At some point, you’ve likely asked yourself about the meaning of your life and what you were put on earth to do. The answer from a Christian perspective is at once simple and complex: God created you to fulfill the purposes he’s planned for you.
(Shortform note: Pastor Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life as a 42-day Bible study journey to help you find your purposes and learn how to fulfill them. In this summary, we’ve grouped the elements of the journey into six weekly themes to add clarity and reduce repetition.)
There are six reasons to accept God’s purposes for your life and work to fulfill them.
Reason 1: It’s not about you. Many people guess at the meaning of their lives and speculate that they’re meant to fulfill their own purposes. However, the Bible reveals that your life’s meaning isn’t actually about you. Everything in your life—your significance, identity, and purpose—traces back to God. Your life isn’t about fulfilling your purposes, but his.
Reason 2: You’re here for a reason. God planned your life and designed you perfectly to fulfill his purposes. Every aspect of your life—including your physical features, personality, parents, and so on—is a gift. You can’t repay God for all he’s given you, but you can express your gratitude by putting God and his purposes at the center of your life.
Reason 3: Being driven by purpose creates peace. Everyone’s driven by different motivations—external factors like problems or pressure, emotional factors like anxiety or fear, or moral factors like values and beliefs. The wrong motivations, such as guilt or materialism, destroy the possibility of peace in your life because you’ll always feel anxious, unsure, or “not enough.” On the other hand, being driven by God’s purposes creates peace, in several ways:
Reason 4: There is life beyond this. The Bible explains that after this life, God’s children who have served him can look forward to a life in eternity. Purpose driven living ensures that you’ll receive the promise of this eternal life.
Reason 5: Life is a test and a responsibility. Accepting God’s purpose allows you to reframe the way you see your life.
Reason 6: Everything is by and for God. Everything in the universe was made by God to demonstrate his glory—that is, his essence, presence, power, and love. There’s no possible way for us to enhance God’s glory—it’s the most powerful, complete thing in the universe. Instead, we express our gratitude for all that God has given us by showing his glory.
You show his glory each time you fulfill one of the five purposes he assigned you: worship, unselfish fellowship, spiritual maturity, your ministry, and your mission.
Your first purpose is worship—bringing pleasure to God. Worship doesn’t only happen when you’re in church. It’s a lifestyle that centers on making God happy.
Before thinking about ways that you might worship God, ensure that the acts you engage in are true worship. True worship has four elements:
1) Accuracy: Be sure you’re not worshipping an image of God that you came up with yourself—in that case, you’re worshipping your own imagination or opinion. Instead, worship whom you know God to be by the truths outlined in Scripture. For example, “I think of God as someone who’d be understanding about some sins,” is false worship. On the other hand, “I worship God, who is just,” is true worship.
2) Authenticity: Worship that’s emotionless or insincere doesn’t please God. He wants you to express your worship with passion and authenticity. Many people think they should engage in traditional worship, but this leads to many believers just going through the motions. Instead, show your love for God in a way that feels good to you—the Bible suggests varied forms of worship including song, dance, confession, playing instruments, and shouting.
3) Thoughtfulness: Engage your mind meaningfully with your worship by looking for new and interesting ways to praise God such as:
4) Presence: As long as you’re living on earth, your spirit and body can only be in one place at once. God wants you to plan around and show up physically for worship instead of sticking to your own schedule and using an easy cop-out such as, “I’ll be there in spirit!”
There are five acts of worship that—when practiced genuinely—make God happy.
God’s greatest desire is for you to love him in the same way that he loves you. You should think of him as your closest, most loyal friend—you’re in regular contact, know all about one another, and trust him completely.
God wants you to trust and obey him completely. This can be difficult, as you may think that you know what’s best for you, but remember that God has known you since before your birth. He knows best and feels happiest when you demonstrate your absolute faith in him. You know your trust and obedience are complete when:
Regularly express your gratitude with authenticity and accuracy—throughout your day, thank God for who he is and thank him for specific gifts or opportunities he’s granted you. For example, you might express gratitude for specific miracles described in the Bible, or start your morning by telling him a list of the small joys of your life you’re grateful for.
Every time God sees his creations doing what he designed them to do, he feels pleasure. Everything you do can be an act of worship, as long as you’re doing it with an attitude of praise. For example, going for a jog can be an act of worship if you remind yourself, “I’m grateful that God gave me the ability to use my body in this way.”
The second purpose of your life is unselfishly loving fellow members of God’s family. God created us to be part of a spiritual family that dedicates itself to loving and honoring him—as a believer, you’re not only his child but a sibling to all other past, present, and future believers. In loving your spiritual family, you’ll learn the essential skill of unselfish loving. Unselfish loving means loving others, even when it’s difficult to do so—such as when they’re being rude, it’s inconvenient for you, or they need too much from you.
Being a member of your church is important because your church will serve as your support system through the hard work of fulfilling your purposes. Take the step beyond attending church and start to get involved in it by getting to know the other members, showing love to them, and finding your role within your spiritual family.
When you become involved with your spiritual family, you experience life with them. Experiencing life together—the good and the bad—is called fellowship. Fellowship is best practiced as a small group within your church, because everyone has the chance to speak up, be heard, and meaningfully support one another. In these small groups, you can experience genuine fellowship, which grants you four vital experiences that enhance your spiritual growth and understanding of unselfish love.
It takes a lot of work to build a healthy, loving fellowship, but God reveals how to do so through his Word—there are five elements that every healthy fellowship community needs:
The third purpose of your life is to become more like Jesus by taking on his values and character. This spiritually mature character is already in you but hasn't been shaped yet.
God uses four tools to help shape your spiritually mature character.
God’s Word should take high priority in your life, as it contains the truths that guide you in fulfilling your purposes. There are three activities that help you internalize and live by his Word:
God wants you to grow with others, for two reasons.
If you always lived in your comfort zone, you would never learn about enduring pain, taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges, or stretching the limits of your faith. God puts difficult circumstances in your way because they strengthen your character, but only if you respond as Jesus would—that is, you remember that God is acting in your best interest, you give thanks for the opportunity to grow, and you keep pushing through your circumstances instead of giving up or turning away from God.
God will put you in situations where you’ll want to act in direct opposition to the qualities Jesus possessed, such as love, patience, faithfulness, and self-control. When you make the choice to stick to Jesus-like qualities in these situations, you strengthen your character. The choice in these situations is crucial, because your character is like a muscle—it needs resistance to develop and strengthen.
God wants you to serve others—this is called ministry, the fourth purpose for your life. The way God planned for you to serve others is uniquely yours.
Start figuring out the ministry you were made for by examining your SHAPE:
The best ministry uses your whole SHAPE—you use your abilities and spiritual gifts in a way that aligns with your heart and personality, and is supported by your experiences. Ask yourself what abilities align best with who you are, what you love to do, and what you know.
Finding your unique ministry is the first vital part of serving others—the second is developing your servant’s heart, which allows you to serve unselfishly in whatever way God calls you. Your servant's heart is made up of your character and attitude.
Whereas your ministry is how you serve other believers, your mission is your service to unbelievers. God wants you to spread word of his love, his glory, and the promise of eternal life to unbelievers, through your unique mission and a shared mission.
Your story of your experience with God helps you explain the benefits of joining his family to unbelievers. Your message has four main parts:
1) Personal testimony. Your testimony reveals how God has made a difference in your life. This is a valuable tool for connection—you come across as a peer rather than an authority figure trying to “sell” God’s Word. Your testimony should touch on how you felt about your life before you discovered your purpose, when you realized you needed God, the difference you’ve felt in purpose driven living, and how you’ve felt God’s power and love in your life.
2) Lessons you’ve learned. Explain what you’ve learned from your life experiences. This demonstrates that everything has meaning. This is especially helpful when talking to someone who doesn’t know how to find lessons in her experiences yet.
3) Your passions. God will give you a passion for something he cares deeply about so that you’ll be compelled to speak about it to others and find a way to make a difference with it. For example, you may feel passionate about a cause such as the environment, a group of people without a voice such as wrongfully convicted prisoners, or bringing his Word to specific groups such as college students.
4) The Good News. The last part of your life message is your explanation of the gifts that come along with trusting and obeying God, such as a deep sense of meaning, unselfish love, forgiveness of our sins, and the promise of eternal life.
You and all Christians share the mission of spreading the word about God all over the world—just as Jesus did. Like him, share what you know about God throughout your life, to everyone you can. Make sure you’re not missing out on your mission because of a purpose-blocking mindset, such as:
There are four ways you can maintain balance among your purposes throughout your life.
At some point in your life, you’ve likely asked yourself the same questions that people have been asking themselves for centuries: “Why am I here?” “What’s the meaning of life?” “What’s my purpose?” From a Christian perspective, the answer is at once simple and complex: God put you here to fulfill the purposes he’s planned for you.
There are two routes you can take toward figuring out your purposes.
People have taken this route for centuries, musing about the meaning of life, questioning their origins, and wondering what they should do with their time on earth.
You’ve probably taken this route, too. You look inward for answers about your purpose, asking yourself questions like:
You’ve likely come up with a few ideas about what life is all about, such as personal fulfillment, seeking happiness or truth, career ambitions, or family. As a Christian, you assume that God is meant to help you fulfill these personal purposes. This inward-looking route will never provide you with clear answers—all you can do is speculate.
On the other hand, looking outward to the Bible leads you to definitive answers about the meaning of your life. God has already explained the meaning of our lives—studying his Word reveals why we’re here, how life should work, and what’s waiting for us in the future and eternity.
