Excerpts
from Rick Warren’s
The Purpose-Drivenâ
Life
What On Earth Am I Here
For?
It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than
your own personal fulfillment, your peace of
mind, or even your happiness. It’s far
greater than your family, your career, or even
your wildest dreams and ambitions. If
you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with
God. You were made by God and for God, and
until you understand that, life will not make sense.
Planned For God’s Pleasure
Bringing pleasure to God is called “worship.” It is the first
and primary purpose of your life. The
Bible says, “The Lord is pleased with those who worship him and trust his
love.”1 Anything you do that brings pleasure to God is an act of
worship.
Depending on your religious background, you probably need to
expand your understanding of “worship.”
You may think of church services with singing, praying and listening to
a sermon. Or you may think of
ceremonies, candles and communion. Or
you may think of healing, miracles, and ecstatic experiences. Worship can include these elements, but
worship is far more than these expressions. Worship is a lifestyle.
Your spiritual family is even
more important than your physical family
because it will last forever. Our families on earth are wonderful gifts from
God, but they are temporary and fragile, often broken by divorce, distance,
growing old and inevitably, by death.
On the other hand, our spiritual family—our relationship to other
believers—will continue throughout eternity.
It is a much stronger union, a more permanent bond, than blood
relationships. On earth, it is called
fellowship.
Often we act as if
relationships are something to be squeezed into our schedule. We talk about finding time for our
children, or making time for people in our lives. That gives the impression that relationships
are just a part of our lives along with many other tasks. But God says relationships are what life is
all about.
Biblical fellowship is being
as committed to each other as we are to Jesus Christ! God expects us to give our lives for each other. It is God’s
second purpose for your life.
Four of the Ten
Commandments deal with our relationship to God while the other six deal with our
relationship to each other. But all of
them are about relationships! Later,
Jesus summarized what matters most to God in two statements: love God and love
people. After worship, learning to love
others is the second purpose of your life.
Created to Become Like
Christ
From the very beginning,
God’s plan has been to make you like his son, Jesus. This is your destiny, and the third purpose of your life. God announced this intention at creation:
“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image and likeness.’”2
God’s ultimate goal for your
life on earth is not comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow
up spiritually and become like Christ. Becoming like Christ does not mean
losing your personality or becoming a mindless clone. God created your
uniqueness, so he certainly doesn’t want to destroy it. Christlikeness is all
about transforming your character, not your personality.
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Excerpts from The Purpose-Drivenâ Life/page
two
Let me be absolutely clear -
You will never become God, or even a god. That prideful lie is Satan’s oldest temptation . . . This desire
to be god shows up every time we try to control our circumstances, our future
and people around us. But as creatures,
we will never be the Creator. God
doesn’t want you to become a god, he wants you to become godly—possessing his
moral character.
God formed every creature on
this planet with a special area of expertise. Some animals run, some hop, some
swim, some burrow, and some fly. Each has a particular role to play, based on
the way they were shaped by God. The same is true with humans. Each of us was
uniquely designed, or “shaped,” to do
certain things. You were shaped to serve God. Your service is called your
“ministry” and it is the fourth purpose of your life.
Only you can be you. God designed each of us so there would be no
duplication in the world. No one has the exact same mix of factors that make
you unique. That means no one else on earth will ever be able to play the role
God planned for you. If you don’t make your unique contribution to the Body of
Christ, it won’t be made.
Serving is the opposite of
our natural inclination. Most of the
time we’re more interested in “serve us” than service. Immature people say “I’m looking for a
church that meets my needs and bless me,” not “I’m looking for a place to serve
and be a blessing.” We expect others to
serve us, not vice versa. But as we
mature in Christ, the focus of our lives should increasingly shift to living a
life of service. What matters is not
the duration of your life, but the donation of it.
God is at work in the world,
and he wants you to join him. This assignment is called your mission. God wants you to have both a
ministry in the Body of Christ and a mission in the world. Your ministry is
your service to believers, and your
mission is your service to unbelievers.
The mission that Jesus had
while on earth is now our mission since we are the Body of Christ. What he did in his physical body, we are to
continue as his spiritual body, the church.
What is that mission?
Introducing people to God! The
Bible says, “Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the
task of making others his friends also.”3
When
you became a believer, you also became God’s messenger. God wants to speak to
the world through you. Paul said, “We
speak the truth before God, as messengers of God.”... Your Life Message has
four parts to it: Your testimony: the
story of how you began a relationship with Jesus; Your life lessons: the most important lessons God has taught you; Your godly passions: the issues
God shaped that you care about most; The Good
News: the message of salvation
1 Psalm
147:11 CEV
2 Genesis
1:26 NCV
3 2 Cor.
5:18 TEV