Finding your Direction in Life

 Where is your life going?

Are you choosing your direction, or are you reacting to life as it comes? Are you navigating towards your promised land, or are you serving as a crew member on a ship going somewhere else? 

Do you know what your destination is, or who is directing your course? Is your life being pushed and pulled by your employer, your family or your church?

God designed you to be a unique agent of change, to impact this world for Him. God made you in His own image, not to be a second rate copy of your parents, your teachers or a preacher or leader. If you live to please other people, you have missed your reason for living.

Does that mean you should forget other people and just please yourself? Of course not. When you live only to please yourself and fulfil your own dreams, you make yourself the God of your own life. Any sensible person should realise that this is crazy, yet it is a popular idea today. And look what a mess people have made by playing God!

God gives us families, friends, jobs, churches and leaders. They are all important but they must not be God to you.

God created you in His love, and He loves you. He has a wonderful plan for your life. He wants you to find Him and to work with Him to live out his plan. He won’t do it for you, and He won’t do it to you. He wants to live with you and for you to live with him.

For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 (TLB)

Just do it!

 A life without a clear goal is like a ship without a rudder. No matter how virtuous you are, your life goes in circles, leading to no fulfilment. You will be frustrated and stuck.

David prayed in a psalm:

“LORD, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. Ps 39:4 NRSV

What are the secret dreams in your heart of hearts?

Your dream could be the key that opens the door to your destiny.
But your dreams will lead to nothing without God.

On the other hand, we all need order in our lives. We all have duties that we have to fulfil. Without discipline, without routine, life becomes chaotic. Without order, your dreams permanently remain just dreams.

If you have a goal, you have to act, you have to do something.
If there is no order, can a family or a business function?

A football team needs a strict training routine. Everyone has to be on top form. Daily discipline is absolutely essential.  

But what is the goal?
Fitness? Punctuality at training sessions? Always obeying the trainer?
No.
    - Your goal is to win football matches.

And what is your goal as a team member? To be a good footballer? Partly for sure.

A champion team never consists of eleven good footballers.
You need first-class midfielders, defenders, strikers and goalkeepers.

But even that is not enough. You need fitness coaches, physiotherapists, sports psychologists and, in today's world, computer technicians.

Are you a Christian?
Do you want to be a good Christian? What does your routine look like?
Are you faithful and reliable in prayer and Bible study? Are you punctual and regular in meetings?

There's nothing wrong with that.
But what is the goal in your Christian life?

Are you a midfielder or a goalkeeper? Are you a fitness trainer or a sports psychologist?

We need to win people for Jesus, but what is your role and where is your mission field?
Are you gifted to evangelise on the street or blog on the internet?
Are you called to serve as a nurse in a mission in Africa or as a social worker in California?
Are you called to work in an office and pray for your colleagues with genuine love?

What is your thing?

• Some fast a lot and pray for hours in intercessory service.

• Others help the homeless, asylum seekers or prostitutes.

• Are you a housewife or a retired widow?

• Maybe you have a mission as a friendly neighbour and intercessor.

• Our cities need friendly neighbours.

What's your thing?
If you're not sure, you can still start doing something.

• You can ask God to give you direction.

• You can pray every morning, ‘’Dear God, what is on your heart?

• You can pray, ‘’Who should I contact today?

• Or ‘’How should I pray for my family or friends today?

• Or ‘’What is your priority for my life right now?

When you get a clear impression, don't push the thought aside.

Don't let yourself be distracted. Do something.

If you have a goal, you have to act, you have to do something. But if you act without a goal, you will remain stuck despite all your efforts.

If you don't have a goal, you probably won't achieve one.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Jer 29:11 NRSV

Don’t be distracted.
Ask God for wisdom and then ... Do something.

You must not despise yourself.

 God does not despise you. You must not despise yourself.

God does not despise people. He even sees wicked people as his lost children.

He longs to restore them and bring them home.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jn 3:16 NKJV

Humanity is God's masterpiece, but we see that we are not glorious beings. Imagine a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci badly damaged by fire and flood, but not completely destroyed. It looks dirty and shabby, but it is still a masterpiece.

You are also a human being, but not just any old specimen of humanity.

And the people around you who have not yet believed are also special beyond measure, even if they are badly damaged, because they were also created in the image of God.

We need to change the way we think and the way we talk about ourselves and about other people.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.
Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? Jas 3:9–11 NIV

God doesn't like everything about you and me, but he is working day and night to restore us.
He is not pleased with everything in our lives, but he loves his children, and that is what we are when we belong to Jesus by trusting him.

If you belong to Jesus by faith, God not only loves you, but He is pleased with what He has done in your life.

God has created you with a special purpose. No one else on earth is like you.  

Your life is a gift from God, and also an assignment from God.

What is your special purpose in life? God wants to show you your calling in life and show you the path you should take.

GOD LOVES YOUR HEART

God loves you, every part of you. 

You have dreams and longings deep in your heart. 

• He created your heart with all your dreams and desires and He loves your heart.

But doesn’t the Bible say:

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT) 

It is true that you and I were born into a spiritually and morally damaged world. 

• As we grow older, we realise how our parents are full of faults. 
• If we are honest, we can see that we are no different, wanting a better life but so often disappointing ourselves and others.

But God made your heart, your hunger for love and truth, your desire for the goodness which always seems to be beyond you.

A man in Los Angeles owned a sex shop selling pornography.
A Christian wanted to help him make peace with God but it was no use telling the man he was a sinner. 

But God gave the Christian man a revelation. 

• This man had a divine gift of comforting people. 

(He was using it the wrong way, selling people the false comfort of sexual illusions.)

When the man saw himself through the eyes of God’s creative love, something changed inside him and he received the love and forgiveness of God. 

He began a new life with Jesus that day.

God loves your heart. He knows your longings and frustrations. 
The past, present and future are like an open book to Him. He created time itself.

Before the beginning of the world He saw you and He looked into your troubled soul ages before you were born.

• He has a wonderful plan for your life. 

• Ask Jesus to come to you and transform you from the inside.

When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same any more. A new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (TLB) 

Many people consider themselves to be Christians but they don’t know Jesus. 

True Christianity is knowing God personally and willingly allowing Him to transform your life fromt the inside.

For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us! 2 Corinthians 5:21 (TLB) 

• God wants to do all of this for you and then to take you on a wonderful journey through a new life that never ends. 

• It all starts with a supernatural personal encounter with Jesus the Son of God. 

• He is here with you now. 

• He died but He returned to life and His love now fills the universe.

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Revelation 3:20 (NLT) 

A Muslim woman in Iran was watching a Christian TV programme and she heard this message.

• She  heard a knock at her door and when she answered, she saw Jesus standing there, a glorious man in a shining white robe. 

She invited Him inside and offered Him some food. Salvation came to her life that night. 

Whether or not you see Jesus with your natural eyes makes no difference to the spiritual reality of His presence and His love for you.

When Jesus offered His life on the cross, He paid the penalty for our sins but He did not stay dead. As a real human man, Jesus sacrificed His life for us but as God He could not stay dead. 

God is eternal and His supernatural life is an unquenchable fire.

• When Jesus returned to life, He appeared to His disciples. Thomas was not with them and would not believe the story. 

Then Thomas saw Jesus and He believed.

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, 

• "Because you have seen me, you have believed; 
• blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:28-29 (NIV)