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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. There is no more effective way to be a disciple of Jesus Christ than by discovering His unique purpose for your life. That is why God left us here to fulfill His unique purpose for us. And today we're going to talk about the importance of choosing purpose over aimlessness in life. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. At some point in life, every person wonders, why am I here?
And while there have been countless books written on the subject, there's only one book we really need to find the answer. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains how to identify God's purpose for your life. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David. And welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Well, Amy and I are celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary today. Can you believe she's put up with me that long?
Well, she has. And thank you so much for your encouragement to both of us in this ministry. There's a popular resource from Pathway to Victory that perhaps you've never heard of. We haven't said a lot about Pathway Magazine, but today I'm eager to send you a complimentary subscription of this exclusive periodical. This popular resource contains encouraging devotional readings that I've written for you and a variety of practical articles about how to become a man or woman of God. Plus, it'll help you stay on track with the unique calling God has given to you. But you can't find this publication anywhere other than right here.
So to get started with the first three issues, just go to ptv.org and click on the tab that says Pathway Magazine. This is my gift to you simply for getting in touch with us today. Now, let's turn our attention to the practical teaching series I'm calling Choose Your Attitudes Change Your Life. As a pastor and Bible teacher, I'm often called upon to help people determine God's will for their lives. Well, the teaching you'll hear today represents the counsel I give in those private settings. You see, God has a unique purpose for your life, and he wants you to embrace and follow his plan for you.
When you don't, the frustrating outcome is aimlessness. So in my practical book called Choose Your Attitudes Change Your Life, I address this subject and 10 other topics as well. For a few more days, you're invited to take advantage of this time-limited offer. I'm pleased to send you a copy with my thanks when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. David and I will say more about my book and other resources later in today's program. But right now, let's give our complete attention to choosing purpose over aimlessness. Today, we're going to talk about how to discover your God-given purpose in life. Now, when we talk about your purpose, it's important to clarify the difference between a purpose, objectives, and goals in your life. Let's look, first of all, at purpose. A purpose statement simply answers the question, why do I exist? It doesn't have to be a long treatise. It can be a simple statement about your unique purpose in life. Why did God create you?
Why are you occupying real estate on planet Earth? You know, organizations have purpose statements, hopefully. You know, the General Motors Corporation might say that their purpose, their reason for existing is to generate a healthy profit by manufacturing the finest automobiles in the world.
And that statement gives that company direction. Not only do businesses have purpose, hopefully, a church has a clearly defined purpose. You know, in our church, we understand and believe the great commission Jesus gave to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe whatsoever things I have commanded you. And anything that doesn't contribute to either evangelism or discipleship may be a nice thing to do, it may be a good thing to do, but it's not what we're called to do. A purpose statement gives us as a church direction.
What's true about organizations, businesses, and churches is true about individuals as well. We need to have a clearly defined purpose statement. Now, you know, in our series, Choosing the Extraordinary Life, we talked about the difference between a general purpose and a specific purpose. I mean, as Christians, we all have a general purpose of glorifying God, having fellowship with Him, leading people to faith in Christ, but each of us should have a specific reason for living as well. And there are two keys, the Bible says, to discovering your unique purpose. And those two keys are both found in Philippians chapter 2, verse 13.
I like the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases this verse. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose. God has given you, first of all, a will, a desire, a passion, if you will, to accomplish your purpose. And so the first key to discovering that unique purpose is to identify your passion.
How do you identify what that passion is? Our friend Bob Beale from Master Planning International gives five questions you can ask yourself to help you determine what your passion is. Question number one, what needs do I see in the world that concern me? Question number two, if I could meet any need in the world, what would that need be? Number three, what are the most urgent needs in my country, my community, my work, my school and my church? Number four, what age group or type of people naturally interests me?
