Thursday, August 11, 2016

Finding My Purpose



1. In three paragraphs, share what you took away from watching this video on "Finding Your Purpose".

2. What do you feel is your spiritual gift or purpose is?


Due no later than August 17, 2016.

10 comments:

  1. “Finding My Purpose”

    I have read and seen many self-help books that give step by step instructions on how to find your purpose. Some have said “we find our purpose in what angers you enough to do something about it”, others like Maxwell have said find out what you are passionate about, what you are good at but the difference between Maxell and the other authors, is that he helps us to understand purpose as God had meant it to be. In Jeremiah 1:5 It reads “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you”. Our God had plans for everyone and everything he has created. The plans were beyond our earthly success; God’s purpose and plans not only has value in this life but it has an eternal value.
    I believe the young man Maxwell mentions had prayed and ask God how he could help and add value to a Maxwell; he understood it was not about him but something greater than him and he added value to Maxwell. So now I understand that we all might have a dream to be something or do something one day but sometimes it is for us to do exactly what this young man demonstrated and find his purpose in someone else’s dream like he did with Maxwell’s ministry. Another way we can find our purpose is by identifying our strengths and areas of giftedness. However, once we have identified our purpose we must then move to the next step by going even further and lose ourselves in our purpose meaning it is no longer about self, our success, and our satisfaction but the purpose goes viral impacting many lives around us. Losing yourself in your purpose is now all about adding value to the kingdom of God and others.
    According to the word I believe my purpose is to spread the message of the gospel, encourage and edify the body of Christ through music ministry, teaching it to those God has placed in my path. I truly believe my purpose may go beyond that and I am praying that God will help me to discover all he has for me to do so that I am living to my fullest potential. I have a heart for neglected children and one day I hope to have a program and to help them and love on them and let them know that God loves them, and tell them how loved and special they are to God and to me.

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  2. John Maxwell shared great insight and wisdom about finding your purpose. I learned that when finding your purpose there are two challenges that we must conquer and that is to first find ourselves and the second challenge is to lose ourselves. The way that we find ourselves is by first finding our purpose and it is a great thing to find our purpose because it makes us solid and secure. John provided two questions that we must be able to answer that connects us to our purpose; those two questions is what am I passionate about? And what are my strengths and what am I good at?

    John explained how passion is often linked with purpose, because whatever your passionate about is what you enjoy and love doing the most. Whatever you love and enjoy doing the most should be what you do. John made it clear that passion is essential when it comes to finding our purpose because passion energizes us to fulfill our purpose. Passion makes us great and sets us apart from other’s in our purpose; John gave a great example of how his passion for his ministry caused him to do things when it seemed unreasonable and impossible. John also made a very important statement which was that you can be passionate about something but not necessarily gifted or good at it and I believe this shows the importance of seeking God for His plan and purpose and asking God to cause you to be passionate about whatever that purpose is; this shows why the second question involves us discovering our strengths and what we are good at.

    John explained how God gave us strengths and spiritual gifts to help us find our purpose. if we allow our purpose to be discovered by first discovering our spiritual gifts and strengths then we will be that more passionate about our purpose. With our spiritual gifts accompanying and supporting our purpose it will becoming that much more easy for us to fulfill our purpose and we will never be lacking in zeal and always energized. I enjoyed what John stated regarding you purpose may be not just be for personal but corporate, it may be bigger and beyond ourselves. Your purpose can be to help a bigger purpose and your dream can be to add value to another dream; and John showed how this is connected to us loosing ourselves in our purpose when we realize it’s bigger than ourselves and it has eternal value.

    Personally I believe that my spiritual gifts and purpose is to teach, mentor, evangelize, give, and add value to VWC; I am still asking and seeking God for His plans and purpose for my life to be fulfilled as He knows best according to Jeremiah 29:11 which John quoted. But I enjoy being able to mentor and pour God’s wisdom into to other young men to help them grow and learn and be successful in God. I enjoy the opportunity to talk about Jesus to people and to hear their story so that I could possibly encourage them in Christ.

