Destiny: Let God Use You Like He Made You Part 2

On my iPhone is an app called Maps. In Maps, I can input my present location and any destination, and the app will instantly display a route that will get me there. However, if I opened up Maps and indicated my current location but then failed to type in an intended destination, the app could not provide a response when I pushed the Route b.u.t.ton. Without a destination, Maps cannot respond with directions. It cannot provide me with a route if I do not tell it where I'm planning to go.

After you board an airplane but before you take off, the flight attendant or the pilot will announce where the flight is headed. They will confirm the intended destination. If you ever find yourself on a flight to St. Louis but you planned to go to San Francisco, you need to disembark for one simple reason: The pilot is going to St. Louis whether you want to or not. If you are on the wrong flight, you are the one who must adjust and get off because the pilot's flight plan and destination are set.

Friend, if you do not know where you are headed, you cannot know the route or the flight plan that will get you there. Rather than going through life with an intended destination, you will bounce here and there like a ball in a pinball machine. You'll be trying this, that, and the other thing, hopeful that one will lead you to a good place. Rather than take the straightest available path to your destiny, you will meander. Anyone who has wandered aimlessly knows that a lot of time is wasted by roaming here and there.

When we live without direction, we can't be clear about how to make decisions. Life is filled with ambiguity. Should you take that job? Should you move there? Should you date that person? Or marry that one? Should you volunteer in that capacity? Should you spend your time in that manner?

Direction matters, and knowing your intended destination will help you answer those questions wisely. Without a clear sense of direction, life is. .h.i.t and miss.

Stability A clear sense of your destiny makes your life stable-circ.u.mstances no longer control your emotions or your decisions. If you are not clear about your purpose, you are p.r.o.ne to being blown about by situations. If something difficult or challenging comes up at work, you may want to throw in the towel and quit. Or if someone has a bad day and acts or talks in a way that he shouldn't, you might never want to talk to him again. You can count on one constant in life: Something is always going to go wrong. Challenging circ.u.mstances will always arise. The question is, what are you going to do in the face of those circ.u.mstances? Are you going to give up, or will you endure them with a positive outlook because you know you are on the path to your destiny?

When you are clear about your purpose, you will not allow circ.u.mstances to dictate your decisions. That doesn't mean you won't sometimes feel discouraged, disappointed, or irritated. Rather, it means your decisions will be guided by your purpose regardless of how you feel. And fortunately, when you begin to act on those decisions and fulfill your purpose, your feelings will soon catch up as well.

Paul is an excellent model of stability through a firm sense of purpose. Paul was one of the most abused men in the Bible. In his second letter to the church at Corinth, he talks about s.h.i.+pwrecks, hards.h.i.+ps, beatings...one mess after another. But after Paul lists the difficulties that would have caused most of us to up and quit, he says, in essence, "I'm fine." He says that because he is living out his eternal purpose in Christ, he doesn't lose heart (2 Corinthians 4:16). Paul remained stable in spite of the instability all around him because he knew his destiny and was committed to fulfilling it.

In his letter to the church at Rome, he speaks of tribulation, distress, peril... but then he wraps up his long list of negative and challenging circ.u.mstances with this confident statement of stability: "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us" (Romans 8:37).

At first glance, Paul seems to be contradicting everything he had just listed. But he was saying that his position, his destiny in Christ, overruled his circ.u.mstances.

When you are living out your destiny, even on your worst day, you still have a purpose, and you are still intent on pursuing and fulfilling it. You are in the center of what G.o.d wants you to do, so you keep going. Destiny gives you stability, and stability fosters endurance.

Significance Lois (my wife) and I were in Italy not too long ago, and one of the museums we visited displayed many of Michelangelo's unfinished works. This museum held piece after piece of incomplete statues. Some of them showed only an arm or a foot or a shoulder. Some were almost finished, and others were barely begun. As I walked through this museum looking at statue after unfinished statue, I began to think about heaven. Many of us are going to get to heaven one day and stand before G.o.d without having fulfilled our purpose. We will be like one of those unfinished statues because we never allowed G.o.d to chisel out His complete design in us.

