Don’t Miss Your Purpose

When we come into a new year, it doesn’t automatically change the person we are going into that new year as. Much of the reset we reach for is triggered by something in our lives that isn’t working, or that we’ve come to realize needs to work better. This can be a good place to begin, and God brings those things into our lives to get us to reflect, consider, and change.

However, it also subtly pulls us into a way of thinking that reset is primarily about our lives. How we move, what we have to change, and what we reap from all of it. Basically, how it all works better for us. It’s easy for us to see it as some manner of self-improvement or life improvement because that’s how the world around us sees it. But reset is much more than that.

Those who devote themselves to themselves will ultimately have nothing to show for themselves but themselves.
~ Andy Stanley

Reset Involves Repentance
Reset is about realigning with God’s purpose, not just making your life better.

The irony is that it actually does make your life better, but there’s a catch. You can’t just reset in the “usual” way, you have to reset in God’s way.

Repentance produces realignment. Realignment returns us to God’s purpose for our lives. And when we reset, return, and repent, it returns us to our purpose.

Reset Requires Realignment
True purpose is a means to an end that is not you.
 
We come into this world wanting to be the end, and some adults don’t grow out of this mindset. Some believe their resources are about them being the end, their relationships are about them being the end, and even their religion is about them being the end.

In subtle or not-so-subtle ways, they are the center of their own universe. Our culture even reinforces this. But God sees reset differently. It’s about making your life, all the parts of it, a means rather than an end.

However, if this were easy, we’d all do it. Following Jesus will expose all of your insecurities and might even wound your pride. And both of those are shining a spotlight on some of the places where you’ve made your life an end unto you.

So, how does your life become a means to an end?

Anytime you take something that seems like an end in your life and make it a means to something great, you embrace purpose.

Pastor Michael Hoddy explains how it’s important to keep praying the prayers, but it also might be time to pay the price.