The Purpose Driven Life: Making God Smile - April 25, 2015

 

Psalm 119:135 (NET Bible)     Smile on your servant! Teach me your statutes! 

Numbers 6:25  (NLT)     May the LORD smile on you and be gracious to you.

Pleasing God should be your priority in life and you should seek how to please God.

Hosea 6:6     For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Matthew 22:37     Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

God smiles when we love Him without reservation or constraint. God smiles when we obey him and trust Him completely and when we praise and thank Him with the same zeal

Psalm 147:11     the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Hebrews 11:6     And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

James 2:24     You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

God smiles when we serve Him in our activities. Everything we do, outside of sin, can be done for the glory of God. God enjoys us when we enjoy Him and His creation in its entirety. God knows that we are incapable of being without sin but what He sees is our hearts and the attitude that dives our actions.

Psalm 14:2     The LORD looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.

The Purpose Driven Life: You Are God's Pleasure - April 24, 2015

 

Revelation 4:11     "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

Psalm 149: 3-5     …

3 Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. 4 For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation. 5 Let the godly ones exult in glory; Let them sing for joy on their beds.…

God was in the delivery room with the family, smiling the moment you were born.

Ephesians 1:5     he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--

We bring pleasure to God through our worship

Psalm 34:1     ...I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

 God desires passion in our worship

Isaiah 29:13     The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

Every act can become a form of worship if you do it to please God
Colossians 3:23     Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,

Romans 12: 1     Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship.

The Purpose Driven Life: The Reasons - April 23, 2015

The true things of God begin to reflect His glory and majesty...

1 Corinthians 8:6     yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

Proverbs 16:4    The LORD has made everything for its purpose,...

Psalm 89:5     The heavens praise your wonders, LORD, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.

His majesty and glory is best seen in the person of Jesus.

Hebrews 1:3     The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

John 17:3 -5     …3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 "I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 "Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

All glory goes to God when we worship Him, show love to others and become Christ-like in our words thoughts and deeds

1 John 3:14     We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

2 Corinthians 3:18     And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Who will you live for? Will you live for yourself and your own goals and pleasures or will you live for God and a life of glory and eternal reward?

John 12: 24 - 26          …24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 "If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.…

The Purpose Driven Life: Seeing Through God's Eyes - April 22, 2015

Romans 12:2     Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The Bible gives 3 examples that addresses of God's view of life:

1) Life, as we know it is a test. Following and learning of God gives us the means to endure and pass the tests.

James 1:12     Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Hebrews 10:23     Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

2) We are entrusted with the things of God. We never own anything outright here on Earth, God just loans them to us in stewardship. 

Psalm 24:1     ... The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

1 Corinthians 4:2     Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

Luke 16:10     "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

If you recognize and treat everything as God's, he promises rewards in eternity.

Matthew 25:21     "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

1 Timothy 3:13     Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.

3) Life is a temporary assignment

Psalm 39:4     "Show me, LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.

Job 8:9     for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.

When you come to the realization that life and all that we hold dear here on Earth are temporal out thinking about eternity should radically change

The Purpose Driven Life: Endurance - April 21, 2015

Ecclesiastes 3:11     He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

1 Corinthians 15:47     The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.

You were created in His image to fellowship with Him for eternity. There is so much more to life than your present circumstances; when you begin to understand this you will begin to live differently. You will begin to recognize the guiding light of eternity....

Ephesians 2:19     Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household,

1 John 2:17     The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Have you given thought to eternity and what the experience would be like? Our brains cannot imagine or grasp the fullness, the greatness and the richness of heaven.

…8 the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; 9 but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM."10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.…

2 Corinthians 2: 8-10

The Purpose Driven Life: Cui Bono – April 20, 2015

When you discover your purpose you begin to understand that your life has purpose and meaning. You begin to have a sense of simplicity, focus and motivation when you embrace your purpose and calling. Understanding all these things is a preparation for eternity.

Romans 4:7     "Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Romans 8:15     The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

Philippians 4:7     And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3: 12- 14     12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.…

The Purpose Driven Life : What Drives You? - April 19, 2015

Everyone has something that drives them; that still and quiet voice, the urge, the unction. Many people have shifted their focus and are now driven by things not of God...guilt, resentments, anger, fear materialism and the need for approval.

Proverbs 12:16     Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.

Proverbs 27:3     Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both.

Ecclesiastes 4:4    And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

There are other things that people tend to focus on and use it to drive them but it still leads to a life unfulfilled; unused potential and unneeded stress.

Job 7:6     "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.

Genesis 4:12     When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

Isaiah 49:4     But I said, "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the LORD's hand, and my reward is with my God."

The Bible offers "drivers ed"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.