(Shortform note: Pastor Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life as a 42-day Bible study journey to help you find your purposes and learn how to fulfill them. In this summary, we’ve grouped the elements of the journey into six weekly themes to add clarity and eliminate repetition.)
Of course, you first need to accept God’s purposes for your life before you can fulfill them. In this first week of your journey, we’ll explore six reasons that explain why you should accept and live for God’s purposes:
Revisit these reasons for a regular reminder of the larger meaning of your life, what’s to be gained by serving God, and bolster your dedication to your purposes.
The Bible reveals that your life’s meaning isn’t actually about you. Everything in your life comes back to God—your origins, your significance, your identity, and your purpose. Your life isn’t about fulfilling your purposes. It’s about fulfilling God’s.
As God’s Word, this is an eternal truth. This is what your life should be built on, not speculation about what you or others think the truth might be.
You won’t find your identity and meaning by guessing at the truth. It’s only by following God and accepting his purposes for your life that you’ll find your life’s true meaning.
You didn’t randomly come into existence—God imagined and created you long before you were born. There’s a reason behind every single aspect of you and your life, such as:
Your existence is an extraordinary gift. As the essence of love and a part of the Trinity’s perfect companionship, God doesn’t necessarily need company. He created you purely out of a desire to express his love. And he didn’t stop there—God loves us and values us above all other creations. To show this, he created a perfect home for us.
It’s impossible not to feel overwhelmed with gratitude for all of the work and love that God’s put into your life. You’ll never be able to repay him for what he’s done for you, but you can express your gratitude by putting God and his purposes at the center of your life.
Everyone has different motivations driving their lives—these motivations can be external factors like problems or pressure, emotional factors like anxiety or fear, or moral factors like values and beliefs. When you’re driven by the wrong motivators, you can’t experience peace in your life. Unfortunately, many people are driven by five common “wrong” motivators:
These negative and frustrating motivators fade away when you replace them with the one motivator of fulfilling God’s purposes. A purpose driven life gives you meaning, simplifies your life, focuses your energy, motivates you, and prepares you for eternity.
Hope is faith and confidence in the direction your life is going. It lends you the power you need to overcome any difficulties that life throws at you. On the other hand, if your life doesn’t have hope, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and feel that tough moments are insurmountable.
Making the fulfillment of God’s purposes your central motivation instills a sense of direction and hope in your life. It requires you to make changes, separate from the status quo, and take on challenges—as you face your fears and push through these challenges, you’ll strengthen your ability to overcome tough moments and increase your confidence in your life’s direction.
If your life isn’t driven by purpose, your decision-making is usually dictated by your circumstances or mood. This makes you tired and stressed—you’re constantly changing direction, trying to keep up with others, or attempting to balance what you want to do and what others want you to do.
On the other hand, dedicating yourself to fulfilling God’s purposes grants you peace because it’s the only thing you have to do. This creates a clear benchmark by which to measure what is and isn’t worth your energy. Each time you find that you’re unable to find the time or energy to work on God’s purposes, you know you’re becoming over-involved in wasteful, meaningless activities.
Many people live lives of constant movement, not only trying to do everything but also be good at everything. Trying to master everything in a jam-packed life will cause you to feel frazzled and confused.
The problem doesn’t lie in these external factors—it lies in your focus. When your focus is divided across too many pursuits, you won’t feel that you have a true impact in any one of them. As a result, your life’s activity just feels like busywork that’s not particularly interesting, productive, or important. When you clarify the truly important pursuits in your life, your energy becomes focused and precise. Instead of spreading thin, ineffective energy across many activities, you put all your energy toward the activity you were created to do. Your actions become deliberate and effective, making your work productive and impactful.
When you lack purpose, it’s hard to feel passionate about any aspect of your life or your work—it all seems meaningless. Without a reason for all your effort, you quickly become tired, depressed, and hopeless.
On the other hand, having a clear purpose—knowing precisely what you’re working for and what your goal is—is energizing. It adds reason and meaning to your work, making it feel like a joyful and productive activity.
Many people are driven by the impression they want to leave on the world, both before and after they die. However, it doesn’t matter what people in this life think of you—your accomplishments and others’ memories of you will fade over time.
Only your eternal life and the impression you make on God matter. This life is a preparation for eternity, where God will judge your character by asking two questions:
If you focus your life on the fulfillment of God’s purposes, you’ll pass his judgment and spend eternity with him.
Earth isn’t your forever home—you’re just a tourist passing through. However, many Christians seem to believe that their true homes and their true lives are here on earth. It’s crucial that you remember that the true “you” is in eternity, where you originated and where you’ll one day return. There’s no exact report of what’s waiting for you in eternity or what it will look like—it’s far beyond what the human imagination can understand. However, you can turn to the Bible to learn about the splendors of God’s kingdom and how you might expect to be rewarded for your faithfulness:
Many people fear death or think of it as something strange or unjust. You may think this is because of a desire for immortality—a desire for your life on earth to last forever. It’s actually because God designed us to have an eternal afterlife. This inherent knowledge of eternal living gives us a feeling that death is somehow “unfair” or “unnatural.”
But, knowledge of eternal living should mean that death isn’t too frightening or morbid to think about. In fact, you should be thinking about death and eternity more—it can significantly reduce the stress in your life.
Purpose driven living erases the frightening aspect of death—fulfilling God’s purposes for you ensures that you’ll receive the promise of eternal life. You have nothing to worry about or feel uncertain about because you already know what’s next.
Getting comfortable with the thought of eternity and frequently reflecting on it touches every aspect of your life in a positive way.
Ask yourself, “How do I picture my life?” Your response, the life metaphor that comes to mind, reveals everything about you—what’s important to you, what you expect from your life, your attitude toward your circumstances, your motivations, and so on.
The way you view your life affects everything in it: your relationships, the way you spend time or money, your values, your goals, and so on. Accepting God’s purpose allows you to reframe the way you see your life: The Bible tells us that life is a test and life is a responsibility.
God will test you throughout your life by putting conflicts, problems, changes, and success in your way. These situations are meant to challenge your faith, character, love, loyalty, and so on.
You can’t know everything that God will test you with, but if you look to the Bible you’ll see that tragedies, unanswered prayers, undeserved hurt, and significant changes are all ways that God has tested believers. God gives you these tests because your response to them will both develop you and reveal you.
God is especially paying attention to how you respond to tests when you can’t feel his presence. God often feels absent in two instances:
As the creator, God is the true owner of everything on earth but as an expression of his love, he entrusted all his gifts to you during your time on earth.
You’re expected to take care of everything God’s given you, to the best of your ability. This is called stewardship, and it’s some of your life’s most important work because it reveals how responsible you are. At the end of your life, God will examine each of the gifts he gave you and determine how well you took care of or used it. If he finds you to be a responsible steward of his gifts, you’ll receive three eternal rewards: God’s affirmation, important and interesting eternal responsibilities, and celebration.
Everything in the universe was made by God to demonstrate his essence, his presence, his power, and his love. Each thing in the world around you reflects his glory.
Besides the gifts he’s given us, God has expressed his glory in many amazing ways over the years—such as creating Jesus and allowing him to die for our sins, and appearing as a burning bush to Moses and giving him the Ten Commandments. There’s no possible way for us to enhance God’s glory—it’s the most powerful, brilliant, complete thing in the universe.
Instead, we express our gratitude for all that God has given us by showing his glory. God’s glory is seen every time one of his creations fulfills the purpose he gave it. He assigned humans five purposes:
It’s in fulfilling each of these five purposes that you express your gratitude to God and succeed in showing his glory. Through this summary, we’ll explore each of these purposes—looking at how they show up in your life, how you can dedicate yourself to them, and how you can succeed in fulfilling your purpose driven life.
If your life feels as if it lacks meaning or direction, it could be that you’re being driven by the wrong motivations.
What are some indicators that tell you that your life isn’t being driven by the right motivators? (For example, “I always feel tense, as if there’s something I should be doing, but I don’t know what it is.”)
What do you think is the main motivator driving your life? (For example, “I think that I’m driven by approval-seeking and pressure to be the best at work—I always feel that I should be doing more somehow, to stand out or get recognition.”)
How do you think living a purpose driven life will help you feel meaning? (For example, “Instead of needing to feel good at everything or please everyone, I can finally focus in one direction—pleasing God and doing what I’m made to do. I’ll stop feeling tense about unimportant things I ‘should’ do.”)
The second week of your journey brings you to your first purpose—worship, or bringing pleasure to God. Like most people, you probably think that worship is going to church, praying, singing, and so on. While these are acts of worship, that’s not all that worship is. Worship is a lifestyle that centers on making God happy. It shouldn’t happen only when you’re in church or praying—the Bible instructs us to worship God continually.
Before discussing how to make worship a continual facet of your life, it’s important to understand what separates true worship from false worship.
The Elements of True Worship
Worship doesn’t depend on who you’re with, what time it is, or where you are—it depends on your engagement with the words you’re saying and your intention to bring pleasure to God. If you’re just going through worship rituals because you feel you “should” or because it’s “tradition,” your worship won’t please God. True, pleasing worship has four elements:
Be sure you’re not worshipping an image of God that you came up with in your mind. In that case, you’re worshipping your own imagination or opinion. Instead, worship whom you know God to be by the truths outlined in Scripture.
You must mean what you say and do—worship that’s not genuine isn’t worship, just words. The best way to worship with genuine emotion is to find a method of worship that shows your love for God in a way that feels good to you and reflects the personality he gave you.
It’s okay if your method of worship isn’t traditional or even mentioned in the Bible—God doesn’t care about tradition. Often, traditional worship doesn’t make people feel good, but it’s what they think they should be doing. This results in emotionless, insincere worship. God wants to see passion and authenticity behind your worship, and it doesn’t matter how you make that happen.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Power of Positive Thinking to explore different forms of prayer and find the type that best suits you.)
