What Does a Purpose-filled Life Mean? - Made for More: Episode 1

Hi, Victorious Living family, welcome to Stepping Forward with Sheridan Korea. I am your host and thank you for tuning in. Hey, friends, I am a living, breathing testimony of the transforming power of Jesus Christ. And I know that I know that I know that I know that He lives, His word and His life in me is alive and active, amen. And He has freed me from so many things. He has freed me from mental illness, mental unwell-being, from having a mind that is saturated with lies and shame and deception and following after temptation easily, all of those things. He has saved me from and delivered me from addiction. He has delivered me from incarceration, from bitterness, from unforgiveness, from broken relationships, so many things. But God is so good, amen. And family, I just want to remind you, if we say yes to God and we follow Him, truly follow Him and live out His plans and His purposes for our life, then you will be changed. You will be changed. Allow the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out. The Word of God says that the way you change a man or a woman is by changing the heart. That is how we are transformed, by changing our heart. So today we are going to talk about purpose. And I love this topic because if you were like me, I mean, for 37 years, I didn't know what was going on. I felt lost, I felt empty, I felt like I was wandering. A lot of the times I felt like, why am I here? Like what's up with this? Are we just like, do you look down and just, and do we just look like ants and we're just, you know, coiling away and wandering aimlessly and with no direction? And so I was really, really confused and or, you know, maybe you have thought, well, maybe my only purpose in life is to be abandoned, is to be hurt, is to be traumatized, is to be forgotten about. And that's just simply not true, family.

God does everything with intention and with attention. He created you and me with a purpose on purpose. So we're going to really dive into that today and about the plans and the purposes of God. So I first want to define or ask you a question, sorry, what is living a purpose-filled life mean to you? What does that mean to you? When I think about what that means to me in my life, that means that I am living intentionally. I am living with already knowing, already having a clarity and understanding of what's going on, that, excuse me, that I am living with direction, okay? I am living with alignment to something greater and bigger than myself, right? So if we see the whole story of God in the Bible, there's a whole plan of salvation. There's a whole God story going on from the beginning of time, and it'll continue to happen till the end of time. And family, we have an opportunity. We are invited into that story, praise God. But instead of drifting through life or simply reacting to circumstances, like we don't know what's going on, we're rooted in a sense of calling. We are rooted in a direction, and we are rooted and anchored in our identity, in our being, and our meaning, and our meaning and our being come from being a child of God. So what does that mean? What does that mean? Ephesians 1, if you read through Ephesians 1, you will get, oh gosh, I think 20 different identity words, 20 different or more different meanings of what that means to be a child of God, what it means to have a new identity. In Ephesians, Paul spells it out in Ephesians 1. So we're not going to get into that right now, but I want you to look at that and be underlining all of those words, chosen, called, holy, beloved, and so, so many more. That is who you are. That is how God sees you. That is how God thinks about you.

Amen. So some of the dimensions of what it can mean to live a purpose-filled life is first knowing who you are. I think one of the most important questions that we can ask ourselves is who am I and why do I exist? Okay, two, two questions. Who am I and why do I exist? If you're like me, who am I can get kind of blurry sometimes. And who am I determines, the answer to who am I determines the direction and the path that I am on. It determines and influences the way that I think, the way that I feel and what I do. So being aligned in that truth and knowing with a certainty who I am means everything. It is the most important question. And followed right behind that is who do I belong to? If I am a child of God, that means that I belong to God because I'm of God, right? So I belong to God. So what does that mean for my life? Why do I exist? What difference is that gonna make in my life? Living out your God-given identity, gifts and values instead of comparing with other people or people pleasing or allowing your past and the things that you have walked through or even fear dictate your direction, it is everything, it is everything. That is going to help us to come underneath and walk out our purposed life that God has given us.

When we recognize that we are uniquely created for a reason and that is found in Psalm 139 verses 13 through 16. Now I'm gonna read that right now. 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. How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. I love this scripture because it does give us a different perspective than Satan does, than the world does and sometimes even ourselves. We share those perspectives of the world and the devil but this gives us a perspective that we were uniquely created for a reason, for a purpose, on purpose. God does not make mistakes. God does not make junk. If you look in the story of Genesis and the story of creation, he did not move about designing and forming the world with like, oh, okay, hey, Jesus, come over here. Come over here. All right, watch this. It's day six.

