Now you are asking yourself “what is my purpose?“. Well, that is not a question I would be answering today, or ever, as I cannot know your purpose except you tell me. What I would be doing today is guiding you to discover what your purpose is.  

The initial question posed is a question you ask God. As I mentioned in last week’s post, if you need to know your purpose, you need to simply ask God and He’ll answer. In moments like this, you want to make sure your heart is still, and your mind is quiet enough to hear His responses. With a pen in your hand and journal, whatever God is laying on your mind begin to write it down.  

To know if something is your purpose, it must follow all the following criteria. 

One, it must honour and glorify God. If what you seem to have heard or what you feel is your purpose is not something that honours God then you should cross out its possibility of being your purpose. God would never ask you to do something that doesn’t honour Him. Your purpose must bring glory to God. My go-to example which I keep citing is Esther. Esther’s purpose brought glory to God in the sense that the very same enemies who were ready to destroy her people, acknowledged God by the reason of her fulfilling that purpose. Whatever you feel is your purpose which cannot give glory to God in the long run is not your purpose. (Esther 8; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 2:9) 

Two, your purpose must be good. Ephesians 2:10 reveals to us that we are created for good works. If you feel like what you consider your purpose is something that requires you to compromise or do what is bad (by Godly standards) then you need to go back to God and seek clarity because that cannot be your purpose. God is good so He surely cannot make us do what is evil or wrong as regards purpose. We exist to do good. 

Three, your purpose must bring people to Christ. As I mentioned last week, we have all been charged with the responsibility of preaching the gospel which ultimately means bringing people to Christ. Therefore, your purpose must also revolve around this. In addition to glorifying and honouring God and being good, your purpose must reveal to people the kind of Person Jesus Christ is. Peter’s purpose was such, John’s purpose was such and so should your purpose be! (2 Corinthians 5:17-18; Jeremiah 1:5; Exodus 9:16; Matthew 28:18-20)

Four and the final, your purpose must be Scriptural. I feel like this is just a repetition, seeing as your purpose must be Scripture-approved for it to glorify God, be good and draw people to Christ anyway. Nonetheless, I believe it must be brought into the limelight that anything whatsoever you consider as the reason you exist, must be accredited by the Scriptures. If it is not something that has biblical backing, then it cannot meet the first three criteria. In essence, it is far from your purpose. 

A reader right now may be thinking “well, Esther whom you love to talk about so much missed criteria number 3″. Well, you are right but not completely. Esther was born pre-Jesus era. That is, Jesus had not come to earth as the Messiah then. So, of course, there was no way she could have drawn people to Christ when she hadn’t known Him either! But, further down that book, we do realize a good number of people converted to Judaism (God’s people) see Esther 8. So essentially, her purpose did meet all the criteria.  

With these guidelines, you can compare and contrast what you have now penned down as your possible purpose and pray to God further on the direction and surely, an answer would come from God. As you also wait on Him do not forget to spend quality time studying the word of God.