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In Paul’s farewell to the leaders at the church of Ephesus in Acts 20:17-38, we get a glimpse into his heart and clearly see his desire to finish his life and ministry well:

“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).

Embedded in this verse are three challenges we must meet head on right now if we really desire to finish well. Will you dare to take these challenges?

1. The Challenge of Surrender

To read part one:
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/1104.php

2. The Challenge of Intentionality

To read part one:
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/1204.php

 

3. The Challenge of Focus

Focus: A point of intense concentration.

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24, emphasis mine).

Paul was able to finish well because he knew specifically what God wanted him to do with his life. Paul’s pinpoint focus was “the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24)—specifically to Gentiles (Acts 13:6; Romans 15-16-17; Ephesians 3:1)—which was a very radical and unpopular idea for Paul’s time and culture. But don’t miss this simple and profoundly life changing point: He had more than a vague or general idea about what God put him on the earth to accomplish. He had a grasp on his very personal and specific God-given mission in life. That is the challenge of focus.

How Is Your Focus?

What about you? Do you have a clear and very specific understanding of what God has put you on earth for? If you really want to finish well, you must begin to get a sense of your personal, specific mission from God—and lean into it with everything you have!

Most of Us Are Not Sure of Our Specific God-Given Mission!

Few Christians can finish the following sentence with any personal specificity: “God has put me on the earth to ___________.” Go ahead right now—stop reading and finish that sentence. Is your answer personal and specific to you? Sure, in a general sense, as the Westminster Catechism teaches us, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” But how—specifically—does God want YOU to glorify and enjoy him? Good books like The Purpose Driven Life and The Dream Giver help us to embrace the idea that God has some important and big-picture purposes for all of us, but most people never seem to get around to discovering God’s specific, personal destiny for them—and consequently, their ability to finish well is impeded. You will never finish this life well unless you can complete the following sentence with some personal specificity: “God has put me on the earth to __________.”

Finishing Well Requires Us to Begin the Journey of Discovering Our Specific God-Given Mission

To finish this life well, you must begin the process of finding and fulfilling the specific destiny for which God created you! This quest of discovering our God-given mission should be seen as a journey with God that continues through the various seasons of life! (I still don’t know exactly what I want to be when I grow up—but I’m having a blast on this journey with God!) To be sure, as stated in the Westminster Catechism, finding and fulfilling the destiny for which God has called you will bring God glory and you joy. (Note: I did not say God will bring you “happiness” or “success” as defined by this world’s standards—I said “joy.”) I also believe that in some key way, your God-given destiny—if it is truly God’s destiny for you and not your own concoction of a plan for your life—will have everything to do with helping people encounter “the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24)—but in a manner that is unique to the way God created you.

The Benefits of Finding Your Specific God-Given Destiny

There is great personal power and freedom that comes from knowing what God specifically wants you to do. It keeps you from being taken captive by what others think you ought to do with your time and life. That is, it helps you avoid The First Spiritual Flaw. The First Spiritual LAW is: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The First Spiritual FLAW is: God loves you and PEOPLE have a wonderful plan for you life. When you know what God specifically wants you to do, you know what to say yes to—and, perhaps more importantly, what to say no to. (See Mark 1:35-39.) Every opportunity people give you—even ministry opportunities in the church—should not automatically be understood as an obligation from God. There are so many good things people want you to do with your short life, you will never be able to do them all. And if you do try to do them all, you will miss God’s best for you. If you miss God’s best, you will not finish this life well. Hence, the ability to determine the difference between what is good and what is God’s best for you is a powerful advantage in life. This is precisely why you must begin the journey of discovering God’s personal, specific mission for your life.

[Action Point: Read Mark 1:35-39. How did Jesus know what to say yes to and what to say no to? If you want to discover how to figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to, check out Cadre’s Time Management for Painfully Pooped-Out People: Ten Biblical Principles for Taking Control of Your Life and Time—great for personal use or small group study.
http://www.cadreministries.com/store/books.html#time ]

Let Me Entertain You—NOT!