Michelangelo's other pieces are displayed prominently in the most elite museums around the world, but what remained undone wound up in an obscure museum in Italy. It was akin to a freak show of art simply because these unfinished pieces never reached their potential. Lacking significance, they remained unnamed, unclaimed, and compared to the finished works, unseen.

Friend, you are significant. You matter. Your destiny matters. G.o.d has a plan for you that not only affects you but, as with all blessings, touches others as well.

You may not feel significant. You might prefer to be different from the way you are-another gender, another height, another race-but G.o.d purposefully made you the gender, race, and height you are. G.o.d has arranged or allowed all of the experiences in your life-the good, the bad, and the bitter-to help facilitate your destiny. You are who you are so you can fulfill your destiny. That's why you are the gender you are and the race you are. It's why you have the intelligence you have-for your destiny.

You are significant. Don't let the culture's a.s.sessment of significance keep you from being chiseled into the magnificent work of art G.o.d intends you to be. Who knows what unfinished work might have received even more acclaim than Michelangelo's David had it been completed? Who knows what masterpiece remains imprisoned in a block of stone with its significance hidden from sight?

Discovering and fulfilling your destiny unleashes your full significance for all to view.

Ident.i.ty All of us are vulnerable to a terrible crime-ident.i.ty theft. We receive warnings about it on television routinely. You probably receive offers in the mail that promise to keep your ident.i.ty safe. People commit ident.i.ty theft when they pretend to be you and use information about you to access your resources without your permission. They want your Social Security number, your credit card numbers, and other information that will enable them to steal from you.

People wreak havoc when they rip off your ident.i.ty. Often, before you determine what has happened and can stop it, the thief has already destroyed various aspects of your life. The thief can steal your money, put you in debt, and mess up your credit rating. By ripping off who you are, thieves can get access to what you have.

Ident.i.ty theft has a parallel in the spiritual realm. The evil one seeks to steal what G.o.d has ordained for you. He rips off your ident.i.ty. In John 10:10, Jesus states clearly, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." The thief wants to steal and destroy that which Jesus came to give-life. Satan wants to ruin your life by confiscating your ident.i.ty in Jesus Christ.

People spend a lot of time and energy today trying to discover who they are. They go on quests seeking to somehow find themselves. The problem is that our ident.i.ties have already been messed up by so many things. Some of us were raised in situations that distorted the way we think about ourselves and others. Some of us have had negative experiences with people-friends, spouses, coworkers-that have affected the way we perceive who we are. The media is constantly inundating us with new definitions of ourselves. In fact, many people are so confused about their ident.i.ties that they will pay professionals hundreds of dollars to tell them who they are.

You know you have lost touch with your personal ident.i.ty when you spend time wis.h.i.+ng you were someone else. If you are doing that, either you don't know who you are or you don't think much of who you are. People will spend a lot of money dressing up, hoping their looks will bolster their ident.i.ty. If they hear someone say, "You're pretty" or "You're handsome," they feel as if they are someone. But like a mannequin in an upscale department store, you can look good but still have no life. You might simply be positioned on stage for a moment without ever living out your destiny in the abundant life Jesus Christ came to give.

This problem with personal ident.i.ty has caused a tremendous amount of chaos in our world today because people spend a large amount of their time, money, and energy searching for who they are. But if you don't know who you are, and you begin searching for your ident.i.ty, how will you know when you find yourself?

The New Creation Paul tells us in his letter to the church at Corinth exactly who you are as a believer in Jesus Christ.

From now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things pa.s.sed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:16-17).

When Paul says "we recognize no one according to the flesh," he is saying we do not evaluate things merely by their external, physical appearance. That is not the criterion by which we evaluate others, nor is it to be the criterion we use to evaluate and know ourselves. Rather, we want to know and understand the essence-an individual's (or your own) authentic core.