Be sure you are engaging your mind in a meaningful way while you worship. Automatic repetition of verses and phrases will eventually void the words of their meaning, but you can avoid this by looking for new and interesting ways to praise God. There are a few ways you might accomplish this:
As long as you’re living in your mortal body on earth, your spirit and body can only be in one place at once.
God wants you to worship him using your body—that is, showing up physically for worship instead of using an easy cop-out to cater to your own interests or schedule. Your presence is a sacrifice of sorts because it forces you to give up two things:
There are five acts of worship that—when practiced with accuracy, authenticity, thoughtfulness, and practicality—make God happy.
God’s greatest desire is for you to love him in the same way that he loves you. Imagine your relationship with your closest and most loyal friend. You probably stay in regular contact with this friend, know everything about her, trust her completely, and allow her to know everything about you.
God wants this type of close friendship with you, and nothing would bring him more happiness than your efforts to know and love everything about him—in this sense, your friendship is a form of worship. There are six ways you can establish and maintain your friendship with God.
It’s essential to stay in regular contact with God—only speaking to him once a week at church isn’t enough to create a close friendship.
Like many people, you’re probably in close contact with your best friend, texting her daily with updates on things happening in your life, thoughts you have, or questions about her day. Your communication with God should be a similar stream of consciousness.
You don’t need to be alone to spend time with God or talk to him—he’s with you everywhere, as long as you keep his presence in your mind and invite him to be part of whatever you’re doing, whether it be grocery shopping, driving to work, or meeting with a client.
Part of truly knowing God is knowing what he thinks and feels—and there’s no better place to find this information than his Word. You can’t read the Bible all day in the same way you can talk to God all day. You can, however, think about Scripture.
When you turn over verses in your mind repeatedly, you often find truths and lessons in them that you hadn’t noticed before—in this way, God is able to speak to you. He shares his secrets and his knowledge, allowing you to understand him fully as a friend would.
Honesty is one of the foundational elements of any solid friendship, so it’s not surprising that God desires your total honesty. This means that he’ll not only tolerate you voicing displeasure with him, but he’ll also encourage it and listen to it.
God doesn’t mind it when you express your anger, because it’s the first step to becoming closer to him. When you’re angry with God, it’s usually because you don’t understand that everything he does is in your best interest. Eventually, you’ll understand the reason for your suffering, but for now, it’s just important to get it off your chest. By doing so, you put your emotions out in the open where they can cool off, instead of bottling them up and letting resentment simmer. It’s impossible to become best friends with God if you resent him.
If your best friend tells you to do something you don’t understand or are afraid of, you’d probably question her. Here, your friendship with God differs—when God tells you to act, you’re expected to obey him in total trust and faith. This is a signal of intimacy because it proves that you love God, trust him, and want to do as he says as a demonstration of your gratitude.
You care about what’s important to your best friend, and vice versa. When you become friends with God, the same thing will happen—you’ll value the same things he does.
You didn’t become close to your best friend by accident—both of you put in the effort to meet up regularly, return one another’s phone calls, listen to one another, and open up to one another. It’s crucial to make the same sort of effort with God if you want to become his friend. If you don’t actively choose to deepen your relationship with him, you’ll never be close.
God wants you to trust and obey him, even when what he asks of you doesn’t make perfect sense. This can be difficult—you likely often think that you know what’s best for you. God has known you since before your birth and deserves your faith that he knows best. You make him happiest when you completely trust that he’ll keep his promises to you, watch over you, and help you.
Two factors determine whether your trust and obedience are complete:
The story of Noah’s ark is an example of complete trust and obedience. Noah never questioned why God would have him build an ark, and was careful to follow God’s instructions for the construction and gathering of animals to the letter. It was only after the flood arrived that Noah was finally able to see the reasons for God’s demand.
The process of “letting go” and giving yourself over to God with complete trust is called surrender. In a state of surrender, you give your entire life—your fears, ambitions, guilt, dreams, and so on—to God and fully devote yourself to serving him.
Many people worship God in a half-committed way because they haven’t surrendered themselves to him yet. There are three common reasons people avoid surrendering:
1) Fear: You might find it hard to surrender to God completely if you don’t understand how much he loves you or that he wants the best for you. God won’t use your surrender against you in any way—it’s not a way for him to control you. He’ll only use it to push your life in the right direction.
2) Pride: Like many people, you likely want to be in control of everything in your life. Surrender conflicts with your pride because it feels like the destruction of control. It’s essential to realize that you’re not a god. Accept your limitations and surrender to God, who truly knows the best direction for you.
3) Confusion: If you’re confused about what surrendering means, you might develop a negative idea of what it is.
Surrender, at its base, is just complete obedience and trust. You serve God completely and willingly without question because you trust that he knows best.
God has given you so much, and it’s only right to regularly express your gratitude. Remember that authenticity and accuracy are most pleasing—thank God for who he is and thank him for specific gifts or opportunities he’s granted you.
This act of worship has the added benefit of making you feel good, too. It always feels wonderful to give someone genuine praise and know you’ve made them happy. Every time you express gratitude to God, you allow yourself to feel that joy.
Using your abilities is a practical, joyful, and constant way to worship. Every time God sees his creations doing what he designed them to do, he feels pleasure.
This type of worship doesn’t have any constraints—everything you do can be an act of worship, as long as you’re doing it with an attitude of praise.
When you experience difficult circumstances, you may feel that God has abandoned or forgotten you in some way—bringing him pleasure will likely be the last thing on your mind. However, it’s vital to continue your worship in these hard moments because this is when God is testing your character most.
Worship becomes easier in confusing or frightening times if you can find ways to stay connected to God, even if his presence isn’t evident to you. There are four ways to remind yourself of God’s presence and his goodness.
1) Express your feelings. Don’t be afraid to tell God exactly how you feel about the test he’s given you—all negativity and anger included. Rather than seeing this as an insult, God will see this as an affirmation of your faith, in three ways:
2) Remember that God is unchanging. Continually remind yourself of truths about God—he’s good, he loves you, and he knows what’s best for you. Recall that God wants you to pass your tests and won’t give you a challenge he doesn’t think you can overcome. He gave you this particular test because he knows you’ll succeed.
3) Have faith in God’s promises. God promises that he’ll never leave you—no matter how you feel, the reality is that God isn’t breaking his promise to you. Holding on to your knowledge and faith in this promise is a profound act of worship.
4) Reflect on God’s sacrifices for you. No matter what grueling tests God puts in your way, he deserves your praise and gratitude because of the sacrifices he’s had to make for you. He had to let his only son die so that humans like you would be saved.
God’s greatest desire is that you become close to him as you would a trusted friend—make sure you’re dedicating time to deepening that relationship.
What is an everyday event that you could make into an act of worship by including God? (For example, you might discuss the upcoming day with him over your morning coffee, or unpack your day with him on your drive home after work.)
What is something unpleasant that you can commit to being more honest with God about? (For example, you’re angry that you didn’t get a promotion you wanted, or you feel that your chronic illness is unfair.)
Reflect on the time you dedicate to your friendship with God. What unimportant things have you allowed to get in the way? (For example, you didn’t take any time to talk to him during the week, or you questioned something he called you to do such as forgiving someone’s wrongdoing.)
How can you commit to being a better friend to God in the near future? (For example, you write reminders of his presence on sticky notes and put them in visible places so you remember to include him, or you commit to voicing your displeasure more frequently.)
In the third week of your journey, we’ll discuss the second purpose of your life—unselfishly loving fellow members of God’s family. God created us to be part of a family that dedicates itself to loving and honoring him. As a believer, you’re not only his child but a sibling to all other past, present, and future believers.
There are wonderful benefits to being part of this spiritual family. First, it’s everlasting—having a family on earth is amazing in its own way, but it only lasts as long as your lifetime. On the other hand, your spiritual family not only lasts through this life but also in eternity where you’ll enjoy God’s blessings and rewards together. Second, your spiritual family will never abandon you or stop loving you—you’ll always feel loved and secure in this family.
Becoming part of God’s family involves taking both a spiritual step and a physical step.
We’re each a product of God’s love, so it makes sense that love serves as the foundation of your spiritual family. In loving your spiritual family, you’ll learn the essential skill of unselfish loving. Unselfish loving means loving others, even when it’s difficult to do so—such as when they’re being rude, it’s inconvenient for you, or they need too much from you. Learning this skill will take you a lifetime of work, and it certainly won’t come as easily as loving your like-minded friends or your easy-to-love spouse.
The work of learning and practicing unselfish love will reveal three important truths:
Throughout the Bible, God reveals the importance of relationships in our lives.
Unfortunately, long-term work like relationship-building is often pushed aside when more urgent wants or needs come up. Keep in mind that those wants and needs are confined to your life on earth—your relationship with your spiritual family is eternal and therefore more deserving of your time and energy.
We naturally spend more of our time and energy on things we love—therefore, one of the greatest ways you can show someone love is simply spending time on your relationship with them. Your time reveals that they are important to you because time is a precious gift—you have a finite amount of it. Giving some of your time to someone represents giving a small part of your life to them that you can’t get back.
This reveals a vital lesson about love—it’s not about giving things to people or thinking about them. Love is about giving or sacrificing part of yourself to someone.
Nothing in life is guaranteed—you don’t know how long you have to show love to others. For this reason, it should be a top priority in your life.
Furthermore, it’s best to get started on showing love as soon as you can because one day you will be judged by God and will have to explain why you didn’t spend more time and effort on showing love in your relationships.