One time someone representing a church called me and said, “We heard you’re a very funny speaker. We’d like you to come and give us an evening of laughter and fun.” I said, “I think I can do that as long as I can share God’s Word with you too.” The person said, “We’re not asking for that—we’re asking for thirty minutes of entertainment.” I said, “Then I’m not your guy.” I hung up and reflected. Having a clear understanding of what specifically God wants me to do enables me to be judicious about how to strategically spend my short life doing God’s best—rather than that which is merely good.

So how can someone begin the journey of discovering his/her personal and specific God-given mission in life?

How You Can Begin to Find and Fulfill the Destiny for Which God Created You

To be sure, such an important and enormous endeavor as finding your personal, specific God-given mission in life is beyond the scope of this article—or any book. However, if you are willing to wrestle with God and be honest with yourself, I would like to try to get you started in your journey of discovering and embracing God’s specific destiny for your life. I suggest you find a quiet place to reflect on the following questions. Even better, take a personal retreat for a half a day to some quiet place where you can honestly and prayerfully think deeply about each question. It is very important that you—in some form—write out the answer to each question as this can force you into clarity of thought. This exercise in itself will not be sufficient, but it can be a catalyst for you to begin to discover God’s specific mission for your life. Journey on friend…

1. Pretend you suddenly and legally acquired ten million dollars tax-free. Once you finished doing all those things you want to do but can’t currently afford, how would you spend your time?

• What would you start doing that you are not doing right now?
• What would you stop doing?
• What would you do more of?
• What would you do less of?
• What would your ideal day look like—from the time you got up—to the time you went to bed? Be specific.
• How do your answers to the above questions indicate a desire to glorify God?
• What do the answers to the above questions tell you about the dream God has placed in your heart?

2. If you could write your own eulogy, to be read to your friends and relatives at your funeral, what would you want it to say? Be specific.

• Specifically, what do you want people to remember about you when you die?
• What specific changes do you need to make in the way you are living now so that you can live up to the details of your eulogy?

3. What one great goal would you dare to set for yourself if you knew you could not fail? Dream big and be as specific as you can.

4. Think of a time you had that sense of “For this I was born!” What—specifically—were you doing?

• Where were you?
• Who were you with?
• What exactly made this experience a “For this I was born!” encounter for you?
• What does this tell you about you?
• What does this tell you about how God has wired you up?

5. What do you really love to do—at home or at work?

• If you could only do one thing all day long, what one activity or task would it be?

6. What do you do that is almost effortless from your perspective but seems like a daunting task to others?

7. In what particular arenas do people consider you the “go-to” person?

8. What precisely do you enjoy about your current vocation?

9. What do you wish you could delegate?

10. What do you do that elicits the most praise and recognition from others?

11. What environments do you look forward to working in?

12. What environments do you avoid?

13. What kind of advice do people seek from you?

14. If you could focus more of your time and attention on one or two aspects of your current vocation, what would they be?

15. What are your spiritual gifts? Name them.

• Who confirms these?
• What happens inside of you when you put these spiritual gifts into play?
• What happens to those around you when you put these spiritual gifts into play?

[Action Point: While a spiritual gifts profile is not the ultimate way to determine your spiritual giftedness or personal, specific God-given mission, it can be a helpful tool to educate you about the different spiritual gifts—and it may give you some idea about how God wired you up to serve Him. To take a free online spiritual gifts assessment from Elmer Towns go here:
 http://www.elmertowns.com/spiritual_gifts_test ]

(Note: The previous thought-provoking questions have been borrowed and/or adapted from a wide variety of sources. Many are my own creation. Others are originally from human resource expert, Brian Tracy. Some come from Andy Stanley’s excellent book, The Next Generation Leader.)

