Wednesday 30 October 2013

What Drives Your Life? Day 3 of 'What on earth am I here for?'

I'm enjoying the various Bible translations which Rick Warren uses. Often, I have to go back to a more familiar version - usually the NIV - to 'translate' the verse in my head. The freshness of new interpretations keeps me on my toes.
That's good.

This chapter has yielded a few nuggets.
'Everyone's life is driven by something. ..Whether you are driving a car, a nail, or a golf ball, you are guiding, controlling and directing it at that moment....
Many people are driven by guilt. They spend their entire lives running from regrets and hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future.
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it. God's purpose is not limited by your past.
Many people are driven by resentment and anger. To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do. Job 5:2
Many people are driven by fear. ...but 'Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love. 1 John 4:18
Many people are driven by materialism. Self-worth and net worth are not the same. your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things"
Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you - your relationship with God.
...many people are driven by the need for approval. ...those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it...Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purposes for your life.
...a purpose-driven life (is) a life guided, controlled, and directed by God's purposes Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless.
Without God, life has not purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope...
Purpose-driven living leads to a simpler lifestyle and a saner schedule.
Purpose always produces passion.'

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Purpose Driven

We have begun Rick Warren's 'What on earth am I here for?' (The Purpose Driven Life).
Trying to draw out some nuggets...

Day One: It all starts with God...but...

Day Two: I am not an accident. God purposed for me to be born where I was, how I was, what I was like...and although I often think of how God has blessed me and how things could have been.. 'there but for the grace of God go I...' yet I AM here, in the body he has given me and the circumstances and relationships in which he has placed me.
It is hard to get my head around this huge-beyond-reason-and-understanding-mighty-God who is so intentional about every tiny bit of his universe, where even the hairs on my head have been counted by him.
I can't. I can't understand it/him but I CAN accept and live my like in the knowledge that he has planned me for his good purposes. I just need to find out what they are...