiative has already provided all that is needed; this divine intention and initiative is called grace. God already created the world with all the sufficiency that the world would need. God has created all the wealth and food for all the 7 billion of us. Why? Because He is gracious. No one has resources more than God. God is All-Sufficient. Man is the epitome of His creation, since He loves man so much. It is a very dangerous position to be at to reach a point where we think God has no provision for what we need.

When you walk with a sense of knowing that for every need there is a provision, you step into the realm Jesus walked in, while He was on earth.

There is only one time the word “create” is used in the gospels, and the word “created” in the NT; all these times the reference was to the OT. This is because God is no longer creating; He already created all that we would ever need (Heb. 4:3-4).

Ephesians 2:14-15

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,

When God created the universe from the beginning, all would be required was provided (provision, understanding of purpose etc.) Because of disobedience, man got confused about purpose, why God created him and his purpose. This is why Jesus came to create again, abolishing all that was hindering man from accomplishing God’s purpose. Man was created for a purpose.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Everything about you was created when God created the universe. What are these things that bother us? When we don’t understand God’s purpose for us, we miss out on God, and get confused.

God’s intention was for man to exercise authority, and reign on earth; not dominion over fellow man, but rather over the earth. Man was created to think and live like God lives.

Psalms 82:6-7

I said, “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. ⁷ But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.”

What are gods? It is God making us into a divine being, and of divine nature. Inside us there is something else divine. God Himself is in us.

2 Peter 1:3-4

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, ³ as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, ⁴ by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

How do we get that life and godliness in us, what God has given us? Through the knowledge of Him who has called us by glory and virtue. Why has God given us these promises? For us to be partakers of the divine nature. God is replicating Himself in us. He doesn’t want us to live an ordinary life. He wants us to join Him, and live the supernatural life. God wants us to live an abundant life, understanding His purpose, and pass it on. 

God created a physical world. Spirits cannot exercise their authority on earth. He created us as physical beings, so that we can use His authority, and exercise it on a physical world. Sadly, men continue to die like mere knowledge.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ...

God has done everything you will ever need. How did He do it?

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

What is it that you lack? Purpose? Knowledge? Wisdom? The Bible says that God gave you all these things before you were created. God invited us now to come and share in His divine nature. God did all this because He loves us, without our input, our effort and so on. God doesn’t love us because we are loveable; it is because He is love.

Jesus destroyed our old lives, and gave us a new nature. Christ’s spirit is in us. You already have God’s divine nature in you. We cannot afford to continue to live in the old nature, and when we do then we go ahead to die as mere men. We need to cling to our new nature, the new us, which was created after God in true holiness and righteousness (2 Cor. 5:17, Eph. 4:24).

Whenever you hear God’s Word, you can either yield and obey, and your heart becomes softened, or you disobey it, and your heart becomes hardened. God speaks to us all; what we choose to do after this is our choice. I can prove to you that God speaks to all.

Cain was not born again, yet God spoke to him clearly. God told Him that He had made the provision for him to master sin, that he should master it, yet ignored God. Cain hardened his heart, and killed Abel. Even after sinning, God still came and spoke to him (Gen. 4:1-15). This is clear evidence that God is not against man; He is for man (Rom. 8:31).

It is exactly what happened when we sinned against God, and instead of God pushing us away, He came back after us with love, through Jesus. God came back and said that because He has accomplished all that we couldn’t be able to accomplish, He now has invited us to partake in what He has given us. He even put all these into writing, for us to know how to accomplish His purpose. It’s all in His Word. His Word is life and spirit (Jn. 6:63).

God’s purpose is in His Word. The Bible says that when you hear the Word of God, faith comes to you.  

Romans 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 

Even the faith you needed to get saved came as a gift, from God. Salvation, as well as faith, comes to you in form of particles called “seed”. The principle is the same, when it comes to the Word, as it is to the natural seed. God’s Word, a seed, can fall on two different grounds (heart) and produce totally different results. Every time you hear God’s Word, it comes with power, and with faith. God’s Word is not the problem; our hearts are the problem. When we figure out the problem with our hearts, we need to allow Christ to help us sort out the problems of our hearts, for our hearts to be good ground for His Word to produce life.

God’s purpose and will is that our hearts will be transformed. God’s Word is spirit and life. The problem with spirit and life is that we are carnal; understanding the divine becomes a problem in this case. The solution is still God’s Word. God’s Word, being spoken over and over, brings faith, the ability for the Word to bear fruit in our life.

Pharaoh heard God’s Word, but rejected it. Once we hear God’s Word, we need  to realise it’s life, and is the divine Word. Whenever we hear the Word of God and not yield to it, we harden our hearts, just like Pharaoh. For the Word of God to yield fruits in our lives, we have to keep heeding to it, and doing as it says.

