As with the start of every new year, I've been intentional about reflecting on the things in my life that need adjusting, elimination, refining, polishing, etc... If I can be a little transparent, I have discovered some things I've been doing, thinking and believing for years that haven't necessarily been correlational to my personal goals. My life right now looks nothing like I imagined it would look 10 years ago. Quite naturally, I've spent some time wondering why I haven't seen the fruit I desire to see in certain areas. And to be clear, these aren't things I could just sit and ponder on my own to attain a resolution. I had to quiet myself, spend some time in prayer and really seek insight from God about the root of what's going on. As I asked God to open my heart to whatever He revealed to me, I began to notice or become aware of some things about my attitude that I knew was a part of this process. What God began to reveal to me was amazing and disturbing at the same time. What's so special about it though, is that He did it His way and in His timing. And to top it all off, His sole motivation was pure love. He's literally that amazing!
Anyway, as I mentioned before, towards the end of last year, my mind began to be consumed with one very specific area...purpose. Now, don't get me wrong, I've pondered purpose before and I even believed that I had a valid understanding of what it meant and what it looked like. But this consuming was different... and I couldn't really shake it from my focus. It was like God was specifically beckoning for my attention in this area. So, I began to search the scriptures about purpose and ask the Holy Spirit to show me exactly what I needed to see. There is one scripture in the book of Ephesians that God led me to read one morning during my usual study time and it literally rattled me when I read it. Now I've read this scripture numerous times, but when I read it this time and in this particular translation (MSG), it immediately captured me. Take a look...
Ephesians 3:7-8 MSG
"This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities."
The Apostle Paul is basically talking about his purpose in this scripture. He calls it his life work in this particular translation. What amazes me is the fact that he seems to be somewhat surprised by the idea that God would choose him, in fact hand-pick him, for this specific purpose. On top of that, it is clearly evident that Paul is quite aware of his human frailties and weaknesses and he knows that this purpose can only be accomplished through God's equipping and certainly not in his own strength or knowledge.
Now let's back track a little bit. If you know a little history about Paul, prior to him becoming aware of his purpose, he was known as Saul. Saul was of Jewish background and he was a prominent antagonist of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Read Acts chapters 8 & 9) He was known for persecuting Christians and even assisting in their imprisonment and killing. He wasn't just someone who didn't believe the gospel, or believe in the gospel for that matter. He actually literally fought to uphold the fallacy of religious law and everything that went against the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was quite aggressive in his belief, to say the least. So quite naturally, his tone in the passage of Ephesians seems to be reasonably founded. I mean, why would God use him?...of all people??...to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and become one of the most prominent apostles of his time? after all he had previously done to try and discredit Jesus and his followers? Seems strange, right? Definitely seemed strange to me... until God took me back to the beginning.
Before we throw stones at Saul (in today's lingo, we'd call it shade, lol!), there are a few things we need to recognize. He grew up in a time period of specific religious laws, specific religious rules, traditions and practices. These were just the way things were at that time period...before Jesus stepped on the scene. So, if you really think about it, Saul was really just defending his faith and he wasn't going to allow anything or anyone to oppose or challenge what he believed. He simply didn't know any better because he had not yet had an encounter with Jesus. He was doing what he was trained to do. He believed what he was trained to believe. And in that vein, he defended it to no end....until He had a personal encounter with Jesus.
I believe we can all learn a thing or two regarding his zealous nature in defending his faith. Although his belief system was erroneous, due to the cultural norms of his time, he was simply taking a stand for what he believed. Who can fault him for that? It's actually quite natural for a person to defend and relentlessly uphold what they genuinely and unapologetically believe, right?...But one day, Saul was traveling down this road on his way to Damascus to once again come against those annoying followers of Jesus, when this pivotal moment brings him to the end of himself. He is blinded by this bright light where he can't see anything but he can hear the voice of Jesus. On this road, he is stopped right in his tracks, has this life-changing encounter with the Savior, and he now realizes that he is of no good to himself. He can't see, he can't speak, he doesn't even know what's going on. He is even put in a position with no other choice but to depend on the help of someone else so that he can even make it to Damascus to finish his original task.