I'm just gonna see what happens. I'm gonna scoop up this dust and I'm just gonna breathe on it and let's just see if this works. I don't even know if this is gonna work. This is crazy. Like, all right, all right, let's just see what happens. That's not our Lord. That is not our God. He doesn't do things haphazardly. He doesn't do things as an experiment. He moved very intentionally in creating the world and he did the same thing for you. He had you in mind specifically when he was creating and forming and fashioning you in your mother's womb just like he did with, oh my gosh, I'm having a total perimenopause moment right now with the writer of this psalm, David, thank you. With David, and David knew this and he's declaring that back to the Lord. I love this, but every day of our life was recorded, has already been recorded from the beginning to the end. God knows everything. Every moment has already been laid out before a single day had even passed. He knows what our life is supposed to look like. He knows what he has designed and how we are gonna walk that out. I just love that so much. So recognize first that you were uniquely created

for a reason, for a purpose, on purpose. A second way of what, you know, when we think about it. purpose-filled life, what that means is living beyond yourself. Like I talked about, purpose often points outward, okay, not inward. Not like, ah, me. It's outward. It's able to see outside of ourselves and outside of our internal experience and realize that there are, become aware of other things, of other people, of God's design and God's purposes even for the world and what that means for us. And we're really going to talk about that a little bit later. But being able to serve others, contributing to the world, giving back, leaving a legacy of faithfulness for our kids, those are living beyond ourselves, outside of ourselves, getting outside of ourselves and seeing the world and seeing others. Jesus modeled this so beautifully when he came, not to be served, but to serve. Our King and our commander and the Lord of our life came down from his throne, put on a human suit like we have, and came to serve others. Not to be served, not to be like, I'm the one who needs to be catered to. That's not our Lord and he's our perfect example. And that is true of our life also, what it means to be a purpose-filled, to live a purpose-filled life. The third way that I think about is aligning with God's plan. For a Christian, a purpose-filled life means that we are seeking God's will and walking in obedience to it. If you're like me, I have asked the question before, what is God's will for my life? What does that look like? I don't want to be outside of God's will. I want to be found faithful and walking in his will at all times, because I know that doing life God's way is best. I know that. So we're going to talk about that a little bit later also.

What does God's will for all of us believers look like? Now this doesn't mean when we align with God's plan, it doesn't mean always that we're going to do like big things and these huge things. It means that we are to be faithful even in the small and unseemingly important daily choices and things that we are doing. I don't know if you've ever heard the saying that, you know, sometimes we look at the end result in our destination and we're like, oh yeah, that's so overwhelming. But just making those little step after step choices, the moment to moment choices, doing the next right thing choices, they all add up. And then sooner or later, you are going to find yourself down that path that, wow, I did it. Look how far I've come because choice by choice and glory to glory, I am moving along down that path. So it's the faithfulness and the small daily things that the Spirit is really inviting us to, and that the Lord is wanting us to respond to and walk out. One of the fourth ways of living a purpose-filled life is having direction and hope. That's part of the meaning of living a purpose-filled life or having a purpose-filled life is having direction and hope. Purpose brings focus. It brings clarity. It helps you decide what to say yes and no to. So it gives us a boundary blueprint, right? If I know that God's will for my life is not to be high all the time and is not to be angry and living out my anger and bitterness, that is not God's will for my life. Part of God's will for my life is to walk in the freedom and the peace that He died to give me, that John 10.10 says that He came to give me an abundant and prosperous life. That's part of the will of God. So if I'm doing those things outside of that, I know that I'm not in the will of God. But also I know that knowing who I am and why I exist and who God is and what is the overarching theme and story of His plan and purposes for my life, I know then what to

