KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR PURPOSE by Roger Roth Sr.
I would like to approach this from a slightly different angle than is common in most writings related to the topic of purpose. One of the most frequently asked questions among Christians is; what is my purpose? In the past couple of decades numerous books, seminars and messages have been offered to help believers discover and walk in their PURPOSE. This is a reoccurring desire that many have because they want to know their relevance and fulfill the Lord’s desire. They do not want to miss out on what it is the Lord has provided for them during their lifetime.
To understand purpose involves several areas which I will not include in this writing. This is not because they are unimportant but because this writing deals specifically with two areas that are usually given little consideration when seeking to understand purpose, those being the purpose of God in His creation and the purpose of God within the Body. Other important areas, such as understanding identity, gifting and calling, are not covered within but are nevertheless important areas to understand.
When most people ask; what is my purpose? They usually mean, “can someone tell me who I am and what it is I am supposed to be doing while I am here? My life must have meaning beyond merely existing. I want to make sure that while I am here on earth, I fulfill the reason for which I was sent.”
Since, in our minds, “my purpose” seems to indicate activity toward achieving a specific desire God has for us, many equate purpose with a ministry or with occupation. Purpose may involve ministry or occupation or other activity but these are not purpose but a means to implementing purpose.
As I read the scripture I see very little written about “my purpose.” I do however see much written about “His purpose.” I believe in asking what is my purpose, we may be asking the wrong question, at least initially. A desire to find purpose does not start with asking, “what is my purpose” but rather in asking, “what is God’s purpose?” Not just His purpose in my life but His greater purpose in creation.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, Eph 2:10. God has purposed good works for us and these were planned beforehand and He purposed that we would walk in them. God has already preplanned events in our life. We should walk in them but that does not necessarily mean we will walk in them.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, Eph. 1:11. We are told that God has preplanned the works we are to walk in. We are also told that we are predestined according to His purpose after…his own will!
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, Rm. 8:28. All things work together (the is a symmetry in the Spirit) to those that love and discover their calling after His purpose. They discover His purpose.
In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, Eph. 1:5. The will of God has purpose.
Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, 2 Tim. 1:9. Our calling is not based on what we do but what He has purposed to be done. Following our will does not lead to His purpose.
For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future, Jer. 29:11 This was spoken to Israel and its leaders. God’s plans will lead to His purpose.
Notice that in most scriptures related to purpose the Apostle is speaking not to individuals but plurally to the greater Body – we are his workmanship…we have obtained and inheritance…to them that love God…He predestined us…He called us…and compare Jer. 29:11, the plans I have for you (pl). These and many other scriptures, should be an indication to us that to walk in purpose we must discover and walk out the purpose of the Body!
Let me be bold and say that nowhere in the New Testament do we find a person’s purpose being lived out independent of the Body. To discover full purpose requires at least two things outlined above; 1. We need to know God’s greater purpose for mankind in His creation and 2. We need to know the purpose of the Body in order to discover our purpose in the pre-determined purpose of God.
= The purpose of God in His creation.
To know the will of God we must see the plan of God through His eyes. The understanding of the purpose of God in His creation varies greatly among those who profess one of the many brands of Christianity. Who is God? Why were we created? What is our eternal destiny? What is sin? Is there a hell? Who goes to hell? How is one saved? What will be the end of all things? What is eternal judgement? Why are we here? etc. These have almost as many answers as there are denominations.
Though there are widely differing views to the general story of God’s purpose in relation to mankind, the most widely held belief would perhaps be similar to the following: God was all alone and He didn’t want to be, so He created an angelic host, including heaven and earth with a future eye on creating His ultimate creation – mankind.
One third of the angels disobeyed God and God created a hell for their residence. Then God created Adam and Eve, whom He loved totally and placed them in a garden. In this garden, He also placed a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s purpose was to have man live in love with him forever in the garden but man disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden fruit which totally separated man from God.
God’s love however was so great for man that He had a plan B. He gave man another chance. He would send His Son into the world to die for all mankind. Whoever would receive Him would be saved and eventually go to heaven but those that did not would go to hell forever.
God decided at some point He would end this second chance at which time He’d take away all the saved people from earth and rain down great judgement with much death and destruction due to the earth’s evil and their following of Satan – one of the angels that fell before man was created. Then in a final act God would overcome all evil and cast Satan and the ungodly into eternal hell while peace would reign in the rest of His creation.
This is a greatly abbreviated description of God’s purpose in creation and the restoration of mankind back to Himself, many parts of which would be accepted by a wide spectrum of Christian churches. Let me suggest that if our understanding of God’s original intention and purpose is errant, then what we understand about our purpose may be skewed as well.