Consider whether the way you’re treating your relationships would make you feel ashamed when it comes time to explain yourself. Then, find ways to make your relationships a higher priority in your life—for example, by staying after church to meet other members or scheduling regular coffee dates with a neighbor.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Last Lecture for a deeper look at the importance of putting love at the top of your priority list.)
“Church” doesn’t refer to the literal building where you celebrate Mass. Your church is a living organism, made up of all its members. You become a member of your church when you get to know other members, show love to them, and find your role within the family.
Being a member of the church is important because other members will serve as your support system through the hard work of fulfilling your purposes. This is why it’s important to take the step beyond attending church and start to get involved in it.
You may think that you can practice your beliefs alone, choosing instead to hop around between different churches without joining their communities, or choosing not to join a church at all. However, the Bible reveals that you need to find and commit to a church, for four reasons:
1) Genuine belief is shown in love. According to Jesus, the discipleship and belief of his followers are proven by their love for one another. You can’t show love for other disciples and become a genuine disciple if you’re on your own.
2) Loving your spiritual family makes you less self-centered. You won’t naturally love—or even like—everyone in your church, which makes it a perfect place to practice unselfish loving. You’ll have to care about others, learn about their experiences, connect with them, and spend time with them without focusing on what you’re getting out of it. (Of course, you’ll also receive the beneficial inverse of this—people will unselfishly love you in return.)
3) Discussion strengthens your spirituality. As an involved member, you’re constantly learning and growing, as church members are expected to serve each other, teach each other, correct each other, encourage each other, admonish each other, and so on.
On the contrary, being a non-participating spectator at church doesn’t challenge you at all. No one points out how you could improve, teaches you a new understanding of a verse, or tests your patience. Spirituality done alone is untested and therefore false.
4) Your church supports you in your spiritual life. No one is free from the risk of temptation. For this reason, God gave you a spiritual family that you can depend on to keep you away from temptation and put you back on track with your spiritual journey.
When you become involved with your church and your spiritual family, you open yourself up to the opportunity to experience life with them. Experiencing life together—the good and the bad—is called fellowship.
Fellowship is practiced as a small group within the larger context of your church, somewhat like Jesus and his 12 disciples. It’s better to “experience life together” in small groups because everyone has the chance to speak up, be heard, and meaningfully support one another.
These small groups lend themselves to genuine fellowship, which grants you four vital experiences that enhance your spiritual growth and understanding of unselfish love.
The base of genuine fellowship is mutuality: taking care of one another, reciprocating what they receive, and taking on equal responsibilities. Members can fully depend on one another and expect to have their needs met, and are willing to meet others’ needs—physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Mutuality is the most important of the experiences of genuine fellowship. Without it, fellowship can feel unbalanced or conditional—that is, members will only give after ensuring they’ll get something in return.
In genuine fellowship, you’re free to share who you really are and be fully honest about whatever may be happening in your life.
The more each fellowship member opens up about their life, the more other group members are willing to open up about theirs. This makes for an honest and authentic fellowship, where you are supported in your spiritual health and all your emotions and struggles.
Sympathy is the sharing of someone else’s pain or suffering—entering into the feelings with them to carry part of the burden. Having our suffering met with sympathy is important because it meets two basic human needs:
Fellowship deepens whenever you take the time to feel sympathy toward others in your group, instead of brushing off or denying how they feel or admonishing their feelings.
The fellowship of suffering is the deepest level of fellowship we have to offer one another. Sympathy is the most loving choice you can make when you see someone suffering—instead of taking the easy option of turning away, you offer a willingness to feel and carry the pain alongside them. In supporting you through difficult moments when God may feel absent, your fellowship group serves as tangible evidence of God’s love, goodness, and presence.
Sometimes you’ll hurt the people in your fellowship—either on purpose or by accident—or you’ll be hurt by them, but a genuine fellowship will never use your mistakes against you. Genuine fellowship forgives and moves on quickly. Here, the concept of mutuality has extra importance; if you expect to receive forgiveness, you must be willing to give it. If half of your fellowship group is unforgiving, their resentment over old hurts will always leave cracks in their relationships with the rest of the group—eventually, these cracks will cause the group to crumble.
Offering easy and quick forgiveness may make you feel afraid if you believe that giving someone a “clean slate” just grants them the opportunity to hurt you again. This is a simple confusion between forgiveness and trust. You should forgive right away and leave the wrongdoing in the past, but you don’t necessarily need to trust the wrongdoer right away.
It takes a lot of work to build a healthy, loving fellowship, but God reveals how to do so through his Word. Everyone’s fellowship community will look a little different, but they should have the same basic elements.
The Bible outlines five elements that every healthy fellowship community needs:
In a healthy fellowship, members speak to one another directly but lovingly, as they would a member of their family, and tell the truth, even if it’s not the easiest thing to hear. Instead of turning away from conflict, they turn toward it—speaking with honesty to address problems, hold one another accountable, or correct one another’s actions.
This type of honesty allows group members to work through issues instead of hiding them or diminishing them—actions that create underlying frustration or hurt in the group, eventually causing it to crumble.
Pride creates walls between people because it prevents you from asking for help and makes you feel that you’re better than others—not prone to the same sorts of mistakes or feelings that they are.
Humility is essential in a fellowship group because it opens you up to asking for help and helps you relate to others’ experiences. You help people the best you can, understanding that one day they’ll be helping you. There are several ways you can practice your humility, such as:
Being courteous of others means being considerate of their feelings and respectful of their differences and exercising patience.
Courtesy is especially important to remember when you’re dealing with someone that you find “difficult.” Difficult people are members of your spiritual family—they deserve all the courtesy and unselfish love you’d show other members. One way to better love difficult people is to attempt to understand them. Ask about their experiences, and learn about how their lives have shaped them.
When you really know what’s inside of a person, it becomes much easier to show them patience, grace, understanding, and unselfish love.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of Everybody, Always for more ways to commit to acting with love and patience when dealing with imperfect people.)
Your group not only has a duty to deal with any issues that a member brings up, but also to understand that these issues are shared in confidence—no one outside your group should find out about them.
If someone is breaking your group’s trust, it’s vital that you confront them immediately and request that they stop. Their gossipy nature can easily divide or destroy your fellowship group if no one thinks they can trust one another.
Deep, meaningful relationships happen between people who spend a lot of time together—regular meetings will help create closeness within your group. These meetings shouldn’t be organized around convenience—this makes it all too easy for urgent, unimportant matters to get in the way. Your meetings should be a regular, steady spiritual touchpoint in your lives.
Occasionally, you may find yourself at odds with someone in your group, or with a serious rift in your relationship. Instead of making the easy and selfish choice to walk away from an imperfect relationship, God wants you to do the hard work of repairing your relationships with unselfish love.
In any fractured relationship, strive to be a peacemaker. Peacemaking is an essential skill to loving unselfishly—in focusing on finding paths toward peace, you naturally start to better understand others and discover different ways to love them. Some people think that peacemaking means avoiding conflict or people-pleasing, but it’s actually the opposite. As a peacemaker, your duty is to face conflict with the goal of resolving it and to do what’s right instead of what’s popular. The Bible outlines five steps to guide you through the work of resolving conflict.
It’s tempting to gossip about relationship issues with friends, but your best bet is to talk to God about it first—either he’ll intervene to change the other person’s view of the issue, or he will give you a necessary change of heart.
This conversation can also help you understand the core of the issue. Often, relationships are damaged when you’re expecting someone to give you something only God can give you, such as happiness, fulfillment, or perfect understanding. By looking for these things in the wrong places, you only set yourself up to be disappointed by the other person, through no fault of their own. When talking to God, discuss your expectations of the other person and honestly assess whether you’re asking too much of them.
Don’t wait for the other person to approach you. God expects you to make the first move in working through and resolving a conflict, as soon as you can.
Confronting the issue as soon as possible is essential because any time spent delaying is time for hurt and anger to stew and worsen. However, be careful not to push a confrontation if it’s not the right time. If either of you is feeling rushed, tired, or extra stressed, a conflict resolution won’t go smoothly. Hold off your confrontation until the first available moment when both of you are feeling physically and emotionally capable.
You can’t resolve a problem until you understand how the other person feels about it. Before launching into ideas for resolution, begin by letting the other person talk about their feelings—don’t interject with ideas or defenses. Just listen.
This is crucial—hearing and understanding their perspective gives you a more complete view of the issue, extends your patience, and guides you toward the resolution that will work for everyone. This step may require you to listen without judgment while someone criticizes you or expresses anger toward you—this becomes especially difficult when you believe that their criticism and anger are unfounded.
As a human, you’re not perfect. It’s likely that even if you think you’re not at fault, you made a mistake in some way. If you’re having trouble seeing your faults, you should ask a neutral third party for their input—they’ll have a clearer view of the situation than you will.
Believing that you’re fault-free can’t lead to resolution because the way you discuss the issue will pin blame on the other person, naturally making them feel defensive. There are two ways you can avoid the trap of blame:
1) Make sure you’re discussing the problem, not the person. Before you speak, make sure what you’re about to say isn’t “weaponized” with accusations, criticism, belittling, and so on.
2) Be the first to admit your own mistakes. Demonstrating humility in this way naturally de-escalates the issue, as many people come into confrontations expecting to defend themselves. Instead, your humility makes the other person feel secure in admitting their own faults in the conflict.
These two steps fast-track conflict resolution—instead of arguing about who did what, you move right into discussing how to repair what’s been done and how to prevent it moving forward.