Because you are a believer in Jesus Christ, your authentic core is a brand-new creation. You have been re-created in Jesus Christ. He didn't simply perform a repair job on your sinful self; He placed a brand-new essence inside you. A b.u.t.terfly is not a patched-up caterpillar. Neither is it a caterpillar that had some surgery or work done on it. A b.u.t.terfly is a brand-new creation that has come from the caterpillar.

Each of us has a brand-new creation inside us. But we can't force it to come out, and we can't use it to patch up or fix what we have. No, we experience the newest and truest form of our own personal destiny by abiding in Jesus Christ.

What would you think if a b.u.t.terfly could talk, and it said, "Well...really, I'm just a caterpillar." You would probably think it is one confused talking b.u.t.terfly because it is not a caterpillar any longer. Yet as long as the b.u.t.terfly identifies itself incorrectly, it won't experience its own destiny to the fullest degree.

Your ident.i.ty determines your future. In other words, if you define yourself inaccurately, you will function improperly.

When two men first meet, they often ask each other, "What do you do?" This question is common simply because men are often defined by their work. They attach their ident.i.ty to what they do. That is why retirement is often difficult for professional athletes. Many will go into deep depression because the thing they had poured their lives and ident.i.ties into for so many years is now gone. They have to rediscover who they are because their sport was their ident.i.ty. They had been defined by their function.

Yet Paul says we are not to look at each other or ourselves that way. Within each of us is a brand-new creation. Too often, too many voices are telling us who we are, and too many things are seeking to define us. Yet G.o.d is the one who is to define us. Paul tells us this as he continues in his letter to the church at Corinth: "Now all these things are from G.o.d" (2 Corinthians 5:18). When he writes "all these things," Paul is referencing what he had just stated-"New things have come." He is referring to the new creation. You are no longer defined by the old things that have pa.s.sed away, but rather by the new things that have come from G.o.d. If you want to know who you are, you must let Him tell you because He is the One who has given you the new things in your new creation.

When you tie your ident.i.ty to the old you, you define yourself by flawed sources, including your own opinion of who you are. That is why we experience so many messed-up relations.h.i.+ps-we bring the old mess into the new relations.h.i.+p. If your dad told you what it meant to be a man or a husband, and he was messed up, then your understanding of what it means to be a man or a husband will be messed up as well. The same is true for daughters and mothers.

The surest way to destroy any opportunities for living out your destiny is to be confused about what it means to be the best you that you can be. Functioning according to the flesh, which has been flawed by sin, circ.u.mstances, history, and all sorts of other things, will sideline you and keep you from your destiny.

You may not be living out your destiny right now because you have been defining your ident.i.ty by the flesh rather than by the new creation placed in you through Jesus Christ. In Acts 17, Paul gives us an idea how comprehensive this reality is.

The G.o.d who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek G.o.d, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist (Acts 17:24-28).

G.o.d has determined your appointed times and boundaries. He has set your destiny in motion. He has created something new within you, and you can locate your destiny by connecting to Him. "In Him" you live and move and exist. Your true ident.i.ty comes from abiding in G.o.d and fulfilling that which He has destined you to do. In other words, when you discover who He is, you will discover who you are. If you ignore who He is in you, you will never fully discover who you are. As a result, you will live your life in trial and error as you attempt to somehow locate yourself.

Imperishable Seed You discover who you are when you discover who He is as He operates in you. You discover who you are when you recognize the new creation inside you. When you trusted in Jesus Christ for your salvation, G.o.d deposited His life inside you in spirit form. He deposited His living seed. We read in 1 Peter, "You have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of G.o.d" (1 Peter 1:23).

Your new ident.i.ty in Christ was placed in you in seed form. James writes about this seed that came through the word of G.o.d: "In humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21).