Involve Other Key People in Your Destiny Discovery Journey

While self-evaluation via thinking deeply, prayerfully, and honestly about the previous questions is absolutely critical to finding and fulfilling your specific God-given destiny, self-evaluation alone is not enough. We rarely—if ever—have the ability to assess ourselves with complete objectivity. Perhaps this is one reason Proverbs wisely instructs us to sharpen others—and to be sharpened by others who love God and love us (Proverbs 27:17). So I challenge you to find two or three people who love God, know you well, and who employ others—and invite them to speak into your life by asking these great questions from Andy Stanley:

1. If I came to work for you for free…

• where in your organization would I add the most value?
• where would you want me to focus my attention?
• where would I stand the most chance of success?
• what area or areas would you see to it that I didn’t get involved in?

2. In my current work environment, where do you see misalignment between my core competencies and my responsibilities?

3. If you had the opportunity to advise my boss on how to better utilize me, what would your advice be?

4. Are you aware of areas in my life where there is misalignment between my passion and my competency?

Find and Deploy Your Champions

If you truly take the time to wrestle down God’s answers to the previous questions (not your answers or the answers you want to hear), in a small way, you will be on your way to exploring God’s destiny and mission for your life. Once you have struggled deeper into this journey and God starts to confirm your specific mission deep in your soul, stepping into your destiny will not come easily or automatically. God will require you to take some kind of step of faith (Hebrews 11). If you want to step into the specific purposes of God for your life, the only road in is FAITH AVENUE! So discovering your specific God-given mission is not the end. It is the beginning of the greatest challenge of your life. The question at this point will be: Do you have the spiritual guts to step into God’s specific mission for your life! Undoubtedly, you will need a person or a small group of people who will love you enough to encourage and challenge you to step into specifically what God has for you. In the book, The Dream Giver, Bruce Wilkenson calls these people, “Champions.” You will need to seek these champions out to help you take your journey!

[Action Point: Read Proverbs 27:17. Make a list of three “27:17 Champions” in your life. Ask them to speak into your life so you can begin to discover God’s specific and personal mission. Use the questions in this article to interact with these champions.]

Finishing Well: The Strategy of the Last 72 Hours

For the last several presidential elections, political pundits have been talking about the critical importance of the final 72 hours of a campaign. That is, after spending millions of dollars and countless hours of energy campaigning all over the United States, the fate of an election often boils down to the last 72 hours. In a presidential race in these days, if you snooze—or even let up just a little during the last 72 hours—you could very well lose! That’s how critical the last 72 hours are!

The point is this: To truly finish well, we must run strong all the way to the very end. The last portion of the journey is no time to rest or drop our guards! Yet, the spiritual racetrack of life is littered with the broken lives of those who had great starts, were more talented, smarter, stronger, and even more pious than most of us. Way too many of us finish poorly like Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived: “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God…” (1 Kings 11:4, emphasis mine). The danger for us is that as we grow old, our hearts could grow cold—and we may turn after other gods (including the god of self and comfort). If it can happen to Solomon, it can happen to any of us.

At the same time, we have a host of other Christian racers cheering us on so that we can finish well! As the life and ministry of the apostle Paul came to a close, he wrote these inspiring words: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). It can be done! It is possible to finish well—to—at the end of this life—hear the words of Jesus to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21). But make no mistake about it: If you really want to finish well in God’s eyes, you must—right now—embrace..

1. The Challenge of Surrender
2. The Challenge of Intentionality
3. The Challenge of Focus

RESPONSE: To respond to this article, e-mail us at   info@cadreministries.com

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Three More Finishing Well Resources:

1. Time Management for Painfully Pooped-Out People:
Ten Biblical Principles for Taking Control of Your Life and Time

* Book content and ordering info
http://www.cadreministries.com/store/books.html#time

* Audio CD
 http://www.cadreministries.com/store/audio.html

Great for personal use or small group study.

2. Andy Stanley shares material from his leadership training sessions, developed to address essential leadership qualities such as character, clarity, courage, and competency.