say yes and no to. Doing drugs is not part of the plan. It's not part of the plan. It's not part of the design. So I can say, no, I'm not going to do that. Living in sexual sin before marriage or even after marriage, if we want to be honest with pornography and all other stuff, I know that is not God's purpose and will and plan for my life. for his kid's life so I can say no. So it helps us to create some boundaries. It helps us to give us some guidelines and a framework to think about so that we can then guard that, those areas and guard our being, guard our identity, guard the direction that we are going and say no to things and say yes to things that are in his will and are part of his plan and story. It gives us strength in trials also. Having that direction and that hope, that confident expectation and that assurance that God will, his plans and promises for our life are good like in Jeremiah 29 11 says that he gives us plans for our life to prosper us, to help us to thrive and to flourish, not to harm us and to take us out like John 10 10 says

but it gives us also that assurance strength in our trials. We know that he's not going to leave or forsake us like it says in Hebrews 13 five I believe and that he is always with us and that we can have his courage that in our weakness, in our strengthlessness, that we can call upon his strength to help us walk out and walk through that trial, say no to that temptation because you know that your pain is not gonna be wasted. There is purpose even in our pain through our trials and our sufferings and our griefs and the things, the losses and the hard things that we walk through here. That's part of his plan and his purposes also and God does not waste a thing like it says in Romans 8 28. The last way when I think about living a purpose filled life and what that means, experiencing fulfillment and joy. If I am living and walking out a purpose filled life, I am being fulfilled. I am being satisfied by my Lord and my savior and by the purposes and the plans that I have to walk out in.

I am experiencing his joy. A purpose filled life is deeply satisfying not because it's easy, but because it's meaningful. Joy comes from knowing you're walking in alignment with God's design. Joy, I've heard this acronym before, Jesus over you. Being able to get a perspective and understand with clarity that this is Jesus's purposes and becoming more like Christ, choosing Jesus and the spirit over myself and even putting myself, it also means to me that putting myself under his authority also. And that brings me joy because I know my God, my creator, my savior, my commander and my king is not gonna lead me into anywhere where I'm going to become harmed or where I'm going to be destroyed. The word of God says that again in Jeremiah 29 11. So that brings me great joy. That brings me great joy when I know that I have chosen to walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. And thank you, Lord, because man, the spirit went out today,

whoop, whoop, and I start high-fiving the spirit. But that brings me great joy. That does my body good. That does my soul very, very good. And especially because I know that God loves me. I know that his ways and his commands and the things that he wants me to do are for my benefit and not only to grow me, right? But it's for our relational benefit also. So I can stay in alignment with his plans and purposes for my life because family, they are all good. His plans and purposes are good. Jeremiah 29 11 says, for I know the plans and I have for you, says the Lord, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. That's Jeremiah 29 11. We're gonna pull apart that scripture more coming up, but I hope this has been an encouragement to you. Listen, living a purpose-filled life means that you are waking up every day with clarity that your life matters. You need to hear this. You need to hear this. Your life matters. God sees you, God hears you.

God cares. God knows you. He already has you in mind. Every day you are written in the book of heaven, if you are a child of God, like God is, God knows about you. And I think it's just the greatest because God knows me and still chooses me. And the same is true for you. God knows you intimately. He knows all the good, the bad and the ugly, and he still chooses you. Your life matters. You are created on purpose, with a purpose, for a purpose, and it's so, so, so good. It's bigger and better than anything you could ever imagine. I'm living that out still. It also means waking up every day and choosing to live intentionally, with intention, and with attention, so on purpose, and offering yourself to God and others in a way that reflects who you were created to be, family. We were not created for this life, to be fruitless, to be just surviving from day to day. This is not the design for our life. God created us to be fruitful, to be flourishing, to be prospering. Like it says in Jeremiah 29, 11, plans to prosper you, not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. That is our God. And that is true, not only for my life, but for your life also. So God, God wants to give you everything that your heart desires. God wants to give you all of those promises that are found in Jeremiah 29, 11. So take it, say yes to it, step forward in it. And as we continue this conversation about plans and purposes for our life and what it means to live a purpose-filled life, I hope that you will continue to walk with me on this as we walk down the path and understand this a little bit more. I hope this was an encouragement to you and take this away.

This is the takeaway. God has a plan for your life and it's a good one. And after you remind yourself that and speak that over yourself, go remind somebody else. Until next time, love y'all. We'll see you soon. Bye. 478-2098 or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living magazine free of charge, in bulk, with or without staples.