The new seed planted in you when you were saved came with the potential for growth. In order for that seed to realize its destiny, it needs to grow. For example, if a watermelon seed does not grow, it will never reach its potential of being a watermelon. Or if an acorn never grows, it will never be an oak tree. Many believers are not living out the truest manifestation of their destinies because the seed of the new creation within them is not growing. Yes, they attend church, read their Bibles, and practice a number of spiritual activities, but their destiny is in the seed. It is not in the activities. The DNA of your destiny has been planted within you, and the only way to live it out is for the new creation within you to grow. The life of Christ must be made manifest in your own life.

Let's say I am holding a watermelon seed in my hand, and I want to see it grow so I can have some watermelon. So I decide to pray over my watermelon seed: "Father, O great Creator of watermelons, I have a seed in my hand, and I am asking You to do something with this seed so that I can have some watermelon. Please."

After I pray this prayer, I recruit a number of other people who will join with me as I hold my watermelon seed and pray the same prayer again. So we join hands and pray.

After we pray, I decide we are going to open up our Bibles and read what Scripture has to say about how G.o.d created the plants of the earth and how He created this watermelon seed. We gather together and read our Bibles.

After we read our Bibles about the watermelon seed, I decide to take my watermelon seed to church and set it on the very first pew in the front row, and I preach over that watermelon seed, telling it that I want it to become a watermelon.

When all is said and done, I have prayed over my watermelon seed, read what my Bible says about my watermelon seed, and brought my watermelon seed to church. Yet nothing has changed with my watermelon seed because I performed religious activities without placing my seed in the soil. In order for that seed to grow, it has to be positioned in soil that will enable its growth.

Abiding Your new creation, the new seed planted within you, will grow in the soil of a relations.h.i.+p with Jesus Christ in connection with His Word. This is called abiding. To abide with something means to hang out with it or to loiter around it. In order to truly experience all that G.o.d has prepared for you, you need to hang out with the One who holds your destiny in His hands.

In the book of John, Jesus tells us one of the secrets to achieving our destinies: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me" (John 15:4). When your ident.i.ty is connected to Jesus Christ and the new life He has planted within you, you are able to carry out all that G.o.d has for you to do. Jesus continued, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" (verse 7).

Christ in you provides the soil for your seed of new life to be nourished and grow. When you abide in a relations.h.i.+p with Jesus, you don't have to force yourself to develop, and you don't have to make things come together. With the right seed in the right soil and the water of the Word, you will grow into your destiny.

Provision Lastly, G.o.d's provision is directly tied to your destiny. G.o.d always provides for what He destines. If you are not experiencing His provision, consider whether you are walking in your destiny. G.o.d is not obligated to provide the things you need to reach a destiny of your own making. He is obligated to provide only for the destiny He has designed you to fulfill.

When Jonah boarded a s.h.i.+p to Tars.h.i.+sh, running from G.o.d and from G.o.d's purpose for him (preaching in Nineveh), he had to pay his own fare. Jonah had to foot his own bill. He had to cover himself. Such is the case when you or I venture away from G.o.d's purpose for our lives.

G.o.d's provision for Sarah and Abraham was clearly linked to His purpose for them. G.o.d told both of them that His purpose for their lives was to produce a son. That son would be the channel through whom G.o.d would bless all of humanity. Yet Sarah and Abraham didn't see how G.o.d could come through on His promise. They couldn't figure out how G.o.d would provide, so they a.s.sumed He couldn't provide. Because of this, they took matters into their own hands, and Abraham had a child with his wife's maidservant, Hagar.

Had Sarah and Abraham placed their faith in G.o.d's promise and His ability to provide for that promise, the Israelites would not have had to experience all of the chaos that came through Ishmael and his descendants.

On the other hand, centuries later, Elijah took G.o.d at His word and trusted in His ability to provide for the calling He had given him. One day G.o.d used ravens to deliver food to Elijah; another time He provided through a widow at Zarephath. Even though G.o.d provided through various sources, Elijah was faithful to do what G.o.d had purposed, knowing that G.o.d would provide for him along the way.

