It’s NOT About YOU!
As I began to seek what God would have me write as the first article of 2011, He kept playing a song by contemporary Christian artist Matthew West. The title of the song is “My Own Little World”[1] and the lyrics say:
“In my own little world it hardly ever rains; I’ve never gone hungry or always felt safe; I got some money in my pocket shoes on my feet; In my own little world; Population me.
I try to stay awake through the Sunday morning church; I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give ’til it hurts; and I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see; it’s easy to do when it’s; population me.-
What if there’s a bigger picture; what if I’m missing out; What if there’s a greater purpose; I could be living right now; outside my own little world.
Stopped at the red light, looked out my window; Outside the car, saw a sign, said “Help this homeless widow;” Just above this sign was the face of a human; I thought to myself, “God, what have I been doing?”
So I rolled down my window and I looked her in the eye; Oh how many times have I just passed her by; I gave her some money then I drove on through; in my own little world there’s; Population two.
What if there’s a bigger picture; what if I’m missing out; What if there’s a greater purpose; I could be living right now; outside my own little world; Start breaking my heart for what breaks Yours; give me open hands and open doors; put Your light in my eyes and let me see; that my own little world is not about me.”
The world, controlled by Satan, keeps telling men it’s all about you.” We believe the world belongs to us and everyone else is in our world to satisfy our every desire. When men buy into this huge lie we don’t have room for God because we fill ourselves with the foolish beliefs that lead us down a path of believing that we are in fact a god. We not only worship our own little world, we expect others to worship it as well.
As Rick Warren so appropriately stated in his book (“The Purpose Driven Life”) “It’s not about you.” The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.” [2] Psalm 139 says “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand — when I awake, I am still with you.”[3] This passage makes it clear that God has a greater purpose for each of us in mind even before we were conceived.
Paul tells us “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until redemption of those who are God’s possession — to the praise of his glory.”[4] This process of understanding God’s purpose for our life begins with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is through this personal relationship with our Savior that we discover the presence of the Holy Spirit; God uses the Holy Spirit to guide and direct our path. What so many men miss in this decision to have personal relationship with Christ is that it requires that we surrender ourselves totally and completely to Him. Before we can discover God’s purpose for our lives we must first make this commitment to HimJesus said “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
You see, men want the promise of an eternity in heaven but don’t really care for the “deny themselves” commitment to this Jesus relationship. Yet without this complete and total commitment we cannot discover God’s purpose for our life. This mindset makes a man easy prey for falling back into the “world of me” and backslide into the “it’s all about me” approach to life. While many of us believe that dying unto self is a onetime event that occurs when we make a profession of faith, the reality is that we must die unto self daily because we still live in a world of sin. Failing to die to self leads to living for self and we cannot fulfill our God defined purpose when we are living to satisfy “self!”
This leads to two questions as we begin 2011. The first is, have you surrendered your life totally and completely to Jesus Christ? If not, the first order of business for 2011 is to make that decision. It must be a decision driven by the heart and not the mind. God desires a heart relationship not a head relationship. We have far too many intellectuals claiming to know Christ yet it is a relationship based on head knowledge rather than a genuine heart relationship. Romans 10:10 tells us “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.” To move out of the “world of me” and live in the God designed life for you it must begin with this heart relationship with Christ.
The second question is, are you dying unto self daily and making God’s purpose for your life priority over everything else?
While I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, I do believe in men making commitments and then keeping them. If you haven’t already, have a conversation with your Heavenly Father and make His purpose for your life the desire of your heart. God has work for you and me to do and time is growing short so let’s get busy! God needs his men to fulfill the commitment they have made to live out His purpose in all that they do. HAPPY NEW YEAR and may 2011 be your greatest year of discovering God’s purpose for your life.