God’s purpose and will is that we may understand Him, clearly. God told Adam and Eve to clearly not eat of the fruit. He wants us to know His Word.

John 10:2-3,5

"But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

God is constantly speaking to you, leading you to His purpose. If you can’t hear God’s voice, chances are that you are a stranger to Him. When you hear God’s voice, what do you do with it? Many people in the Bible heard God’s Word over and over, and disobeyed, like the children of Israel and Judah, King Saul, and so on. The more you hear God and disobey Him in one area, the more you become prone to disobeying Him in more than one area. Disobedience begins as a habit. When you build a habit of disobedience, we miss to understand how exponential this becomes to us moving away from God. In the same manner, the more we learn to obey God in one area at a time in our lives, the more our hearts become sensitive to His voice. Once you’ve taught yourself that whenever God speaks you listen and obey, you learn a pattern, and your heart becomes softened towards the things of God. This is where the action begins. God will not give you a second instruction, if you've disobeyed the first one. In other words, if you failed in class 1, He won't take you to class 2, forgetting about class 1. He'll let you remain in class 1, and once you've passed class 1 (by obeying the first instruction), then He'll then take you to class 2. 

God’s plan is that all men know the truth. He is not out to put a veil on you so that you don’t understand. It’s God’s purpose for all men to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:4

...[God] who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

How can we be partakers of the divine nature, never having partaken in the same before? By yielding and softening our hearts towards God’s purpose and Word. Fix your heart towards God firmly, no matter what even your boss is doing, or other people:

Psalm 57:7

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise.

 

It doesn’t matter what your boss or others are doing; you fix your heart to obey God. The problem with our hearts is that they are prone to wonder. Therefore, when situations come, we face them without knowing God’s purpose and will for that very thing. Everything you need to know to start with, to understand God’s purpose, is in His Word.

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 

Everything you need to know about your career, spouse, ministry and so on, is in the Scripture. We need to keep going back to God, realising that He gave us His best gift (Jesus), and keep understanding what He has to say about this or that issue, that girl, that job, that provision and so on.

Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;

Only God knows the end from the beginning, and only He has the resources to be in charge from the beginning to the end, of all the processes. God knows every step of the way, and will order it. So long as we keep finding out what God has to say about every step we say. We have to connect with Christ. The Bible says that we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). We therefore need to renew our minds.

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Without renewed minds, we cannot understand God’s purpose and will for our lives. Our minds get renewed by His Word. When you find yourself grappling with a situation and trying to understand His purpose, just ask God if your heart is right, if it’s hardened. Why can’t you see things the way God sees it? Once you’ve learnt to listen and obey the things of God, we start understanding even bigger things of God. God keeps speaking, helping us to understand every step of the way. His Word is a lamp to our feet, not a floodlight for our way (Ps. 119:105). There is a stage to crawl, and a stage to walk, and another one to run. He will guide you through all the stages.

Start with getting right with God. Once right with Him, He’ll start revealing the things to you. God knew I would be here today, the question is, would I obey, or choose elsewhere?

You will be confronted with situations that are not written in the Word of God, such as Ananias’ (Act 9:10-18). This will depend on your connection with God. I think Ananias was always in fellowship with God, and when the time came for him to be used, he was ready and still connected to God. It's his intimacy with God that enabled him to go and pray for and anoint the one persecutor who had come to Damascus to kill disciples like him, keeping in mind that he had no Bible to refer with concerning what to do in such a situation when a voice in a vision tells him to do what has never been heard of. 

After we’ve come to the purpose of God, and have understood His Word, we need revelation.

This is His specific Word, to us, regarding our specific situation. You will get to a situation where you will need to hear His specific word to us. We need to remain connected with God at all points, to avoid missing out on God at any point.

All things have been provided, including purpose and resources, all by His grace. Our part is responding by faith to what His grace has provided, remaining in connectivity to Him.

God is interested in us knowing the important issues, right here and right now. The Bible says that He is able to perfect that which concerns us today (Ps. 138:8). This is the revelation that will come to you at every moment, helping you to understand how to handle every issue God’s way.

If all this doesn’t make sense, search your heart. What’s hindering you from connecting with God? What’s keeping you from God’s divine nature? Is your heart hardened?

Just as you obeyed and came to Christ by faith, He expects you to continue with this same faith, His faith, in all you do.

Romans 1:17b

...“The just shall live by faith.”

Renewing of the mind results to you seeing every situation God’s way, the moment the situation comes your way.

Are you groping in the darkness? Is there a particular situation you don’t understand? The solution is there in the mind of Christ. Learn the mind of Christ, and you will get it. Faith is saying, "if God has already provided it, you can get it."

You are blessed! 

    Brother Jonathan Kariuki

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August Quarterly Youth Event 1st Teaching, Teaching Transformation Ministry.

Brother Jonathan is a friend of Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.