= Purpose verses Destiny:
Purpose should not be our ultimate pursuit. The will of God in all its implications (identity, truth, reconciliation, and above all love) should be our ultimate quest. Purpose does aid us in becoming and doing the will of God. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, Phil. 2:13. God is working in us so that we want to do His pleasure (the desire and purpose of His will) and then actually do it.
Purpose is fruitless without the understanding of God’s purpose and the purpose of the Body. Understanding purpose is vital to completing the work but purpose is temporary where Destiny (our ultimate position in God) is eternal. A hammer has purpose. It is a necessary tool to accomplish work. I can use it to pull and drive nails but if I break the hammer I go out and buy a new one. Purpose is temporary.
If it is true that I cannot understand “my purpose” independent of the greater purpose of God in His creative acts and in the Body, then it necessitates giving more attention to these in order to understand my purpose related to His purpose. Let us review the purpose of God and the purpose of the Body.
= The Purpose of God and the Purpose of the Body.
Suppose you were a master furniture designer and built a beautiful chair that all people would find desirable to sit in but you purposely built it with one leg that was as thin as a toothpick. Would it not be reasonable to assume that your purpose in building it that way was so that anyone sitting in the chair would break it and thereby fall?
If an all-knowing God, placed a tree in the midst of a garden that was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desirable to make one wise, would it not be reasonable to assume that His purpose in doing so was that man would eat of it? If God could have created the world with infinite possibilities and yet created it and all that is in it then it must have been His purpose to do so exactly as He did.
Likewise, all things including hell, evil, angels (both good and evil), demons, salvation, restoration, reconciliation, the Cross, heaven, and eternal destiny must have been in His plan from the very beginning. He never had a plan B but intended in His wisdom to create all things exactly as He did for His eternal purpose. We need to understand, as the Apostle described, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Only in this can we find our full purpose.
In addition, we need to understand the purpose of the Body. Without completing the purpose resulting from the counsel of his own will, the Body has no purpose and without completing the purpose of the Body, individual saints have no purpose. This is why so many are confused about “their purpose,” because they do not seek to discover their purpose in the greater purpose of the Body.
God is about family. The day of the exalted spiritual leader is over. This is the day of the Body and the exaltation of its head, Jesus! The church has gone from dependence to independence and is now entering into interdependence. Interdependence, is the coming together of the Body, each member being fitly assembled.
As mentioned earlier, when the N.T. speaks to purpose, it is generally speaking to the Body and not just to individuals. Do individuals have purpose? Yes, but only in the context of Body purpose. There is individual purpose specifically mentioned in the Scripture but only in relation to the greater purposes.
But I have raised you up (even Pharaoh had purpose) for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, Exodus 9:16. If Pharaoh’s purpose was dictated by God’s purpose for His Body, Israel; how much more is our purpose tied to the Body?
I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted, Job 42:2. God had purpose for Job’s life but Job’s purpose was conditioned on the greater purposes of God beyond Job.
If God told you, “your purpose is to deliver the brokenhearted and restore the faith of the wayward,” you might say, “hey I know my purpose and it is a great purpose!” but then what? So you have this great purpose (as each of us truly do) but you have no understanding or way to bring it to pass.
So what God does is to first turn us to His eternal purpose and the purpose of the Body so that our purpose has a way to be understood, connecting and completing His intention in us. If I do not understand this, I will always be confused about, “my purpose;” seeking for some to tell me, “my purpose.”
Now if your purpose is to deliver the brokenhearted and restore the faith of the wayward, how would that fit in the eternal purpose of God. If you believe the eternal purpose of God is to provide heaven to those who accept and forever punish in hell those who do not, how you implement that purpose will be greatly different than if you see God purposing evil, hell redemption and the reconciliation of all mankind. If we don’t clearly understand His eternal purpose we will be limited in completing our purpose even if we were able to understand what that purpose is.
Likewise, If I don’t understand the purpose of the Body, there is no way to integrate my purpose with the greater Body purpose. My purpose will never be completed without doing this. My purpose is to restore the faith of the wayward and to deliver the brokenhearted.
Let’s say the vision of the Body is to awaken the ignorant and lukewarm to the reality of the Spirit. Within the Body are other parts. Some may have a purpose related to providing counsel. Other purposes may be connected to structure, others to finance and still other toward integration of disparate groups perhaps through networking etc. If this were the case then my purpose integrated among the other purposes of the Body would then have spiritual legs and arms and ability to find completion.
Without this my purpose would be incomplete seeking a way to be expressed. I may try to make a way for my ministry rather than allowing God to make the way. I may try to open a soup kitchen. I may think, “hey if I had a soup kitchen I could speak to a lot of brokenhearted people and those who’ve given up on God. Then I could offer to teach them a bible study or to pray for them.”