Conflict resolution doesn’t mean that one person “wins” and one person “loses.” It means that both parties come to a compromise together. When searching for a resolution, demonstrate your willingness to adjust your position in a way that meets their needs instead of your own.
Ideally, they’ll reciprocate the courtesy, resulting in a fairly equal resolution of the issue. However, sometimes they won’t budge on their position—God created every member of his family to be different, so it’s natural that you won’t be able to align on some points. In these situations, it’s necessary to look for reconciliation rather than resolution.
Both resolution and reconciliation are good outcomes of conflict, as they both achieve your ultimate goal—maintaining unity with your spiritual family.
Turn to the Bible for Conflict Resolution
If you’re unsure of the best method for confronting someone, turn to the advice Jesus gives in the Bible.
Try a private conversation, where you both speak about your feelings.
If they refuse to listen to you or resolve the problem, involve one or two people who witnessed the point of conflict. They can give you a neutral confirmation of what the issue is and help you think of ways to reconcile.
If they still refuse to listen or reconcile, go to see your pastor together and ask him to mediate the discussion and reconciliation.
If you’ve taken the issue all the way to your pastor and the other person still won’t work with you to repair your relationship, Jesus says you may think of them as an unbeliever. You’re still expected to love them, but you aren’t obligated to show them the mutuality, service, or trust you’d show the members of your spiritual family.
God wants you to learn the skill of unselfish love because it makes one of his and his son’s greatest desires—unity among his spiritual family—possible. God desires unity because it’s the glue that holds churches together. Without it, you can’t have genuine fellowship or the possibility of harmony and respect between church members.
The Bible provides five practical methods for performing your duty of protecting the unity in your church.
If all you focus on is how the people in your church are different from you, it’ll be impossible to feel unified with them or help them find each other’s unifying points. You can overcome this in two ways:
Your church is your family and has flaws, just like any other family. But, as with any other family, you don’t abandon them because of their flaws or mistakes—you work through your issues and find a way to improve together.
If you abandon your imperfect church family in search of a church with no flaws, you’ll never find it. There is no such thing as a perfect church, only churches trying their best to make their reality as close to the ideal as possible. Searching for perfection will leave you hopping from church to church as a spectator, but never a member.
When you criticize members of your church, you are arrogantly putting yourself in God’s place—only God can judge his believers. Passing criticism on others is damaging in multiple ways:
If you feel that someone is doing something the “wrong” way, encourage them in another direction instead of overtly criticizing them. This redirects your energy away from judgment toward the productive work of improving together.
Imagine that someone in your church shows up for Sunday services but doesn’t interact with any other members and hasn’t gotten involved in any activities. You have a choice to make:
It’s intuitive that the act of gossiping is sinful, but you might not realize that simply listening to it is wrong, too. By listening, even if you don’t respond, you’re demonstrating that gossip and rumors—powerful weapons of hurt—are allowed.
You have to speak up and stop gossip when you hear it, remembering to speak to the gossiper directly but lovingly, as you would a member of your family.
Often, the leaders of your church serve as conflict mediators, helping members reconcile their relationships and work through various hurts. This job is taxing—not only are they trying to preserve unity in the church, but they’re also trying to accomplish the impossible task of keeping everyone happy.
Their hard work and dedication to what’s best for you deserves your respect and trust—they’ll always give you the best counsel they can.
You build meaningful relationships with the members of your spiritual family when you’re a member of your church, not a spectator.
Would you consider yourself a member or spectator at your church? Explain why. (For example, you consider yourself a spectator because you regularly go to church and attend the after-service coffee hour, but you don’t interact with your church during the week,)
What can you do to become more involved with your church? (For example, you might volunteer to teach Sunday school or serve as an usher during services.)
How can you encourage someone else to become more involved in your church? (For example, you introduce yourself to newcomers and make a point to invite them to events.)
When your fellowship is genuine, you’ll receive the four vital experiences of mutuality, authenticity, sympathy, and forgiveness.
Describe your experience with mutuality in your fellowship. (For example, your group came together to help another member when they were ill. Months later, she made sure your physical needs were covered in the aftermath of a family death.)
Describe an experience of authenticity in your fellowship. (For example, you discussed a temptation you struggle with and felt safe doing so. Your group responded by exposing their own struggles.)
Describe an experience of sympathy in your fellowship. (For example, a member expressed that she was having some trouble in her marriage. Instead of ignoring the issue or saying, “It’s probably not so bad,” your group offered support and validated her feelings.)
Describe an experience of forgiveness in your fellowship. (For example, you accidentally spread information that was shared with the group in confidence. Your group member forgives you and doesn’t bring your mistake up the next time you share sensitive information.)
In this fourth week of your journey, we’ll discuss your third purpose, becoming more like God’s Son Jesus. This might sound like an ambitious goal, but remember that you were made in God’s likeness, just like Jesus was. You can see evidence of this in several ways:
You become more like God and Jesus when you take on their same values and character in your own life. This doesn’t mean you’ll give up who you are to be just like Jesus—after all, God gave you a unique personality that he wants you to use. Rather than changing your personality, you’ll be changing your character to become more Christlike through character development.
Your character already exists inside you but isn’t shaped in any particular way. Throughout your life, God will put new challenges in your way that will help you put the pieces of your character together—ultimately, his goal is that you’ll arrive in heaven with a character as close to Jesus’s as possible.
It’s not possible to become more like Jesus just by willpower alone. Only the power of the Holy Spirit is strong enough to effect the changes that God wants for your character.
You may feel that the Holy Spirit has never worked through you before. Like many people, you probably believe that the Holy Spirit shows up in brilliant, grand gestures. Rather, the Holy Spirit’s power shows up in our lives in quiet and reserved ways—every time you choose to grow spiritually.
Growing spiritually isn’t the easy choice, but it’s the right choice. It allows God’s Spirit to live through you and give you his power, wisdom, and love so that you can complete the task ahead. This strengthens your character—as time goes on, you’ll feel less afraid of the challenges God puts in front of you.
Your character is a sum of your behaviors and habits—these must change to become more Christlike if your character is to become more Christlike, too. There are three parts to changing your behaviors.
To grow spiritually, you must commit to changing. This is a crucial point of your spiritual life because it’s the kickoff point of your spiritual maturity. Unfortunately, many people choose not to commit to their spiritual growth, which causes them to miss out on their purpose in different ways:
You must choose a full commitment to becoming more Christlike—otherwise, you risk missing the meaning and fulfillment that life has to offer.
Once you’ve rejected your old way of doing things and committed to developing your character, turn your focus to the way you think. Your actions are dictated by your beliefs and attitudes—therefore, changing the way you think will naturally change your behaviors and habits.
It’s important to understand here that your brain mostly works on autopilot—that is, instead of thinking through all possible decisions or reactions to a situation, your brain saves energy by automatically choosing what you usually do or whatever’s easiest.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Willpower Instinct for a deeper look at how autopilot decisions can rule your life.)
There are two ways you can override your autopilot: willpower and reprogramming. When you try to force new behaviors with willpower alone, you consciously choose to do the opposite of what your autopilot tells you to do. Instead of changing the thinking at the base of your behaviors, you’re changing only your behaviors—treating a symptom, instead of the disease.
This may work in short-term contexts—such as saying “no” to that cupcake once—but won’t work out in the long term. Your willpower simply isn’t as strong as your autopilot, so you’ll quickly wear out and fall back on automatic actions.
For long-term behavioral changes, you need to reprogram your autopilot so that your thoughts support the right behaviors. This is an ongoing project of consciously examining the thoughts that prompt your decisions and reactions, and realigning them with the way Jesus would think. There are two parts to this examination:
1) Identify and stop self-centered thoughts. Recognize when your thoughts are all about you, what you want, or how you feel. These sorts of thoughts are considered immature because they’re thoughts that an infant would have—they think only of themselves and their needs, interested only in taking rather than giving.
2) Make your thoughts about others. Consider how your self-centered thoughts could be more about others—how you can give rather than take. These thoughts focus on the perspective, needs, and feelings of others, and are considered mature.
It’s important here to think about what it means to be “spiritually mature.” Many people falsely believe that it means knowing a lot of information about the Bible and its concepts. While knowledge is important, it’s essential that you act on it.
Frequently reflect on your actions and ensure that they’re aligning with your thoughts. Ask yourself: Have I truly committed to being Christlike, or am I only doing half of the work?
Once you’ve committed to becoming more spiritually mature, God will use three tools to provide you with opportunities to further develop your character: his Word, other people, and circumstances.
Absorbing God’s Word and living by it should take high priority in your life, as it contains the truths that nourish your spirit and guide you in fulfilling your purposes. There are three everyday activities you can perform to internalize God’s Word and live your life by it.
The Bible is the guidebook for your life and should be where you turn when you need to make decisions or examine your behaviors. God’s word is an unfailingly reliable standard that will never lead you astray, as other authorities might, such as:
When making decisions, always ask yourself: “What does the Bible tell me to do?” Whatever God’s Word instructs, you must do with full faith in his authority.
Living by God’s Word becomes easier when you keep it, ready to use, in your mind. There are five common ways that people fill their minds with his Word.
It’s incorrect to think that once you’ve read something, you’ve absorbed the lessons and understood it. To truly understand the lessons of God’s Word, you need to apply them to your life.
Each time you read and study God’s Word, think about the lesson in it. Then, create a plan to use the lesson in your life. A good action plan is specific and has three parts: It’s personal and involves one of your own relationships or character development, it’s doable, and it has a deadline.
