What is your purpose in life? Does it line up with the one you were created for? Each person is created with a set of talents and a personality to fit those talents. We can use these talents for the goals we choose, or we can seek to know the goals God has purposed for us. When you come to know the love that God has for you, your purpose in life changes. You are drawn to that love, and to the purpose God has for you. Succeeding in that purpose requires a devotion and a transformation.
The apostle Paul refers to this Process of Transformation in Romans Chapter 12 when he mentions the gifts we have as members of the Body of Christ. He describes them as gifts of grace. The apostle Peter says that we should use these gifts as stewards of the manifold grace of God (1Pe. 4:10). We are to administer God’s grace to others according to the gifts we have received. Each person has a special function in the Body of Christ. As vessels in God’s House, we are to serve God’s grace to others. This grace is God’s unmerited favor, which is His mercy and His help (see Heb. 4:16). Our talents and personality are the vessel; the contents are the various forms of God’s grace. The vessel is natural, but the contents are spiritual. The shape and size of the vessel fits the contents we are meant to deliver. You don’t have to have someone else’s talents to serve God. You have been created with your own special purpose. Even before you were reconciled to God, He was working in your life to develop your talents and personality. It is very important to realize that it is how you use your talents and personality that determines if you are fulfilling your God-given purpose. If you want to use them for God’s intended purpose, then you must offer yourself to Him, and submit to His Process of Transformation. We are to be clean yielded vessels, “prepared for every good work” (2Tim. 2:21).
How then are we to accomplish our God-given purpose? In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he makes a statement that is full of insight. “The purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (1Tim. 1:5). Regardless what our talents are, the central purpose of each believer is to walk in love. Our goal is to please God. With love as our motive, we can succeed with our purpose if we have a pure heart. The greatest assignment of the devil in these last days is deception. It is not enough for us to want to please God, we must pursue that goal with a pure heart. We obtain a pure heart through repentance and faith. It is essential that we humble ourselves before God and allow Him to search our hearts.
Next, Paul says we need a “good conscience”. To have a “clear” conscience is to be forgiven of all our sins. To have a “good” conscience is to have one that is very sensitive. This sensitivity is developed by quick obedience to the convictions of the Holy Spirit. We will develop a dull conscience if we harden our hearts to His promptings and His words of correction. It is not enough to ask God to search our hearts, we must respond quickly and truthfully to what He reveals.
Then Paul says that this love must issue from a sincere faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. A sincere faith would indicate a faith that is not hypocritical, it is genuine. Paul listed it as one of three qualities that abide forever: faith, hope, and love. But faith by itself is not enough. It must be used with the right motives. James said that even the demons have faith, but they have not love. The illustration Paul gave to Timothy about having faith and conscience is like a ship at sea. Our spiritual lives are propelled by faith, but we navigate by setting our course on love and by watching the heavens to maintain our bearings. Without love as our motive, we will not reach the right port, and without a good conscience, we may suffer shipwreck.
I would like to close this blog by referring again to Romans Chapter 12. We each have a purpose in God and we can accomplish this purpose if we offer our lives to God and submit to transformation through the renewing of our minds. I will speak more about this Process of Transformation in another message.
Highway in the Wilderness 