There's more than this life!

This life is not all there is!

“God has…planted eternity in the human heart.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT)

Life on Earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production. You will spend far more time on the other side of death – in eternity – than you will here. This life is preparation for the next.

You have an inborn instinct that longs for immortality. This is because God designed you, in his image, to live for eternity. Even though we know everyone eventually dies, death always seems unnatural and unfair. The reason we feel we should live forever is that God wired our brains with that desire!

Matthew Henry said, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our final day.”

What drives your life?

Everyone’s life is driven by something!

“I observed that the basic motive for success is the driving force of envy and jealousy.” Ecclesiastes 4:4 (LB)

What is the driving force in your life?

Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. There are five great benefits of living a purpose driven life:

- Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life
- Simplifies your life
- Focuses your life
- Motivates your life
- And knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity

Many people spend their lives trying to create a lasting legacy on Earth. Yet what ultimately matters most will not be what others say about your life but what God says. Living to create an Earthly legacy is a shortsighted goal. A wiser use of time is to build an eternal legacy. You weren’t put on Earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

What drives your life?

Everyone’s life is driven by something!

“I observed that the basic motive for success is the driving force of envy and jealousy.” Ecclesiastes 4:4 (LB)

What is the driving force in your life?

Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. There are five great benefits of living a purpose driven life:

- Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life
- Simplifies your life
- Focuses your life
- Motivates your life
- And knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity

Many people spend their lives trying to create a lasting legacy on Earth. Yet what ultimately matters most will not be what others say about your life but what God says. Living to create an Earthly legacy is a shortsighted goal. A wiser use of time is to build an eternal legacy. You weren’t put on Earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

You are not an accident!

You are not an accident!

Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it. God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates.

“Long before he laid down Earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love.” Ephesians 1:4a (MSG)

Why did God bother to go to all the trouble of creating a universe for us? Because he is a God of love. This kind of love is difficult to fathom, but it’s fundamentally reliable. You were created as a special object of God’s love! God made you so he could love you. This is a truth to build your life on!

Day One

It's not about you!

"For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, … everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." Colossians 1:16 (MSG)

"It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power." Job 12:10 (TEV)

You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not using him for your own purpose. Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose.

The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life's purpose: Ask God.

Andrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up under an atheistic Communist regime. But God got his attention one dreary day. He recalls, "In my 27th year, while riding the metro in Leningrad I was overcome with a despair so great that life seemed to stop at once, preempting the future entirely, let alone any meaning. Suddenly, all by itself, a phrase appeared: 'Without God life makes no sense.' Repeating it in astonishment, I rode the phrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro, and walked into God's light."

You may have felt in the dark about your purpose in life. Congratulations, you're about to walk into the light.

Why am I here?

Almost every night when I pray with my 5 yr. old son, I say to him that God has a plan for his life. I have asked that thousands of times. That's why I am so excited for these next 40 days - to discover answers and see the light come on for so many!

Blogging "on purpose"

As we begin a 40 day adventure in discovering our purposes at Journey Church, I will be posting daily devotionals on this blog.

Starting Monday, Oct. 29th, check back daily for a message that coincides with our weekly study and connect group talk. This is going to be a great time together!

Wow, what a gathering........

Last night, we had our monthly "Vision Nights", a time where volunteers and servant-leaders gather at our home. Steve Kelly, a mentor of mine and a pastor in Virginia Beach, VA came a spoke about "growing with the growth". I so appreciated his talk.

Wherever God wants to take you, you must grow to get there.

We want a larger future, so we must become larger ourselves.

Riding the Wave....

Aaron Bracey, Kyle and I are at a leadership conference out here in Virginia this week (we drove all night Monday night - wow I really don't like drinking red bulls and coffee to avoid a tree collision!!)

So far, it's been really great. I will share about the conference in the upcoming days and share what we've been discussing. Should be interesting reading....

Staining wood and hearing God.....

I've been staining some wood bookcases that will eventually go into a room in our house that I will use as a study. It's taking me FOREVER - but it also reminds me of our discussion last night at the ALPHA discussion group.

We talked about 5 ways to hear from God (the Bible, inner voice, from others, common sense and unusual ways - such as dreams and visions)

These are all layers to hearing God. We all want to receive guidance at times in our life - for both large and small questions. And often times God will answer us in "layers", sometimes speaking to us in the Word, sometimes by others. Yet, many times they will confirm one another. They SHOULD confirm one another.

It deepens the meaning of what He is saying - kind of like shades of stain on wooden bookcases