You can’t grow spiritually just by reading the Bible or praying—God wants you to grow with others because they lend you the support you need for meaningful growth. Sometimes applying the lessons of his Word can be difficult, or can expose something you don’t like about yourself such as weaknesses or corrupt morals. Sharing the journey of spiritual maturity—and all its difficulties—with a support system allows you to continue your growth in a number of ways:
Furthermore, other people are imperfect and may irritate you or test your patience. These interactions are a true test of your character—will you act selfishly, or will you choose to act as Jesus would? Every time you respond with patience and unselfish love in these moments, your character becomes more Christlike.
God puts difficult circumstances in your way in order to put you in an environment necessary for growth. If you always lived in your comfort zone, you would never learn about enduring pain, taking on seemingly insurmountable challenges, or stretching the limits of your faith.
However, the problems God puts in front of you won’t always help you with your character development. Difficult circumstances will only strengthen your character as long as you respond to them as Jesus would. Reacting in a selfish or immature way will only create resentment or frustration that holds you back instead of helping you grow.
The Bible outlines three ways that you can make sure your response to problems aligns with a Christlike character.
1) Remember that God is good. Always know that God is acting in your best interest—if he’s giving you pain or not responding to your prayers for assistance, it’s because he knows that’s what will be best for your character development.
In these hard moments, turn your focus away from your problem and toward God’s plan—reminding yourself that there is a reason behind your suffering can help alleviate it.
2) Give thanks. God wants us to give thanks in all circumstances. This doesn’t mean you have to be thankful for the circumstance—it would certainly be difficult to find a way to be thankful for pain or suffering. Rather, God wants you to be thankful that because of the circumstance, you can learn and develop your character.
3) Keep going. You’ll likely feel the temptation to give up on your circumstances or turn away from God. Make the choice to grow spiritually—keep moving forward with faith, patience, and perseverance. The only path to character development is through your circumstances. Avoiding problems or trying to find a shortcut through them causes you to miss out on crucial moments of leaning into faith or pushing through fear.
You may think that temptation is an obstacle in your path to becoming Christlike, but it’s actually a valuable learning opportunity. God puts you in situations where you’ll want to act in direct opposition to the qualities Jesus possessed, such as love, patience, faithfulness, and self-control. When you make the choice to stick to Jesus-like qualities in these situations, you develop the strength of your character.
The most crucial aspect of these temptations that God creates is that there’s a choice to make. Your character is like a muscle—it needs resistance to develop and strengthen.
Before you can effectively resist temptation, it’s important to understand what it is. Fortunately, temptation is incredibly predictable—the Bible reveals that Satan always relies on the same four-part process to lead believers astray:
1) Satan identifies your desire and urges you to fulfill it. These desires might be evil, such as the desire to get revenge on someone, or they might be legitimate but only when exercised at the right time for the right reason, such as sexual pleasure.
2) Satan makes you doubt God’s Word. He plants questions in your mind such as, “Does God really say this is bad?” or “Wouldn’t God want me to do this and be happy?” Remember that God’s Word is never wrong and his guidelines will never fail you.
3) Satan lies to you about the consequences. This is dangerous because he sounds authoritative, but he’s always lying. He’ll tell you “Nothing bad will happen. No one will find out. This isn’t a big enough sin to follow me. It has to be fine because others are doing it.” But, everything you do has eternal consequences—giving into temptation and sinning shows up on God’s radar.
4) You act on the thought. Satan’s suggestions, coupled with your internal questions and doubts manifest in sin.
Knowing the mechanisms of temptation puts you on the offense against it, rather than defense—it’s always much easier to stay away from temptation than it is to get out of temptation. There are four key actions you can take to keep your mind alert to the risk of temptation and ready to overcome it.
There are two crucial ideas to understand about temptation: It’s normal and it doesn’t go away with spiritual maturity.
1) It’s normal. Many Christians feel that temptation is a sign of failure or weakness on their part, and they can be discouraged from their efforts to develop their spiritual maturity—this thinking misses out on three key points about why temptation happens.
2) It doesn’t go away with spiritual maturity. You might hold the false belief that you’re spiritually mature enough not to be vulnerable to temptation anymore. Keep in mind that even Jesus dealt with temptation throughout his life.
We know temptation is in the mind, not the environment itself. Think about what types of situations bring your inner desires to the surface. Keep in mind that Satan knows what these situations are, so you have to figure them out too if you want to stay a step ahead of him.
A good way to think about your triggers is going through basic questioning of who, what, where, when, and why:
Once you’ve figured out the situations that most frequently make you feel tempted, resolve to avoid them. For example, if you always feel tempted to gossip with a certain coworker on the train home on Fridays, either don’t commute with her anymore or keep your conversations away from gossipy topics.
It doesn’t do you any good to fight against Satan’s focus on your desire—he’ll always win. Thoughts of temptation only become stronger the more you try to fight against them, much like someone telling you, “Don’t think about a white bear.” Suddenly, that’s all you can think about.
However, you can diminish the power of a thought simply by occupying your mind with other topics.
When faced with temptation, be humble and ask for help from others instead of fighting on your own. There are two places you can turn to for help in overcoming your temptations:
1) Turn to God. Ask him to help you and have faith that he’ll give you the tools you need. People often skip this step, afraid to ask God for help for various reasons.
In a way, God likes it when you deal with temptation because it strengthens both your dependence on him and your character—you first lean into your faith to get the tools you need, and then you become more like Jesus when you overcome the temptation.
2) Turn to a friend or support group. Talk about your struggles with someone you can be honest with, like a good friend, your fellowship group, or your pastor. Their support—which includes their encouragement, their prayers, and their efforts to hold you accountable for your actions—vastly improves your chances of overcoming your temptation.
Remember that character development doesn’t happen all at once—it’s a lifetime process that has setbacks and stagnation. You’ll never be just like Jesus in this life because it’s only when you arrive in eternity or when Jesus returns to earth that you’ll be able to perfectly see him and adjust your character to be exactly like his. In the meantime, your purpose is to strive toward a Christlike character.
Because this work takes so long, it might be easy to forget about it or think that it’s okay to “cheat” now and then. It’s crucial to always remember that character matters far more than anything you have on earth. It’s the only thing you take into eternity with you.
Keeping this in mind is important because in forgetting your commitment to Christlike character, you become vulnerable to the influence of others, such as your family, friends, or colleagues. When you shape yourself according to your commitments to them, you risk missing out on the spiritual maturity that gives you meaning in life and promises eternal life. Regularly check in and ask yourself:
The Holy Spirit’s power doesn’t come to you in grand moments—it appears in small moments where you choose the right thing to do.
Describe a situation in which you felt weak or afraid, and doing the right thing felt impossible. (For example, you struggle with a gambling addiction. When you got your last paycheck, the temptation to spend it on the slots made you feel powerless.)
What was the “right thing” that you chose to do? (For example, you chose to take your paycheck right to the bank and deposit it in your savings, so you couldn’t touch it.)
How did you feel the Holy Spirit’s power supporting you after you made this choice? (For example, once you made the decision to deposit the check you felt excited and sure of yourself—you went straight to the bank with no hesitation.)
How do you think this situation developed your Christlike character? (For example, you were tempted to act selfishly and without self-control, but by resisting the temptation you made the choice to act as Jesus would.)
In this week of your journey, we’ll discuss how God didn’t put you on earth just to live for yourself. He wants you to serve others—this is called ministry, the fourth purpose for your life. According to the Bible, all Christians are called to ministry—you answer this call by using your God-given gifts to serve others, thereby doing what God made you to do and bringing him glory.
The way God planned for you to serve others is uniquely yours. It may not be obvious to you what this unique ministry is yet. This is normal; many people aren’t sure what they’re good at or haven’t yet tried out the type of service that feels right.
You discover the ministry you were made to perform through self-examination—thinking about what service you’re cut out for—and trial and error—trying out different types of service until you find the right fit.
We’ll first look at what makes up each of these aspects, and then will discuss how to put them together into a unique ministry that feels right.
Your spiritual gifts are capabilities that are gifted to you by God when you become a believer—you discover them with his help and the help of your spiritual family.
Unlike talents that you’re born with, your spiritual gifts are not for your personal enjoyment. They were given to you to be used in your ministry. Furthermore, you don’t have a choice in which gifts you do or don’t have—God gives out gifts within a church with the aim of diversity.
Your heart includes everything you truly care about and what motivates or inspires you—ambitions, dreams, goals, sources of joy, and so on. God gave you these particular interests to drive you toward the place you’ll best serve.
Your heart reflects your innermost desires, not the desires you want to have or the ones you project for other people to see. You can tell which of your activities come from the heart by checking your enthusiasm and effectiveness.
Abilities are things you’re naturally good at. They differ from spiritual gifts in a few ways:
God gives everyone abilities, and studies have shown that most people possess anywhere from 500-700 abilities. If you think that you don’t have any, it simply means that you haven’t discovered yours yet, or you think that your different skills aren’t special or significant enough to be called “abilities.”
No one in the world has exactly the same combination of personality traits as you. It’s important to understand your particular combination because the type of service that best suits you depends heavily on what kind of person you are—there’s not a “wrong” or “right” way to serve, but there is the possibility of a service-personality mismatch.
God wants you to find a ministry that perfectly suits your personality. When your service and personality don’t match, you’ll feel uncomfortable or tense, and your service will not only take much more effort from you than it should, but it also may not be very effective.
While you’re figuring out what type of ministry suits you, it’s okay to observe the ministry of others. However, be careful that you’re not trying to replicate their ministry—their personality is undoubtedly different from yours in many subtle ways and therefore their ministry won’t fit you. After getting ideas from your observation, view them through the filter of your own personality, and tweak them to better fit you.