Side note: On the road to purpose, there will be people God will specifically place in your life for the sole purpose of helping you get to the next level of experiencing the fulness of God. Thank God for these people. If Saul had been alone on that road, blind and unable to see where he was going, unsure about what was going on, I don't know when or if he would have ever made it to his destination. In God's sovereignty, it all had to play out the way that it did. (Refer to Acts 9 for the full encounter)
Once he had an encounter with Jesus, and had a personal revelation of who Jesus really was, not only did his character and everything he previously stood for change, but his name was also changed to Paul. For what? Was it really necessary for his name to change?? Absolutely! He could no longer hold on to the identity of his old nature and mindset that was in total opposition to his new nature and mindset. Do you see that? Now that he was aware of the truth, he had no other choice but to become a new person, with a new nature...in Christ! Isn't that just like God?! He makes all things new!!! I think that's good news!!
Paul's identity was now made new for the sole purpose of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to advance the kingdom of God! And get this...when God created Saul, He already knew that he was going to be a prominent opposer of the gospel to only one day come into contact with the Savior of this world and then be transformed into one of the most prominent apostles and followers of Jesus Christ. He knew all of this long before Saul was even born. He intentionally created him with some extra scoops of zeal, so to speak, which is why Saul was so zealous in his pursuit to defend his former faith in the religious laws and traditions. He couldn't help but be zealous because that's how God created him. But it wasn't until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and had a personal experience with the Son of God, that he discovered his true identity and purpose, and was now able to use that same God-given zeal for the purposes of the kingdom of God.
Ephesians 1:11 MSG
"It's in Christ that we find out who we are, and what we are living for."
I'm sure he never thought in a million years that the person he passionately despised and lived to discredit would one day give him new life and lead him to real purpose and ultimately save him from himself! He probably planned to continue going through life persecuting Christians until the day he died, only to leave behind some self-proclaimed noble legacy of killing all of those Christian men and women who had the audacity to express and live out their faith in Christ! Ha!! But God's purpose was completely different than what Paul ever imagined! Remember...
Proverbs 19:21 MSG
"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
God has shown me, with the help of His Holy Spirit, that in my "quest" to find purpose, all He needs is my willingness. Yes, He's blessed me with gifts and talents. Yes, He's given me specific strengths. Yes, He even allows, or empowers me rather, to use them within His purpose. But guess what...His purpose has absolutely nothing to do with, nor does it depend on those things. His sole purpose for creating me is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and advance the kingdom of God in whatever way HE decides. Notice in Ephesians 3 again that Paul states (1) God made sure he was properly equipped, (2) He had already worked out all of the details and (3) God's purpose had nothing to do with Paul's natural abilities. In other words...it wasn't about him at all. It was and always will be about God and what He wants to accomplish within His kingdom.
This revelation has literally lifted a weight off of me. I don't have to know the details of how God is going to do anything in order for Him to use me for His purpose. All I have to do is surrender everything about me to Him. I looked up the definition for surrender and this is what I found...
Surrender [suh-ren-der]:
- to yield something to the possession or power of another
- to give oneself up to some influence, force, emotion
- to give up, abandon or relinquish
- to yield or resign in favor of another
Now, because I'm human and I live in this earth realm, there are some things I will have to continuously condition and recondition my mind to cast down in order to remain completely surrendered. For instance, pride, fear, ego, etc... I can't surrender to God if these things are dominating my thoughts and actions. We'll talk a little more about those things another time. But I just want you to know that it is a complete and total privilege that God created us with purpose, and that He wants to use us in His overall purposes for His kingdom. We won't be effective until we understand that fact. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray in Matthew 6, He said to ask God "...thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven". We get to be a part of this kingdom not because of anything we can do in our own strength or any of our natural abilities or any man-made accolades for that matter. We get to be a part of this kingdom only because of who God is and how He desires to use us. He wants us to be a part of it! Until we come to the end of ourselves, completely broken, completely surrendered, we'll never experience the fulfillment of true purpose.
My prayer regarding purpose has completely changed since this revelation. I am no longer asking God about what's my purpose and what I need to do. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with asking God to reveal these things. I'm simply shifting my attention and focus from myself so that I can get myself out of the way and God can be exalted and lifted up, not me. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm asking Him to continuously break me so that I can remain surrendered to Him and He can be glorified through me. I'm asking Him to renew my mind with His word so that I can cast down those things that come against the knowledge of Him. I'm asking Him to reveal His will for the Kingdom and for the Body of Christ as a whole. I'm asking Him to continue gently working His spirit within me so that He gets all of the glory from my life. I'm asking Him to keep my eyes, my ears and my heart open to Him so that I can always be sensitive to His voice and whatever direction He leads, that's where I'm going.
I pray that this post helps you in some way and that God continues to reveal His amazing plan for your life through your obedience and total surrender to Him.
God Bless!
-Queen