The Purpose Driven Life: Day 1

I'm starting a new devotional and i've decided to share a little of what I read everyday with you. I hope that this can somehow touch your life as it already has in mine. I'm going to post a little something about it everyday.(or at least try to everyday)

It all starts with God.

For everything , absolutely everything above and below, visible and invisible...everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him. Colossians 1:16

Today was all about how we can figure out what God has planned for us and how we can't look to ourselves to find these answers. The book gives an example of how we have to look to the creator of something to figure out it's purpose. "If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn't know its purpose , and the invention itself wouldn't be able to tell you either. Only the creator of the owner's manual could reveal its purpose." So why then do we  continue to turn to ourselves to figure out what we "want" for our ourselves, or what our purpose is? "Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open , into a spacious, free life." I know that I continuously look to myself and material things to figure out "my plan" for life. I am slowly starting to realize I need to wake up, cause there is an even bigger more AMAZING plan for my life. The sentence that hit me the hardest while reading today was: "you could reach all of your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the world's standard, and still miss the purpose for which God created you." This is so true! People all over our country and our world have money, fame, everything our flesh desires but are missing out on the most important thing they could possibly have...a relationship with Jesus. What a lot of people(myself most definately included) don't realize is that everything that you accumulate on earth will stay here when you go. You can't take it with you, it just stays here. 

2 options to help you figure out your purpose in life: 1)Speculation- pretty much just giving your best guess about what you think you were created for. 2)Revelation-turning to what God has revealed about life in His word.

God has not just left us in the dark to try and guess what our life's purpose is. He clearly tells us in His word.

1) You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

2)God was thinking of you long before you ever thought about Him. His purpose for you predates your conception.

3)The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic picture that God has designed for eternity.

Point to Ponder: It's not about me.

Question to consider: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?

My God is soooo Amazing!!!