Not a bad idea but maybe an ineffective plan compared to what God had intended. God has made the Body in such a way that in our day no effective person can be an island any longer. You will find that in discovering what member you are in the Body, you will discover your purpose for they are linked.
The Apostle Paul tells us that the Body has many members but can only be one (unified) Body and we are all part of the Body, there is only one Body; see: 1 Cor. 12. The problem is that if we don’t see ourselves as we are truly connected to the Body (as some in Corinth did not see themselves) then we war against the purpose of the Body and the purposes of God by our separation and therefore our purpose can never be completed or even fully understood.
Our purpose helps us to discover what part we are in the Body. No part is of any greater value. So why then do Christians often isolate themselves from the Body? They may go to church and read the Bible but they never integrate with the members. The Apostle saw this as a significant issue when he said in Hebrews, not forsaking the assembling (learning to connect and to submit to one another) of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Some try to live for God this way. They may attend church but they never become a tightly fit, fully functioning with the Body.
= Healing and Wholeness related to Purpose.
Why? Because they lack wholeness, (completeness, maturity, full healing). When our personal needs, desires and issues are placed ahead of the Body, the Body can never become fitly joined together…building itself up in love as each part supplies. The Body builds itself up in love as each part supplies what they are to the whole. This is wholeness.
If you do not allow God to deal with your issues you will never be able to understand or walk in your full purpose. We need to be a healed Body, a whole and complete Body. Some issues Christians deal with have roots that go back years, often decades. They may not even recognize the root causes. Frustration, resentment, isolation, fears, pride, jealousy etc., may all be manifestations of not having an understanding or a willingness to deal with inner wounds and hurts.
The Apostle Paul was a mighty man of God. Even so he carried wounds that needed mending before he could understand or walk in his purpose. If you study the life of Paul you will discover that he was not a loose cannon and that his ministry was rooted in and subject to that of the Body.
Before God could empower Paul with purpose He first had to bring healing (wholeness). Paul was a religious man full of pride and self-righteousness. Paul had deep wounds that caused him to verbally and physically abuse people to the point of their imprisonment and even their death.
In a miraculous set of events the Lord confronted Paul and he awakened to the spirit of the truth where before he had only understood the letter of the truth. He had lived a good portion of his ministry under religion, misunderstanding his purpose. He misunderstood the eternal purpose of God. He was not connected to the purpose of the Body. This is the plight, as well, of many today.
Paul, as a result of his failures, wounds and pain was spiritually blind. He knew of God in measure but not in fulness. After his healing however, his eyes were opened to his purpose. He had lived his entire life to that point thinking he was doing the purpose of God only to discover he was doing the exact opposite.
Upon being healed he was shown a vision of his purpose. Rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Act 26:16. This is the third accounting of this episode described in the book of Acts. It lets us know that the understanding of our purpose often increases as we walk it out.
Ok, so the Apostle knew his purpose but as you study Paul’s life you will discover how before he walked out this purpose he first discovered the eternal purpose of God, the understanding of which was greatly altered from his previous religious understanding and he understood the purpose of the Body into which he placed his purpose. This is why he is able to write with such clarity about the Body and its purpose.
Similar observations could be made from Jesus’ teachings and the examination of purpose related to other bible figures such as Peter, Pharaoh, David and others. This is not a definitive discussion on purpose but hopefully it has provided some insights to help you in the further pursuit of purpose. To discover your purpose, seek to understand the eternal purpose of God and the purpose of the Body.
Suggested steps in advancing and walking in purpose:
- Review your life related to wholeness. What areas cause frustration, opposition or offense in your life? What things tend to separate you from others? What negative emotions (symptoms of a need for healing) do you harbor?
- Determine to seek healing (wholeness). Fear of intimacy with the Body causes many to run or to hide rather than face change. It is difficult to lower walls and to expose sensitive areas to God, but it is necessary as is forgiveness of others, yourself and God.
- Challenge yourself to understand the purpose of God in creation outside of traditional teachings. What is His purpose in what, how and why He created as He did? Does God have purpose in everything in my life, even the things that may seem contrary to what I’d expect?
- What is the purpose of the Body, specifically the local Body into which He has placed you? Does that Body have a clear vision? Does it understand the assembling of the members? What member are you in the Body?
- What has God spoken to you about your purpose? Do not rely on what you may have read or teachings you may have heard but upon what you know He has clearly spoken to you. Seek to hear this voice.
Roger Roth Sr. is a ministry son of Dr. Mark Hanby. Together with his wife Karen, they are the set ministry of a local church in Northeastern Wisconsin, and oversee the Bloodline Network Newsletter. They consider it an honor to work with Dr. Hanby for many years, helping to oversee the ministry of Papa Mark’s extended family—”The Father’s Heart.”
Any questions or comments please contact them at rogerandkaren@live.com
