GRANDE IDÉE
God created us with purpose; finding purpose is essential to living a fulfilling life.
RÉFLEXIONS
God has created us all with purpose. As you’ll see in the “Humanity” teaching in the theology section, God created us in His image to reflect Him in our world (Gen. 1:26–28). This develops into four general applications for each person.
Relationship with God
We are created to walk with our creator. We have spent considerable time in previous chapters discussing this and teaching how one can grow in their relationship with God.
Human Relationships
We are created to experience fulfilling human relationships. These relationships can be found in the context of family and friendships. We will spend some time talking about this in the next section on “Others.”
It is not good that humanity is alone. Gen. 2:18
Spreading the Good News
We have a purpose in joining God in His mission to restore this world through disciple-making. We will talk more about this in the section on “Sharing your Story” and “Disciple-Making.”
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations … Matt. 28:18
Helping Make This World Better
We are all given talents and abilities to make this world a better place. We need to discover them and use them to the best of our ability. This includes our spiritual gifts, personalities, aptitudes, and past experiences.
Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over it … Gen. 1:28
Dons spirituels
When we put our faith in Jesus, God gives spiritual gifts to every believer. These gifts are often strongly related to our pre-faith talents and abilities, but they don’t have to be. Three useful tests for discerning a spiritual gift are: you enjoy it, you are effective in it, and other people confirm it’s a gift God works through you. You can find out more about spiritual gifts in the section on the “Holy Spirit.” You can find different spiritual gift tests online to help you discover yours.
Personalities
God loves variety. He makes us all unique and gives us a personal style. We each relate to others, take in information, make decisions, and structure our lives differently. Many different per- sonality tests can help you grow in understanding how you are and how you might lean.
Aptitudes
Each of us has different abilities. Some are more artistic than others. Some of us are better with words and some better with numbers. There are many aptitudes and career tests that can help you identify what you’re good at doing. Sometimes what we take for granted in ourselves is a unique way that God created us and part of our purpose in our world.
Experiences
God can turn our past experiences for good. He can take past work experiences, relationship experiences, and life experiences to make us wise and to help other people.
Awareness
As you become aware of how God created you individually, you will more fully appreciate His design for your life. As you invest your unique gifting in others, you’ll understand how you are created to contribute to our world.
Discussion
What are your spiritual gifts?
How do your personality, aptitudes, and experiences shape your role in making our world better?