And number five, what are the major needs among my neighbors, my friends and my family? Answering those questions will help you determine the unique passion God has placed in your heart. It is God who is at work within you, giving you the will to do His will. But there's a second key in that verse, and that is He gives you both the will and the power. That is the ability, the giftedness to achieve your unique purpose. If God has called you to do something, He's not only gonna give you a passion for it, He's gonna give you a special gift in order to fulfill that passion. And that's why the second key in discovering your purpose is identifying your gifts and your abilities.
Let me show you why that's so important. You know, let's just say, for example, I looked around the world and I said, you know what the greatest need in the world is, I think, is to find a cure for cancer. I could develop quite a passion for that.
I mean, I could talk about how cancer affected my own family and took my parents prematurely. I could have a real passion for it. The only problem with me devoting my life to that is I have no gifts in science whatsoever. So I'm probably not the one to find a cure for cancer. Because if God is gonna gift you to do something, He's not going to only give you the passion, He's gonna give you the corresponding gifts and abilities.
That's what Philippians 2 13 is. It is God giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose. Many years ago, back in 1984, I remember sitting in the coffee shop at the Houston Intercontinental Airport.
I had my yellow legal tablet out. I had a few hours to wait for a flight. And I really asked God to give me discernment in writing down a clear purpose statement that would guide the rest of my life. And I wrote this simple statement. My purpose is to be an effective communicator of God's Word. And so I wanted to devote my life to clearly communicating God's Word.
Now suppose I had that passion, but I had no communication skill whatsoever. If God has called you to do something, He will give you the gifts to do that. How can you identify your unique gifts and abilities? Again, let me share with you five questions you ought to ask yourself. And by the way, this is great material for you to use with your children, your grandchildren.
There are so many millennials today who are wandering through life without any clear direction because they really don't know how to define their purpose in life. Here are some questions to help you identify your gifts and abilities. Number one, what abilities do you have that other people seem to notice and appreciate?
Things they compliment you about. Number two, I love this. Suppose you were asked to give a how-to seminar in your church or civic group on any topic you chose. What topic would you feel the most comfortable addressing? Number three, outside of recreational pursuits, list five accomplishments that have given you the most satisfaction. What aspect of these experiences did you enjoy? Number four, is there a common denominator in those five experiences that you could identify? What is it? I think about the five most satisfying experiences of my life.
They were different, and yet they all shared one common characteristic. They all dealt with communicating, whether it's to a church group or to a secular audience or something about communication that satisfied me. With you, that might be working with children. It might be serving other people. It might be organizing events. But what one word would describe that satisfaction? Number five, hopefully these questions have helped you identify one area in which you are both interested and gifted.
In a word, what is that area? Knowing what your passion is, what your giftedness is, will help you identify your purpose and help you fill out that sentence, my purpose in life is to what? Remember, we all have a general purpose in life. Jesus said that in John 4.34. Jesus said, my food, that is my purpose is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. That ought to be the purpose statement of every Christian. But Jesus also understood he had a unique purpose in coming to earth that nobody else could fulfill.
In Matthew 20, verse 28, he said, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Once we define our God-given purpose in life, it's important to connect every part of our life to that overarching purpose statement. And that's where objectives come in. A definition of an objective is an objective is a simple statement expressing desires for specific areas of our life. No matter what your purpose is, you've got to be able to connect that to every part of your life, your spiritual life, your family relationships, your work, every part of your life.
And objectives are the way to do that. Let me show you how to develop the objectives for the seven major life areas. Spiritual, physical, that is your health.
Family, vocational, personal growth, social, financial. What I want to ask you to do, perhaps not right now, but sometime as you work through this material, give yourself a grade on a scale of one to ten about how you think you're doing in each of these areas. What are you doing in your spiritual relationship with God? How's your health doing? How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in every area of life? Now, one would be the least, ten would be, you're knocking it out of the park. You know, in some of those areas, you may feel like you're doing great. You'd give yourself a seven, eight, nine, ten. If that's true in those areas, your objective would be, I want to keep doing whatever it is that's giving you success in that area. However, if it's less than a seven, it might help you formulate some things of what you would like to do in those areas to improve.