G.o.d will provide everything you need to do whatever He has called you to do-financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Keep your eyes open for His provision because it doesn't always come the way you might expect. He has a purpose for who you are to be and what you are to do, and as you live out that purpose, He will provide all that you need in the most helpful way.

Discovering and living out your destiny are crucial because they address your needs for fulfillment, direction, stability, significance, ident.i.ty, and provision. When you get clarity on your calling-when you have a clear picture of your purpose-you will also receive all you need to carry it out. G.o.d may not always call the equipped, but He always equips the called. He will equip you with all that you need-spiritually, mentally, emotionally, relationally, financially, and more-when you live out your destiny.

4.

Completeness Many Christians today are living decaffeinated lives. The energy, zest, and power seem to be gone. Or rather, these believers are like hamsters on a wheel-ever moving yet never arriving, spending their days, evenings, weeks, months, and years in endless and meaningless cycles.

Have you ever hopped in the car and gone for a Sunday drive? I'll admit, I enjoy driving. I don't mind taking a trip across the country or from Dallas to Baltimore to visit my parents. But getting in the car just to spend time driving around with no intention of going anywhere...well, that is difficult for me to fully enjoy. My dad used to take the four of us kids and my mom on Sunday drives. They quickly got old because we had no plan, no purpose, and no destination. We were going nowhere because we had nowhere to go.

Sunday-drive mentalities leave far too many Christians living without a sense of significance, feeling as if they don't matter simply because they have not discovered how they matter.

As we saw in the first chapter, your destiny is the customized life calling G.o.d has ordained and equipped you to accomplish in order to bring Him the greatest glory and achieve the maximum expansion of His kingdom.

To live without fulfilling your destiny is to be similar to the Dead Sea in Israel. It exists, but nothing can live in it. No fish can swim in it. Nothing can grow in it. In fact, you can't even swim in it. The best you can do is float. Its sh.o.r.e is 1388 feet below sea level-the lowest land on the planet-so water runs into it but nothing flows out of it.

Far too many people are living Dead Sea lives with no outlets and no flow. They suffer perpetual stagnation because they have lost sight of the value of fulfilling their destinies. Or changing metaphors, far too many people spend a lot of time making a living but not a lot of time making a life. Because of this, they suffer from what I call the same-old disease.

Every day you get up from the same old bed and go to the same old bathroom to look in the same old mirror at the same old face. Then you go to the same old closet and put the same old clothes on the same old body. After that you eat your same old breakfast at the same old table and then get in your same old car to go to your same old job. After working all day next to the same old people for that same old pay, you get back in your same old car and drive on the same old road back to the same old house. Later, you pick up the same old remote, sit down in the same old chair and watch the same old shows until you go to the same old bed and wake up the next day to rehea.r.s.e the same old routine.

Far too many people settle for a common life rather than an extraordinary life.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that anything is wrong with having a routine. Rather, I'm saying that something is wrong if your routine isn't tied to your destiny. Unfortunately, for many people, the routine is tied solely to existing and not to their destiny. They have tried to determine their own destiny rather than seek G.o.d for the destiny He has for their life. As a result, they lack the power to bring Him glory and cooperate with Him in the expansion of His kingdom. Over time, this leads to frustration and disappointment. Finally, they quit trying, quit hoping, quit believing.

G.o.d's power, however, is tied to G.o.d's purpose. It is not tied to what you want your purpose to be or think it ought to be. Walk in His purpose, and you will have His power. Walk in your own, and you won't.

A Created Destiny No manufacturer designs and builds a product and then asks that product why it was made. The created thing cannot tell the creator what its purpose ought to be.

I a.s.sume that as you read this, you are either wearing a pair of shoes or will wear a pair of shoes sometime today. If you were to ask your shoes what their purpose is, would they tell you? No. The shoe designer can tell you why they were made.

Sometimes people can't find their destiny and their calling because they are trying to tell themselves why they have been called. They are trying to self-define their own calling. But keep in mind that a calling always a.s.sumes a caller. If your phone is ringing, someone else is calling you. You are not calling yourself.

