Purpose Driven Life - Day 16

Day 16 - What Matters Most

 

Life is all about love. Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us: The whole Law can be summed up in this one command: Love others as you love yourself.

Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. That's why we are given a lifetime to learn it. Of course, God wants us to love everyone, but he is particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family.

Why does God insist that we give special love and attention to other believers? Because God wants his family to be known for its love more than anything else. Jesus said our love for each other not our doctrinal beliefs is our greatest witness to the world. He said, Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

In heaven we will enjoy God's family forever, but first we have some tough work to do here on earth to prepare ourselves for an eternity of loving. God trains us by giving us family responsibilities, and the foremost of these is to practice loving each other.

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.

Purpose Driven Life - Day 15

Day 15 -  Formed For God Family

 

God wants a family, and he created you to be a part of it.

The entire Bible is the story of God building a family who will love him, honor him, and reign with him forever. It says, His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. When we place our faith in Christ, God becomes our Father, we become his children, other believers become our brothers and sisters, and the church becomes our spiritual family. The family of God includes all believers in the past, the present, and the future.

Our families on earth are wonderful gifts from God, but they are temporary and fragile, often broken by divorce, distance, growing old, and inevitably, death. On the other hand, our spiritual familyour relationship to other believers will continue throughout eternity.

The Bible says, Jesus and the people he makes holy all belong to the same family. That is why he isn't ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. Let that amazing truth sink in. You are a part of God's family, and because Jesus makes you holy, God is proud of you! Being included in God's family is the highest honor and the greatest privilege you will ever receive. Nothing else comes close. Whenever you feel unimportant, unloved, or insecure, remember to whom you belong.

Purpose Driven Life - Day 14

Day 14...  When God Seems Distant

 

God is real, no matter how you feel. It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your life when he has provided food, friends, family, health, and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million miles away? The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted, surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant. How do you praise God when you don't understand what's happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they're full of tears? You do what Job did: Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;  may the name of the LORD be praised. Tell God exactly how you feel. Focus on who God is his unchanging nature. Trust God to keep his promises. And remember what God has already done for you. Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything. He died so you could live forever. That alone is worthy of your continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for.

Purpose Driven Life - Day 13

Day 13  Worship That Pleases God

God doesn't want a part of your life. He asks for all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. God is not interested in halfhearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money. He desires your full devotion, not little bits of your life.

A Samaritan woman once tried to debate Jesus on the best time, place, and style for worship. Jesus replied that these external issues are irrelevant. Where you worship is not as important as why you worship and how much of yourself you offer to God when you worship. The Bible says, Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him. The kind of worship that pleases God has four characteristics: God is pleased when our worship is accurate. God is pleased when our worship is authentic. God is pleased when our worship is thoughtful. And God is pleased when our worship is practical.

When Jesus said, Love God with all your strength, he pointed out that worship takes effort and energy. It is not always convenient or comfortable, and sometimes worship is a sheer act of the will a willing sacrifice.

When you praise God even when you don't feel like it, when you get out of bed to worship when you're tired, or when you help others when you are worn out, you are offering a sacrifice of worship to God. That pleases God.

Purpose Driven Life - Day 12

Day 12  ....  (Friendship With God)

 

You are as close to God as you choose to be. Like any friendship, you must work at developing your friendship with God. It won't happen by accident. It takes desire, time, and energy. The first building block of a deeper friendship with God is complete honesty about your faults and your feelings. God doesn't expect you to be perfect, but he does insist on complete honesty. None of God's friends in the Bible were perfect. If perfection was a requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to be his friends. Fortunately, because of God's grace, Jesus is still the friend of sinners.

Every time you trust God's wisdom and do whatever he says, even when you don't understand it, you deepen your friendship with God. We don't normally think of obedience as a characteristic of friendship; that's reserved for relationships with a parent or the boss or a superior officer, not a friend. However, Jesus made it clear that obedience is a condition of intimacy with God. He said, You are my friends if you do what I command.

There is nothing absolutely nothing more important than developing a friendship with God. Paul told Timothy, "Some of these people have missed the most important thing in life they don't know God. Have you been missing out on the most important thing in life? You can do something about it starting now. Remember, it's your choice. You are as close to God as you choose to be.