God introduced all sorts of experiences into your life to shape who you’ve become and help you serve others. There are six main types of shaping experiences:
Of these six, painful experiences are generally the most helpful to your service, as they teach you empathy. You can effectively help others through tough situations because you’ve been there yourself and understand their emotions.
The best ministry happens when you use your whole SHAPE—that is, you use your abilities and spiritual gifts in a way that aligns with your heart and personality, and is supported by your experiences. Once you’ve reflected on all the aspects of your SHAPE, think about how you might put them together to create your ministry. There are three parts to this:
This assessment is important because it gives you clear clues about what God wants you to do with your life. He wouldn’t have you do something that felt difficult—he’ll give you something that aligns with what you’re good at. Be honest in assessing what you’re good at and what you aren’t good at:
Reflection is good for sorting those abilities and gifts you’ve already tried or others have witnessed. To discover gifts and abilities, take a trial-and-error approach to different areas of service. It’s essential to jump right into this experimentation because waiting to figure out what you’re good at first will only delay you in finding your ministry and fulfilling your purpose. Simply try anything that a) catches your interest and b) is something you haven’t done before. Either you’ll discover that you aren’t cut out for it and can move on to another experiment, or you’ll discover a new ability you didn’t know you had.
This step helps you think about how you can use what you care about alongside who you are. As with the assessment of your spiritual gifts and abilities, go through an honest self-evaluation.
This exercise will help you see why certain experiences happened to you. In the moment, problems may have just looked like problems, but in hindsight, you’ll be able to see the lessons God wanted you to use for your ministry.
Think back on your life and jot down different events—good and bad—that you can recall.
The best ministry uses your abilities and spiritual gifts in a way that aligns with your heart and personality and is supported by your experiences.
List your abilities and gifts, remembering that no ability is insignificant. (For example, you might be good at cooking, public speaking, letter-writing, and sewing.)
Think about your heart—what activities make you feel fulfilled, or make you completely lose track of time? (For example, any day that you spend on yard work feels like a “good day,” or you lose track of time when you’re trying new baking techniques.)
Describe your personality, within the context of work you might do for and with others. (For example, you might describe yourself as someone who’s extroverted and doesn’t like structure, but likes working as part of a team.)
What unique experiences do you think have taught you valuable lessons to teach others? (For example, you had a very good boss who taught you how to effectively manage teams, or you had a painful experience that prepared you to help others dealing with grief.)
Knowing your unique ministry is the first vital part of serving others—the second vital part is developing your servant’s heart. Your ministry must be accompanied by your servant’s heart for two reasons:
A servant’s heart is made up of who you are and how you feel—a combination of character and attitude that lend themselves to serving others.
Anyone can perform acts of service in their church, but not everyone is doing it for the right reason—rather than these acts coming from their heart, they come from a need to be recognized or the desire to be liked. A true servant has a strong, developed character of servitude. There are five characteristics that indicate that service is part of who you are.
Keep your schedule unburdened enough to be able to answer the call to service when it comes, or be willing to put aside less important matters to answer the call. As a servant, you must be willing to let God interfere with your schedule as he needs to—those who only serve when they feel like it or when it’s convenient aren’t true servants.
True servants always look for ways that they might be able to serve others and take opportunities as soon as they spot them. You need perception and flexibility to fulfill this characteristic:
To work on your servant’s perception and flexibility, make a point of looking for small, unnoticeable tasks that need to be done.
This will train your eye for subtle places to help, and teach you to adjust your schedule around what needs to be done—not vice versa.
True servants always do the best they can, no matter the circumstances. They don’t wait for better timing or better tools, and they don’t make excuses—they use whatever they have and jump into their work. This is because they understand that thoughts don’t count as service; imperfect service is much better than thoughts of service that never gets carried out.
You may be hesitating to serve or waiting for a “better time” because you think you have nothing worthy to offer. There are two arguments that can help you get over this mindset:
Beyond doing their best, true servants give the same amount of dedication to every task. No service is beneath them, or too small—everything is done with their whole heart. Many people are only willing to perform grand gestures of service. Reveal your servant’s heart by being the person who is willing to take care of the small things.
Servants are dependable—they do what they say they will, whether it’s a task they need to get done or a promise they need to keep. In a world where it seems to be increasingly difficult to get people to stick to their commitments, servants are steadfastly trustworthy and reliable.
Servants don’t need to be noticed or praised for their service—they do humble service and don’t go out of their way to get attention for it. If they do get praise, they acknowledge it but don’t let it change the way they serve or get in the way of it.
If you catch yourself feeling upset that your ministry seems unimportant or is going unnoticed, remember who it’s for. God sees everything—he notices your ministry and he appreciates it.
Along with a developed character, true servants have certain attitudes that reveal their true commitment to serving to help others rather than tally up accomplishments. True servants hold five common attitudes toward service.
Think about others’ needs before thinking about your own. When your own needs aren’t the center of your focus, you more easily avoid the mistake of consciously or unconsciously participating in service for selfish reasons.
Imagine that you were interested in becoming the head of your church’s outreach committee. Your church puts out a call for volunteers to help with an upcoming event.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Road to Character for more insight into the “me first” attitude and tips on becoming more selfless.)
It takes time to develop an unselfish attitude toward service. There are two aspects to this development:
1) Practice: You’ll continually be presented with situations that force you to choose between meeting your needs and meeting the needs of someone else. Every time, consciously choose the latter. This practice will always be difficult—humans are naturally selfish, after all—but over time it’ll become more ingrained in your natural mindset.
2) Regular check-ins: Reflect on how you feel when others treat you like a servant, such as when they take you for granted or are demanding of you. If you don’t notice, you’re serving from a place where their needs come first. If you feel upset or resentful, you’re letting your needs—for appreciation or an open schedule, for example—come first. When you feel negative about your role as a servant, identify which of your needs is clamoring for your attention, and consciously put it aside and refocus on your service.
True servants remember their commitment to stewardship. All of their gifts—tangible and intangible—have been entrusted to them by God to take care of and use in a trustworthy manner. When you choose to use the abilities, personality, or experiences God gave you for your personal pleasure instead of service to others, you’re using your gifts in an untrustworthy way.
Many people don’t realize that money is a gift entrusted to them like everything else in their lives, to be used carefully and unselfishly.
In the Bible, Jesus spends more time talking about the role of money in our lives than he spends talking about heaven or hell—it’s that important for you to think about it. God gives you money to test your faithfulness and see if you’ll choose to serve him or serve your wealth. To be clear, it’s not sinful to have money or wealth. However, it is sinful to prioritize your wealth over your service, or refuse to use your wealth for God’s glory. Instead of wealth-building—that is, amassing as much wealth as possible—focus on kingdom-building. Kingdom builders focus on making money not for personal pleasure, but for the purpose of giving it away or spending it on the church and the church’s efforts to spread the message of God’s glory.
A true servant only focuses on her own work, not the work of others—competing not only subtracts from time spent on her ministry, but it’s also useless in several ways.
True servants not only avoid criticizing others, but they also avoid listening to criticism. When people don’t understand your unique ministry, they might try to get you to change how you serve so that you better fit their idea of what service should look like.
True servants who feel secure about their identity in Christ are able to fully live the characteristic of dedication. Their secure identity means that they never feel the need to prove the legitimacy or importance of their work, so they’re not insecure about doing menial tasks.
True, secure servants are able to focus completely on their work, instead of being distracted by how they look to others.
True servants are happy to serve because it allows them to express gratitude for all they’ve received. They never think of their service as an obligation—rather, it’s a joyful opportunity to celebrate everything they have and demonstrate God’s goodness to others.
Remember that everything God gave you is to fulfill the purposes he planned for you—even your weaknesses. The Bible is full of examples of ordinary, flawed people being used by God to accomplish amazing things.
It can be hard to stop seeing your weaknesses as anything besides drawbacks or obstacles, but there are four steps you can take to reframe your thinking and discover how your weaknesses can serve others.
Like many people, you probably hide your weaknesses or deny that they exist. These can be physical weaknesses or disabilities, or emotional weaknesses like mental illness or trauma.
In order for your weaknesses to evolve and for God to use them as intended, you have to bring them into the open. Identifying and naming your weaknesses is the first step to finding their power. Sit down and make an honest list of your weaknesses. Keep two ideas in mind:
It’s normal to feel discontent or resentment toward your weaknesses. However, their power won’t be revealed to you unless you accept them—acceptance opens your mind to trusting God’s decisions and understanding that he created your weaknesses with your best interests in mind.
When you accept your weaknesses, you’ll find that they serve four important roles in your life:
This is a courageous step—it requires you to show vulnerability and risk the possibility of shame or rejection. Sharing your weakness is vital to your ministry.
Keeping your guard up and projecting a perfect image of yourself keeps you distant from others in several ways.
On the other hand, being open about your own flaws or failures makes others feel safe to share their flaws and failures without fear of judgment. They know you’ll understand them, and the lessons you’ve learned from your experiences can help them. Furthermore, seeing you as a flawed person being used by God to serve others signals that they, too, have the potential to serve.
Instead of being ashamed of your weakness, celebrate that you can serve despite your weakness. This is proof of God’s goodness—he knows all of your flaws, yet loves you and includes you in his work.
Satan might plant thoughts in your mind, mocking your weaknesses. Don’t deny or argue with what he says. Rather, agree with him and point out why it’s useful to have your particular flaws.
Whereas your ministry is your service to other believers, your mission—your responsibility to go out into the world as a witness and messenger of God’s glory—is your service to unbelievers. In this last week of your journey, we’ll discuss how your mission is some of your most important work for a number of reasons:
Your mission has two parts: the first, your life message, is unique to you. Your second, representing Christianity everywhere, is a mission shared by all Christians.