Understanding that G.o.d is the caller and you are the callee is one of the foundational steps to living out your destiny. G.o.d is the designer and you are the design. G.o.d is the Creator and you are the created. That means you can never discover your destiny apart from G.o.d. It is impossible.

Many families experience conflict today because the family members don't know their destiny. Whenever you put frustrated or disappointed people in the same home and add the normal trials and tribulations of life, conflict is inevitable.

This is also the biggest difference between the successful single and the defeated single. The former knows his or her purpose, and the latter does not. Those who do not know their purpose may think that all of life is wrapped up in finding a man or a woman who will make them whole. A mate is a significant part of one's life, but unless you can offer your future mate a whole person to begin with, you will shortchange him or her in the relations.h.i.+p. You will seek to make that person fill a role that he or she could never fill-to give you your significance.

If you are single, your future mate may be "all that and then some," but he or she is not G.o.d. He or she is not your Creator. And he or she does not determine the destiny G.o.d has for you.

G.o.d says in the book of Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you" (Jeremiah 1:5). G.o.d doesn't say, "Before your future mate formed you in the womb..."

G.o.d formed you. G.o.d knew you. G.o.d consecrated you. And G.o.d has appointed you. Your destiny is tied to your Creator.

A Customized Destiny G.o.d not only creates your destiny but also customizes it just for you. No one else has your destiny-only you. Once you realize that, you will see the foolishness of trying to be someone else. Why would you want to be someone else anyhow? G.o.d already has one of that person. If you become another one, G.o.d doesn't have one of you.

What's more, you will never feel more alive than when you are carrying out the destiny specifically designed for you. Even though I am in my sixties now, when I preach, I still feel young enough to take on the world. A church member once told me that I come alive when I step into the pulpit. (I trust that wasn't just a nice way of saying I'm boring when I'm not in the pulpit.) I am fully alive there because I am fulfilling my destiny.

In fact, before I ever had a church, I would do anything I could to fulfill my destiny. From the time I was 18 and G.o.d called me to preach, you could find me anywhere and everywhere preaching. Sometimes I would climb onto the back of a parked car or a truck so my voice would carry better, and I would start preaching to anyone walking by. You could also regularly find me at bus stops, preaching to people as they got off the bus.

I didn't mind being hara.s.sed from time to time-even once by the police. I didn't care because I knew my calling. I didn't know many sermon topics at the age of 18. Basically I had one sermon: Repent and be born again. But I preached that same sermon over and over again because, as Paul wrote, "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." My calling was and is the fire in my bones that propels me to preach.

Friend, if you do not pursue and live out your destiny, you will spend your entire life wis.h.i.+ng you were someone else and trying to be someone you are not. If you are not happy with who you are, you have not yet discovered who G.o.d created you to be.

Like your fingerprints and your DNA, your destiny is uniquely yours. That truth ought to influence the way you view and respond to situations and events.

The biblical story of Esther is about a beautiful woman. G.o.d used Esther's beauty and her background to accomplish His destiny for her life. Because of her beauty, Esther was chosen by King Ahasuerus as his new bride. Yet once she moved into the big house, the evil Haman made a plot to commit genocide against her people. Nonetheless, Esther had apparently become so accustomed to her new luxurious way of life that she didn't feel like risking it in order to help her people. Esther's cousin Mordecai remedied the situation by reminding her of her purpose.

Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this? (Esther 4:13-14).

In other words, "Esther, your move uptown had a purpose, and it wasn't just about getting you out of the hood. Being pretty had a purpose, and it wasn't just about you falling in love. G.o.d put you in a strategic position at a strategic time to fulfill a strategic purpose that entails more than just shopping and customizing your wardrobe."

Esther was to look at her life in terms of her destiny, not merely in terms of her money, status, image, house, and relations.h.i.+ps. She was to consider her reason for being in connection with G.o.d's kingdom and His agenda.

