Bought this book when I was in USA on my book spree. Books were amazingly cheap, below $10 from Amazon. This is why I needed the help of friends to lug everything home. But I think sometimes I like the idea of owning a particular book, more then reading it. And this book was bought, as an introduction into reading the works of Ravi Zacharias, a well known apologists. It has been left on my shelf untouched for awhile as I guess, it was not the season. Interestingly enough, he has a slot on the radio channel that I listen to in the mornings and I have heard him speak. I had taken his book out again, in a bid to read something more wholesome but not much progress was made until I was asked recently on how do you find/know your calling in life? And I think it does come in handy.. skimmed through it to give my friend some food for thought but I should probably read it in detail.. considering that the questions are probably relevant now for this season.
- Your DNA Matters
- Your Disappointment Matters
- Your Calling Matters
- Your Morality Matters
- Your Spirituality Matters
- Your Will Matters
- Your Worship Matters
- Your Destiny Matters
1.Your DNA Matters
- Accepting and Celebrating the thread of your own personality is the first grasp of the Grand Weaver's design in your life. You are not a number, He knows you by name. Every stage of the process may not look picturesque, but every detail will come into focus and possess its share of beauty.
2.Your Disappointments Matter
-' this man's blindness had nothing to do with his own sin or with his parent's sin but that God intended to use it to display his own work ( See John 9)' What is this ' work of God?' Every Journey require deliberate steps. Three distinctive steps in this journey before the pattern becomes visible and we begin to see the work of God.
A. The heart- will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Hebrews 2:10, God himself has been made perfect through suffering. Job. Through his struggles, we observe how an upright person behaves in the midst of tragedy. That's how the work of God gets displayed. Perfection, then is not a change in the essential character, but the completion of a course. A heart in close communion with God helps carry you through the pain, beyond the power of mere words.
B. Mind- The mind processes every new bit of information and puts content together within a context of pre committed factual and moral reason. What the brain is to the body, the mind is to the soul. Faith is a thing of the mind. A life of simple trust is a blessed life, and it sees beyond any impediment through the mid committed to God's way.
C. The way- to see this world through Calvary. God alone bridges the distance between him and us.
Once you take this three steps- allow God to make your heart tender, strengthen your mind through faith and make the cross the aortic valve of your life- you see God's pattern in you and become the instrument of consolation for those who hurt. The single most important thread in working through your disappointments is that your heart and mind ponder and grasp what the cross of Jesus Christ is all about.
3.Your Calling Matters
What is a calling? A calling is simply God's shaping of your burden and beckoning you to your service to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing. When your will becomes aligned with God's will, his calling upon you has found its home.
Starting point- whenever someone exercises leadership in the Bible, you notice the extraordinary lengths to which God goes in his pronouncement of the character. A call may not necessarily feel attractive but it will tug on your soul. One often sees a call only in retrospect. Exodus 3:12. God often reinforces our faith after we trust him, not before. Not always dramatic, and God can call us by slow, encouraging methods as well as by dramatic ones.
The christian walk involves all three areas of life- the spiritual, the practical and the logical and not mutually exclusive.
The first call
- It is to understand God's primary description of who and what we are. Our devotion to God's call ( to follow God, to serve and love Him) and to his claim on our lives provides the ground work of all that ultimately matters. Temple of God-starting point for any call. For e.g. if I am a publisher, can I distribute profane material . The means must justify themselves. body is sacred
- One simply cannot know one's call without coming near to God in prayer. That is where god speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God's call is to make him number one in your life.
- The willingness to be outshone while shinning for God. Humility is the touchstone of serving God. Yours may seem to be a ' common place ' call but there is no such thing in God's eye.
- Stay close to those who walk closely with God. When you put your trust in godly men and women, you never walk alone.
Know you are God's temple.Bathe your life in prayer. Live out your life in humility of spirit that serves for the right reason. Seek the counsel and example of godly men and women. Finally, exhibit a commitment to the permanence of Christ in all things. God is the author of my call. He has the plan in mind and I must respond to his nod.
4. Your Morality Matters
Whatever you do, whether it be at work or in marriage, through your language or your ambitions, in your thoughts or your intents, do all and think all to the glory of God ( see 1 Corinthians 10:31) and by the rules he has put in place- rules that serve not to restrain us but to be the means for us to soar with the purpose for which he has designed all choices.
5. Your Spirituality Matters
The quest for the spiritual. We human beings are incurably religious. we long to worship and will even create our own objects of worship. One measures true spirituality by whether one listens' to Jesus' voice. If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The word, the truth, Jesus' person and true freedom are inextricably connected. Truth is the thread that separates true spirituality from false spirituality. Your spirituality must be born out of the truth and lived out in Grace.
6.Your Will Matters
When God brings us to salvation, the most remarkable thing we see is that he transforms our hungers. He changes not just what we do but what we want to do. Philippians 2:13. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
The ABCDs of a wilful walk with the Lord
Ask without pettiness
Being without doing
Convictions without compromises
Discipline without dreariness
The next time you think about the power of your will, think not just of the immediate choice but of all the other compromises to which one ill-advised choice could lead.
7. Your Worship Matters
Life essential purpose- to worship God in spirit and in truth. This thread of worship binds together all the rest of the threads in the design of our lives. Worship is exclusionary. You cannot compromise on Worship. Worship is ultimately see life God's way. Whether we seek ways to find pleasure or answers to the questions of a troubled mind, the solution begins with a willingness to see sacredness of all of life. It must begin by making life an altar- and at an altar we had dare not lie. And this is why worship is primary, the thread of all threads that pulls the multiple thread of life into a beautiful whole.
8. Your Destiny Matters
We are called to see the gracious hand of a designing God in our lives. We are called to respond to God's nod. He holds the threads. He has given us his promise :
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the lord.
The design is beautiful. the promise is sure. The end result profound. The answers will all be there. But the condition is clear: we must search for God with all our hearts.
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