Remember, a purpose statement completes the sentence, my reason for living is to, but an objective statement completes the sentence, I want to, or I want to continue doing whatever for each of these areas. Let me show you how that works. Let's just say you happen to be that Christian business person, a man or a woman, and you really want to show other people how the Bible has principles that will help you in business. You want to integrate your business with your Christian faith. So how would that affect all these areas of your life?
What about your spiritual life? Well, wouldn't you agree with me, if you are going to operate your business by biblical principles, you have to know what those principles are. So maybe you say, I want to know the Bible better. That's a goal I have, I want to know the Bible better. Or maybe in your physical life, you would say, I want to be a model Christian business person, I want to spend the rest of my life doing this, but I'm in terrible health.
And if I keep going like this, I'm not going to be around that much longer. Well, it's hard to be a model to other people if you're dead. So you might say, in your physical life, I want to live a long life, or I want to get in better shape.
Or maybe in your family area, you gave yourself a three or four in that area. And you would say, if I'm going to model the principles of business in the Scripture, I need to teach people how to balance their business with their family life. Or maybe their vocation.
You may be a Christian businessman, but your business is headed toward bankruptcy, and nobody wants to model that kind of business. So you might say in your vocation, I want to start growing my business more. You see, your objectives all ought to tie into the purpose that God has given you. You identify what your purpose is.
Discover your purpose, your reason for living, why God created you. Then you develop objectives that will help you meet that overall purpose statement. And that leads to the third word, goals. Formulating specific goals. Goals are the vehicles by which we transform our objectives into reality.
Now this is where a lot of people get mixed up, and quite frankly, it's the reason so many people live aimless lives. They don't have clearly defined goals. Let me give you a definition of a goal. A goal is a desired accomplishment that is easily measured by time and performance. It's a desired accomplishment that can be measured by time and performance. For example, here I say, well, I want to know the Bible better. Is that a goal?
No. That's an objective, but it's not a goal. I mean, just to say I want to know my Bible better, well, how will you know when you know it better? No, a goal would be specific. I want to read one chapter of the Bible every day, beginning today. The accomplishment is clear. A chapter of the Bible every day, and there's a time attached to it.
A start time or a finish time by starting today. Or maybe you would say, you know, I want to be thinner. We all have that goal, most of us. Is that a goal? No, that's an objective. I want to be thinner. A goal would be a specific accomplishment.
I want to lose five pounds. That's the accomplishment. And I want to attach a date to it by April the 30th. Any time you're formulating a goal, remember, a goal answers the question, what do I want to happen? That's the accomplishment.
Secondly, how will I know it happened? What's the measurement? Five pounds, one chapter. Maybe in your financial life, you know, I want to get in better financial shape. That's not a goal. That's an objective. A goal would be I want to save $3,000 by December 31st. And when do I want this to happen?
The starting date or the completion date? And I've given you some examples of goals in your life. Reading a chapter of the Bible every day.
Or in the physical world. I want to exercise at least 20 minutes a day beginning tomorrow. Tomorrow is always a better time to start that program. But you see, at least you've got an objective down there. You've got a time that you're going to start doing this.
And on and on and on it goes. That's the difference between a purpose, objectives to help you meet that purpose, and goals that will help you meet your objectives. Now, I know you all well enough to know some of you are probably sitting here thinking, should we really be talking about this in church? I mean, aren't we supposed to be talking about evangelism and discipleship?
Why are we talking about goals? Ladies and gentlemen, there is no more effective way to be a disciple of Jesus Christ than by discovering his unique purpose for your life and living out that purpose. That is why God left us here to fulfill his unique purpose for us. I love the way Ephesians 5 verses 15 to 17 reads, again in the J.B. Phillips paraphrase, Paul writes, live life then with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who don't know the meaning and purpose of life, but as those who do.
