School of Purpose - Part 3

This week we will be continuing in the School of Purpose. We will be unveiling the revelation that purpose is a divine location.

“In Him, we live and move and have our being..” (Acts 17:28). Christ Jesus is the divine location. Everything about us begins in Him. Outside of Him, it’s possible to be very successful and not fulfill your highest purpose and original design.

The connection between pain and purpose: Pain is often the catalyst for somebody to discover purpose. A lot of people derive meaning in life because of the pain they have suffered. Ultimately, the pain was not God’s design to discover purpose. Just because He uses everything doesn’t mean that He ordained it. You don’t have to suffer tragedy to discover purpose in life. If you register to the school of the Spirit, then you don’t have to go through the school of suffering to discover purpose. If pain was the prescription, then why did God place Adam in the garden and not the valley of dry bones?

We do not extract our identity from our circumstances. We derive our identity from who we are in Christ. There is suffering that comes because of the gospel, but that’s a different thing altogether. Suffering doesn’t make us, and neither does joy, Christ makes us. God can use suffering and pain, but that is not His prescription to discover purpose.

We also don’t define purpose by happiness. We must pursue design over happiness. When we find what He has designed for us, there is joy everlasting. We are not servants of pleasure or happiness, we do what He asks us to do. We delight in doing His will.

Importance of Spiritual Location: When you encounter the body of Christ, you are encountering Christ Himself. We see this through the life of Paul the Apostle. When he encountered Jesus for the first time, he was asked “why are you persecuting me?” At the time, Paul was persecuting the children of God, but how can you hurt the body without hurting the head? By persecuting the body, he was persecuting Christ. The same Spirit that leads the head, leads the body. In this context, Paul understood the revelation of the importance of the body of Christ.

As part of the body of Christ, we must find our purpose within the body. Members that are out of order can’t serve their highest purpose or function in full capacity. Our gifts and graces find full expression in the right location. Joseph’s gift nearly got him killed in one location but was the reason for his elevation in another. If you don’t find your location, your purpose will suffer. Find the place where you are received and celebrated. It’s in an environment of honor where you discover gifts and graces inside of you that never flowed out before.

Your effectiveness and success in fulfilling your God-given destiny depends on you knowing your identity in Christ and you finding your location in His body.