Your life message is the story of your experience with God. This story helps you explain to unbelievers the benefits of discovering their faith and joining God’s family. Your message has four main parts.
In giving your personal testimony, you share how God has made a difference in your life, covering how you started your relationship with Jesus and the different ways the power of the Holy Spirit has helped you. Besides its value in being unique to you, this testimony carries weight when speaking to unbelievers:
Prepare your testimony ahead of time and reflect on it so that it’s ready when you meet an unbeliever who would benefit from hearing it. There are just a few points to remember:
Tell unbelievers about the truths you’ve learned from the experiences God has given you, such as your relationships, failures, successes, temptations, and so on. This helps show the meaning behind everything that happens—this is especially helpful to those who don’t know how to find lessons in their experiences, and those who are too young to have had meaningful life experiences yet.
Reflect on the experiences of your life and write down what you feel are the most special or important lessons you’ve learned from them. Look for varied examples, such as:
At some point in your life, God will give you a passion for something he cares deeply about—he wants you to become passionate about it so you’ll be compelled to speak about it to others and find a way to make a difference with it. There are many forms your passion might take:
The last part of your life message is your explanation of the wonderful gifts that come along with trusting and obeying God, such as a deep sense of meaning, unselfish love, forgiveness of our sins, and the promise of eternal life. The time and effort you focus on the person you’re speaking to also serves as a demonstration of the love they can expect as a member of God’s family.
You might feel hesitant to talk to people about the Good News because you’re afraid they won’t listen or will reject your ideas—this is selfish. Acting with unselfish love means putting your fears aside and putting the eternal interests of the unbeliever first.
Besides your unique mission, you have the mission you share with all Christians—spreading the Good News and representing the best of Christianity across the world, just as Jesus did. He wasn’t content with just his family and friends being believers, and neither should you. Rather, like him, you should work all your life to ensure that everyone around you knows about God.
This is a big task, but the only true limits to it are mental. There are four mindsets that might be blocking you from fully committing to your shared mission:
Spreading the Good News is a type of service, so it makes sense that you must consciously put others’ needs first. When you speak to unbelievers, think about what they need from you, not the other way around. Talk to them with the intention of learning about how far along they are on their spiritual journey. Then, think about how you might help them progress a bit more.
God has told us through his Word that he wants believers from every nation. Expand your mission further than your everyday community and start thinking about other countries, different cultures, and communities that contrast with your own. There are a few ways you can develop your global thinking:
Don’t concentrate on small issues or whatever feels more urgent than your mission work. Keep the idea of eternity in your mind—it will urge you to do what’s right rather than convenient and to do what matters eternally rather than what matters right now.
Reflect on your thinking often to make sure it’s from an eternal perspective, not a present one. Ask yourself: What present, unimportant issues am I putting in the way of my mission?
Don’t let excuses deter you from answering the call to spread God’s Word—as they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. There are many excuses people come up with:
One excuse that many Christians use to explain why they missed out on their mission is that they were waiting on God to give them some sort of sign that they’re “chosen” or “ready” for their assignment. God’s Word has already told us—numerous times—that he calls us to spread the Good News, show his glory, and help him enhance his kingdom. He’s not going to give you a big signal—his Word is the sign you’re waiting for.
God wants you to spread word of his glory as far as you can. Today, this is more possible than ever—as long as you have your mental barriers out of the way.
What is your excuse for not completing your mission of representing Christianity around the world? (For example, you might think you’re too old or are afraid of leaving the country alone.)
What solutions can you think of to overcome this barrier? (For example, you can look for mission trips for older adults, or find a friend from your church to join a trip with you.)
What issues or events are getting in the way of completing your mission, because you’re attributing too much importance to them? (For example, you want to spend your spring break relaxing on a beach instead of on a mission trip, or you don’t want to take a week off work in case you miss something important.)
Your five purposes are lifelong work, and at times it will feel easier than other times. There are three major ways to keep yourself on track as you move forward: looking out for traps, regularly checking in on your balance, and preparing a purpose statement.
Throughout your life, you’ll repeatedly be confronted with two traps that distract you from doing God’s work: envy and approval-seeking. We’ll discuss what each of these traps looks like and how to overcome them so that you can easily move past them and stay on track with your purposes.
It’s normal to be interested in what other people are doing, and the different skills, personalities, or gifts they have. God likes it when we celebrate and study the diversity he created.
However, if your interest turns into envy—that is, you begin to resent ways in which you weren’t made like others, or compare your unique work to that of others—you lose sight of the meaning and purpose of your life.
You’ll want to notice and shut down your envy as soon as possible because it’s destructive and distracting in four ways.
If you feel yourself becoming envious of others and distracted from your purposes, there are four mindset adjustments you can make to reduce your envy.
1) Stop comparing: Our uniqueness makes humans incomparable to one another, and God would never judge you for not being something he didn’t make you to be. Follow his lead.
2) Celebrate others: It’s tempting to feel envious when good happens to someone else, but not you—for example when a friend gets engaged while you’re still single, or a sibling gets a promotion at work while you’re stuck in a dead-end job. This usually happens because we feel that there’s a limited amount of “good” that God gives, and someone else receiving it means there’s less for you. This doesn’t make sense—God’s goodness is limitless.
This step will substantially increase the happiness you feel throughout your life. If you’re only happy when you experience good, you miss out on hundreds or thousands of opportunities to be happy in celebrating others experiencing good.
3) Practice gratitude: Envy convinces you that what you have now isn’t enough, and only having “more” will make you happy. This is a myth—if you’re unable to be happy with everything already in your possession, you’ll be unsatisfied no matter how much you have.
4) Trust God: Envy is a symptom of doubting God—in thinking you should be different, you’re doubting the choices he’s made for you. Reflect on reminders of God’s love and proof that he knows better than you:
Approval-seeking, like envy, can easily make you lose sight of what’s truly important in your life. We’re made to cherish our relationships, so it makes sense to want to feel accepted, valued, and loved. These feelings are important because they’re what strengthen your bonds with others and gain the power and confidence to be you and fulfill your purposes.
However, the desire for acceptance and love can easily go too far and become approval-seeking—that is, you need the approval and acceptance of others to be happy, and you fear the possibility of rejection or disapproval. This need can drive you to turn away from trying new things, taking risks, or doing the right thing—it stands directly in the path of the work necessary to fulfill your purposes.
Being driven by the need for others’ approval damages your life in several ways:
The need for approval is Satan’s way to ensure that God’s message to the world is stifled as much as possible. Stay away from this trap by continually reminding yourself of three important truths:
Even those with the best intentions may lose sight of the necessity of balance between their purposes, choosing to focus on those that they’re enthusiastic about and choosing to ignore those that they’re not particularly interested in.
There are four activities that can help you take regular stock of the balance you’re keeping among your purposes.
Reading about your purposes is a great first step, but it’s important to engage in regular conversation and reflection about them with others. Through discussion, you can gain a better understanding of your purposes and get new ideas about how to fulfill them, strengthen your faith, and receive suggestions for improvement.
Being accountable to someone else is especially important when you start backsliding on any of your purposes. First, they’re likely to point out the issue before you even notice it. Second, they’ll act as a source of encouragement, ideas, and suggestions to get you back on track.
Accountability partners don’t just happen. You’ll have to find and approach them yourself.
Every now and then, check in on your spiritual health and honestly evaluate how you feel you’re doing in the areas of worship, fellowship, character growth, ministry, and your mission.
During this check-in, ask yourself questions such as:
Journaling is useful both for tracking your progress and growth and for spotting areas of your life where you’re not picking up lessons or working to fulfill your purposes.
Schedule a regular time each week to sit down and write about what you did during the week and a) the lessons you learned from your experiences and b) how your actions helped fulfill your purposes.
Knowing the purpose of your life is a wonderful gift—share your knowledge with others, so that they can feel the same hope and meaning that you do. This will help keep your purposes in balance because sharing what you know about purpose driven living isn’t just telling others what to do—you’re a living demonstration of what it’s all about.
Knowing that others are looking to you as an example naturally forces you to check in with yourself and identify where you may be slacking.
Because your purposes are a lifetime project, you may occasionally put them on the back burner or get distracted by other plans, goals, or temptations. A purpose statement is a summary of the purposes of your life—a spiritual touchstone that you can return to regularly to realign your priorities and ensure that you’re living a purpose driven life.
Create your purpose statement by writing down your commitments to your five purposes and your ideas for how you’ll best fulfill them and commit to them:
In addition to your full purpose statement, think of a short slogan that is worded in a way that you can easily remember—memorize it and reflect on it often.
Create a written purpose statement that you can easily refer to when you feel that your purposes aren’t at the center of your life.
What are your indicators that God isn’t at the center of your life? (For example, you notice that you start to feel anxious about what other people think about you, or feel inexplicably restless.)
How can you maintain harmony and unity within your spiritual family? (For example, you commit to facing conflict rather than turning away and trying to learn about people who irritate you.)
How do you plan to use your SHAPE to serve others? (For example, your love of cooking and working with others led you to find working in your church’s soup kitchen as your ministry.)
What are the most important lessons God has given you to share with others in your mission? (For example, you spent much of your adult life as an unbeliever. As a result, you can clearly articulate how life before finding God differs from life after finding God.)
Write down the short, memorable slogan that will help you keep your purposes in mind. It should touch all five purposes—worship, unselfish fellowship, spiritual maturity, ministry, and mission. (For example, “My purpose in this life is to thank God and talk to him as much as I can, bring my most authentic and loving self to my church, always choose to do what Jesus would do, serve others in a way that feels right to me, and share what I know about God with everyone.”)