This last weekend a team of us from the Leadership Academy had the fantastic privilege to go to Coventry and run the Sunday’s meetings at Northpoint Church, led by Patch Boyle. Personally, I was incredibly blessed to preach on the sunday morning, so I thought I’d just say a few words as to what I spoke on…

Some church meetings/conferences are amazing when we come out of them feeling invigorated, goal focussed and driven to live a purposeful, destiny seeking life. But what do we do with this during the following days, weeks and months? Unfortunately, more than often we do nothing. So as time goes on, we find that we are no close to our callings, our desires, and the plans God has in store for us.

I suggest there are 3 guidelines to help us handle our purposes, to help us in seeing progress and fruit.

1. Patience.
Looking at Davids life, we see how patient he was as he was anointed as king but it wasn’t years until he saw his purpose and calling actually happen. In the Psalms we can see how David went through bad times, yet he was always patient (Psalm 13:1-6).

2. It’s Not About You!
This society is full of people who’s primary objective in life is self-gratification. We are continously trying to proove ourselves, get ourselves honoured, and make sure that we have all that we need.
However, God calls us to be people that seek him first in humility.
Our purposes that God has for us are exciting, fulfilling and satisfying for us, yet lets make sure that all we want to do, all that we want to be needs to be totally rooted in God. We cannot do things for our own gain and expect to see the great fruit God has promised for us, we need Him in all we , and it needs to be all about Him!
Again, looking at David we can see an excellent example of how to keep God at the centre of all we do (Psalm 16:5-6). Lets always be thankful for what we have, and what God has in store for us. Through this continuous praise, it will be easier to give all we have to Him.

3. Make sure there is a root in the local church.
Psalm 92:12-15 – “Planted in the house they will flourish“.
People that remain and are rooted in God’s house, will be powerful, creative, caring, loving, compassionate, beautiful and fruitful with their lives. Church is the hope of the world, and we need our purposes to be rooted in it. This does not neccessarily mean we are all needed for full-time employment by the church, but it does mean that we need to be deeply committed to the local church and involved in seeing it grow, develop and meet the needs of the world.
God will never give us a purpose that would not somehow involve the local church.
In this Psalm there is a challenge for the older generation also, a call to be fruitful. Even though you may be later in years, are you still being fruitful with your life?

So, 3 guidelines as to how we can handle our God given purpose, be patient with it, keep God at the centre (it is not all about you!), and remain rooted in church. I have tried to condense this material into one blog entry, there is a great deal more I could write, but this will do for now! The fact we have a God given purpose and destiny is incredibly exciting, lets make sure we handle it excellently.