Fulfilling Your PurposeSample

You are God's workmanship

Psalm 139:16 says very clearly that God has handcrafted us for a specific purpose that He has for us. This same thought is repeated in Ephesians 2:10 where it says, ”For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Does this mean that we have no choices in life and that everything is pre-planned by God? That is not how it is to be understood. Rather we understand it as God having a plan for us and we having the choice to either follow God’s plan or to follow our own plan for ourselves.

One question that obviously arises is how do we follow God’s plan when we are not aware of the details? To that Paul says that we walk by faith and not by sight (1 Cor 5:7). We trust and believe that all situations come from God to prepare us for His purpose and so we flow with it, living a life that reflects the character of Jesus. In each situation, we do the best we can with the abilities God has given us and let God’s plan work out.

Take Moses as an example. He was first raised by his mother who was his wet nurse on behalf of Pharaoh’s daughter. She raised him with a consciousness of Yahweh and His people. He was then trained in the best of the knowledge of the Egyptians to be a court official. He was then a shepherd for 40 years. All these experiences together equipped him to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt to Canaan.

Does this mean that we take no decisions in life? No! It means that we live a natural life, using the wisdom God has given us, and are prepared for the life changes that God will bring. When those life changes come, we do not cling to our comfort zone but are willing to go into the unknown with God, like Moses.

This can produce tension in our life of being in the world, but not of the world. We serve where God has placed us to the best of our ability, with all our heart and commitment, but we never get so attached to it, that we cannot give it up for God. We must be willing to make the sacrifice Abraham made of Isaac in Genesis 22 to be able to obtain a greater destiny.

Let us take to heart Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 7:20, “Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called.” We do not have to go running and looking for a call and purpose for our lives. Our purpose is to live for God where we are and to let God lead us to where He wants us to be. We need to be faithful to Jesus and walk worthy of Him wherever we are. Colossians 1:10, ”that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Replicate Jesus where you are