People who are serious about fulfilling their reason for being placed on earth will learn to consider all of life with G.o.d's intentions in mind. That worldview will then impact their decisions.

A Comprehensive Destiny My daughter Chrystal loves to put together puzzles. As a child, she frequently spent hours putting together complex puzzles. Today, as a wife and mother of five, she still does puzzles when she can find the time.

Having just one piece of a puzzle doesn't do any good. A puzzle is incomplete with only one piece. The piece belongs to something much larger and more comprehensive than just itself. Without the larger part to which it belongs, the one piece loses its significance.

The same holds true for many believers today. Many Christians are living with feelings of insignificance because they cannot see how they relate to the much larger, comprehensive puzzle of G.o.d's purpose. You may be a fancy piece, a pretty piece, a handsome piece, or a well-crafted piece, but until you connect to the greater meaning for which you were created, you are just a piece without a picture.

And as we have seen, this is the greater meaning: G.o.d has created us all to bring Him the greatest glory and achieve the maximum expansion of His kingdom through the impact of our good works. Good works are biblically authorized activities that benefit people for time and eternity and that give the credit to G.o.d. If you are a Christian, whatever you are called to do will achieve both of those things. G.o.d's kingdom is His comprehensive rule over all of His creation. Fulfilling your destiny includes doing the kind of things that manifest the presence of G.o.d to a greater degree.

Every Christian is a part of G.o.d's kingdom and a piece in G.o.d's puzzle of life. Advancing G.o.d's kingdom isn't only for professional ministers or evangelists. It is for everyone. As a child of the King, you have been "rescued... from the domain of darkness, and transferred...to the kingdom of His beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13). That means that everything you do has now become kingdom activity, even if you once considered it to be secular. There is no distinction between the secular and the sacred when you are a kingdom-minded person. Everything is sacred for those who are living underneath the overarching rule of the King in His kingdom.

If you are a mother and you are was.h.i.+ng dishes for your family, you wash them sacredly. If you are a widget producer and you are producing widgets for your company, you produce them sacredly. "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of G.o.d" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

My doctor is Kenneth Cooper, "the father of aerobics." Dr. Cooper was recently recognized at Harvard University with the Healthy Cup Award for "dedication to understanding the scientific link between exercise and good health." One day, as I was sitting in Dr. Cooper's office and he was fussing at me the way he normally does, he began to tell me the history of how his dream-to create a place that promotes preventative medicine through good health and fitness-came into being.

"People think this is my job, Tony," he said. "They don't understand that this is my calling." Dr. Cooper went on to tell me that he is not a medical doctor simply because he enjoys medicine. He chose to be a medical doctor because he was called by G.o.d to work in medicine. Medicine is his ministry. Roughly only 100,000 people jogged in 1968 when Dr. Cooper first published his bestselling book Aerobics, which introduced the word and the concept to the American culture. Now, four and a half decades later, that number exceeds 30 million. Those 30 million people are being strengthened in order to have a better opportunity to fulfill their destinies.2 G.o.d is using Dr. Cooper's calling in connection with countless other people's destinies as well. His piece is part of a larger puzzle. Dr. Cooper's puzzle piece is significant due to his widespread recognition and impact, but like him, every person has a purpose to fulfill that links with the greater goal.

A few years ago I was visiting Dr. Billy Graham, and while touring his facilities before sitting down with him, I met a young woman who performed data entry at the ministry. When I asked her about her job, she told me she had been doing it for years. With a smile from ear to ear, she said, "I love what I do."

Confused how someone could love sitting at a computer all day entering and double-checking names, I asked her the obvious question. "Why?"

Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, "Because this is my calling. G.o.d called me to use my computer skills to expand Dr. Graham's ministry. When I enter a name in the computer, I know that this is someone who has been led to Jesus Christ through one of our outreaches. Or when I create lists for sending out booklets and follow-up information, I know that I am helping people who have just come to the Lord."