Make the best use of your time despite all the evils of these days. Don't be vague, but grasp firmly what you know to be the will of the Lord. What Paul is talking about is, know your purpose. In his book, The Deeper Life, Daniel Henderson writes, I've heard it said many times, you're not really ready to live until you know what you want written on your tombstone. If you were to die today, would those who know you the best be able to say, this is why you lived?
That's a profound question. Would those who know you the very best at your funeral be able to stand up and say, this is the purpose for which you lived? Is it clear to you why you're here?
When this life comes to an end, will you look back and conclude that you have lived well and significantly? Now get this, the great tragedy in life is not death. The great tragedy in life is life without purpose.
Let's bow together in a word of prayer. God's purpose for every one of us here today or watching this broadcast, God's purpose for each of us is that none of us would perish for eternity, but that we would come to a saving knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ. God's will for us is that we know him and have fellowship with him, but the Bible says our sin has become a barrier between God and us. The only way for that wall, that separation to be removed is by allowing Jesus to remove it for us.
The moment we trust in what Christ did for us on the cross, God tears down that wall. He declares us forgiven, and we enter into a relationship with our Creator that can begin right now and extend past death all throughout eternity. And if you've never trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins wherever you are, I want to invite you to pray this simple prayer with me to God, knowing that your Creator is listening to you.
Pray this prayer with me. Dear God, thank you for loving me. I know that I have failed you in many ways, and I'm truly sorry for the sins in my life. But I believe what I've heard today, that you love me so much, you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for me, to take the punishment that I deserve from you, God, for my sins. And right now I'm trusting in what Jesus did for me, not in my good works but in what Jesus did for me, to save me from my sins. Thank you for forgiving me and help me to spend the rest of my life following you. And I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. And if you made this decision to trust in Christ as your personal Savior today, would you please write and let me know? I'd love to celebrate your decision and welcome you into God's forever family.
In a moment, David will give our mailing address, so be ready to write it down. At Pathway to Victory, we take great delight when God uses this program to bring men and women into His family. Not long ago, I was encouraged to read a personal note from Henry, who told me, Pastor Jeffress, when you aired the message, Not All Roads Lead to Heaven, well, I'm not a person who cries, but I broke down right there. I finally understood what saving faith really means. Today, I know I'm saved because I'm trusting in the blood of Christ plus nothing else. On the cross, Jesus said, It is finished.
My debt is paid in full. That's wonderful, Henry. And if you're among those who supports Pathway to Victory financially, I want you to know that you played a significant role in sharing the gospel with Henry. And for that reason, I boldly invite you to continue giving to Pathway to Victory.
Because of the rising cost of living, with inflationary rates skyrocketing, these are volatile days for ministries like ours. But the opportunities to bring light and hope have never been greater. In fact, as men and women try to overcome the daily pressures of their lives, Pathway to Victory has become their trusted source of counsel. Remember, when you give a generous gift today, I'm pleased to send you a copy of my extremely practical book called, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life. Here's David with all the details.
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, you're invited to request a copy of the book, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life, by Dr. Robert Jeffress. To request your copy, call 866-999-2965, or visit online at ptv.org. Now, when you give an especially generous gift of $75 or more, you'll also receive both the CD and DVD teaching sets for, Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life.
Plus, we'll send you a study guide especially designed for individual or group study. Again, call 866-999-2965, or visit ptv.org. You know, a lot of folks prefer to contact us the good old fashioned way, so if you've got a stamp close by, send your request to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O.
Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Over and over again, the Bible warns against the dangers of pride. And emphasizes how much God loves those who are humble.
So, why is pride such a serious sin? I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us for the message called, Choosing Humility Over Pride. That's next time on Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Picture yourself relaxing aboard a luxury cruise ship as you sail the Mediterranean Sea. On the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. This 11-day journey will take you to unforgettable destinations in Italy, Turkey, and Greece. Plus, you'll have the option to extend your trip with additional adventures in Rome. To book your spot on the 2025 Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise, go to ptv.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
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