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  3. The words that stuck out to me in this video are that you must find yourself. You must find out what the Lord has gifted you with and determine rather you have a passion for it. It is passion that drives us and gives us the energy to follow through with things. Without passion, it is not possible to conquer the impossible. It is then stated that we have to be willing to lose ourselves.
    I believe that when you take the time to lose yourself in the purpose that God has given you, you ultimately eliminate all distractions. You are focused on what the Lord has called you to do and there is no stopping you. In losing ourselves, we are able to gain strength for it is not by our power but by the power of God that we are able to fulfill the purpose given. To fully submit to purpose we must be willing to leave the things that are behind and press toward the mark. There is no way that I could have or will fulfill my purpose going off of who I use to be.
    As it was stated, we have to allow our purpose to become bigger than who we are. It is important to examine ourselves and ask God to deliver us from any selfishness that we may have. You cannot achieve purpose until you first have become selfless and are willing to put everything to the side. For me I had to walk away from some friends and people I held dear to my heart but in the process, God revealed to me who I was. The ultimate purpose is to serve God with my life.
    The gift that He has given me is to be a voice. He has equipped me with the ability to write and through writing I am able to reach people and encourage them. He has also given me the ability to minister and prophecy. Without a doubt, I know these things to be bigger than myself but the more I lose me, the more God will elevate me in these areas. It just takes determination and knowing it isn’t about you, it is about being used as a vessel to bless others.

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  4. I took a lot for the message finding your purpose. The first thing I learn was for John’s first point about finding yourself to discover your purpose. I feel it is very hard to start moving in your purpose if you don’t who you are and what that purpose is. I also enjoyed when he talked about passion and being passionate about our purpose because purpose without passion will now receive your maximum effort. It’s when we get passionate about our purpose that we start to see results and when people can see that we love what we are doing. Passion brings out the best in the things we are trying to do or active. God has a purpose and a plan for everyone whether big or small. John also said passion sets you apart when I think about that I think of a saying in sports hard work beats out talent because when you passionate about something you work hard at it to become better and people can sense what you are passion about by the time you spend doing or not doing something. We must become lost in our passion so much that It is no longer about us that it becomes a part of our everyday lives. Being lost in our purpose should be a lifestyle. You have to spend time with God allowing him to mode and shape us so that we can be successful in what we are called to do. John made a lot of good points all of which I feel I can apply to my life as far as learning my weakness and strengths and perfecting both of them aiming to get better. True purpose will have people knowing you love what you ad believing what you’re saying because of the passion you show and the time you spend better that gift you have.
    I feel my Spiritual gift is to teach the word really to the youth I feel I can work on getting better at it and asking God if that’s really my calling and how I can get better at doing what he called me to do

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  5. 1. I learned that there are two challenges in life and one of them is to find yourself and discover your purpose. The other challenge is to lose yourself and allow your purpose to become bigger than you. I think that looking at those two challenges I have found myself being a person that has found myself but not yet lost myself. I think that this was a very important point because many of us know what God has called us too do but we have not pursued it with our whole heart.

    Also this lesson helped me discover that there is no such thing as high energy and low energy people. If you have high energy you have passion, if you have low energy you have no passion. Passion is the great energizer and makes the difference in us walking out our purpose and calling. John Maxwell also taught me that passion is not always linked to purpose. You may being doing something you aren't gifted at. You can spend countless hours doing something God doesn't have planned for you. Yet, when you find your spiritual gift you will be good at. God will give you a chance to use it. You will be energized at it. You will have capacity to develop it. And when you have the kind of passion is sets you apart from the crowd and your passion will take you where nothing else will.

    He also asked, "How do you lose yourself?" saying, "You lose yourself when you give your purpose to something bigger than you." I also realized from this teaching that when you make yourself bigger than your purpose you have a career. This is because you are more focused on yourself where as when your purpose is bigger than you, you have a calling. This is because you focus on the grand scheme of things an on how God wants to use you. I also loved the 4 steps to losing yourself:

    1. I want to make a difference
    2. I want to make a difference by doing something that makes a difference.
    3. I want to make a difference by doing something that makes a difference with people that make a difference.
    4. I want to make a difference, by doing something that makes a difference, with people that make a difference, at a time when it makes a difference.


    Final tip that I took away that can also applies to leadership is that success is when you I add value to myself, significance is when you add value to others. Overall it was great lesson and it helped me to learn somethings about myself and what type of passion I have for my purpose.

    2. I believe God has given me the gift of preaching the Word of God. I believe that really would have me to be a leader and example for many people in this generation for the ones to follow. I believe that I really need to do better at losing myself in order really reach the people that God has called me too. I feel that God has a plan for me that far exceeds where I am now and I can only reach it by following His lead with passion.

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