The Purpose Driven Life(69)
God wants to use you to make a difference in his world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.
If you’re not involved in any service or ministry, what excuse have you been using? Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least, Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid. That is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each of them in his service. He will use you, too, if you stop making excuses.
DAY TWENTY-NINE
THINKING ABOUT MY PURPOSE
Point to Ponder: Service is not optional.
Verse to Remember: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
Question to Consider: What is holding me back from accepting God’s call to serve him?
30
Shaped for Serving God
Your hands shaped me and made me.
Job 10:8 (NIV)
The people I have shaped for myself will broadcast my praises.
Isaiah 43:21 (NJB)
You were shaped to serve God.
God formed every creature on this planet with a special area of expertise. Some animals run, some hop, some swim, some burrow, and some fly. Each has a particular role to play, based on the way they were shaped by God. The same is true with humans. Each of us was uniquely designed, or “shaped,” to do certain things.
Before architects design any new building they first ask, “What will be its purpose? How will it be used?” The intended function always determines the form of the building. Before God created you, he decided what role he wanted you to play on earth. He planned exactly how he wanted you to serve him, and then he shaped you for those tasks. You are the way you are because you were made for a specific ministry.
The Bible says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.”1 Our English word poem comes from the Greek word translated “workmanship.” You are God’s handcrafted work of art. You are not an assembly-line product, mass produced without thought. You are a custom-designed, one-of-a-kind, original masterpiece.
God never wastes anything.
God deliberately shaped and formed you to serve him in a way that makes your ministry unique. He carefully mixed the DNA cocktail that created you. David praised God for this incredible personal attention to detail: “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous.”2 As Ethel Waters said, “God doesn’t make junk.”
Not only did God shape you before your birth, he planned every day of your life to support his shaping process. David continues, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”3 This means that nothing that happens in your life is insignificant. God uses all of it to mold you for your ministry to others and shape you for your service to him.
God never wastes anything. He would not give you abilities, interests, talents, gifts, personality, and life experiences unless he intended to use them for his glory. By identifying and understanding these factors you can discover God’s will for your life.
The Bible says you are “wonderfully complex.” You are a combination of many different factors. To help you remember five of these factors, I have created a simple acrostic: SHAPE. In this chapter and the next we will look at these five factors, and following that, I will explain how to discover and use your shape.
HOW GOD SHAPES YOU FOR YOUR MINISTRY
Whenever God gives us an assignment, he always equips us with what we need to accomplish it. This custom combination of capabilities is called your SHAPE:
Spiritual gifts
Heart
Abilities
Personality
Experience
SHAPE: UNWRAPPING YOUR SPIRITUAL GIFTS
God gives every believer spiritual gifts to be used in ministry.4 These are special God-empowered abilities for serving him that are given only to believers. The Bible says, “Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God’s Spirit.”5
You can’t earn your spiritual gifts or deserve them—that’s why they are called gifts! They are an expression of God’s grace to you. “Christ has generously divided out his gifts to us.”6 Neither do you get to choose which gifts you’d like to have; God determines that. Paul explained, “It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”7