3. A modern-day parable about Ordinary, who dares to leave the Land of Familiar to pursue his Big Dream. With the help of the Dream Giver, Ordinary begins the hardest and most rewarding journey of his life.

 

 

 

BRAND NEW: The John 3:16 Factor Living Guide!

Twenty-five devotional studies to help individuals or small groups learn to relationally invite others to the journey of a relationship with God! This living guide is a pocket-sized booklet of biblical challenges and insights that helps you fill your heart with God's love--and then let that love overflow into your relationships with people who do not yet have a relationship with God! Your journey in this devotional will be one of interceding for pre-Christians, investing in a credible relationship with them, intersecting God's Word with their lives, and inviting them to trust Jesus Christ as Savior. Special pricing for multiple copies of three and ten.

To order online
http://www.cadreministries.com/store/books.html#john316

To order via regular mail, print this order form
http://www.cadreministries.com/store/mail.html

 

Start 2005 with Cadre's Ten Day E-mail Bible study: Overflowing God's Love to Others: Sign Up Now!

For ten days consecutive days (which has already started January 1st), join the Cadre team in an e-mail Bible study that will help you experience God's love for you--and then help you overflow that love to those in your world in practical ways. This ten day Bible study adventure is based on Cadre's Evangelism Is Relationships training workshop--and comes right out of Cadre's brand new companion twenty-five day devotional, The John 3:16 Factor Living Guide (see above for details). Can you think of a better way to start the first ten days of 2005?

Even though this eStudy has already started, check out the link below and catch up with us. You can also sign up for the last two days:

http://www.cadreinternational.com/john316

 

 

Cadre Trainers and Training Coming to You in 2005—Mark Your Schedules NOW!

• Central Illinois Area, Saturday, 1/15/05
Train-the-Trainers Special Workshop: The Teaching Genius of Jesus, 9 AM to 3 PM. This is especially for vocational and volunteer leaders who oversee volunteer teachers in their church. To register or for more info, contact Bill Allison at bill@cadreministries.com

• Central Illinois Area, Saturday, 1/22/05
Becoming a High Impact Teacher
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/bahit.php
8:30 AM-12:30 PM. For youth leaders, small group shepherds, and Sunday school teachers. The $15 registration includes a training manual and snack break. Contact certified Cadre trainer, Lon Alderman at lon@acornministries.com

• Orlando Florida Area, Saturday, 1/22/05
Becoming A High Impact Teacher
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/bahit.php
8:30 AM-12:30 PM. For youth leaders, small group shepherds, and Sunday school teachers. The $15 registration includes a training manual and snack break. Contact Cadre staff member, Doug Holliday at doug@cadreministries.com

• Central Florida Area, Saturday, 1/22/05
Becoming A High Impact Teacher
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/bahit.php
8:30 AM-12:30 PM. For youth leaders, small group shepherds, and Sunday school teachers. The $15 registration includes training manual and snack break. Contact Cadre staff member, Laura Wampach at laura@cadreministries.com

• Chicago Area, Saturday, 2/12/05
Ministry Is Relationships
http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/relationships.php
8:30 AM-12:30 PM. For ALL believers junior high through senior citizens at any level of walk with God. The $15 registration includes a training manual, follow up twenty-five day devotional guide, and snack breaks. Contact Bill Allison at bill@cadreministries.com

• Central Illinois Area, Friday and Saturday, 2/18-19/05
Friday workshops: Effective Youth Ministry Can Happen in a Small Town Church and Staying Spiritually Sane While Leading a Youth Ministry and Seasons in Ministry and Life
Saturday workshops: Time Management for Painfully Pooped-Out People http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/pooped.php and High Impact Methods of Teaching http://www.cadreinternational.com/training/methods.php
All workshops are a part of The Equip Convention at the Peoria Civic Center. For more information http://www.equipconvention.org.

• Central Pennsylvania Area, Friday-Sunday, 2/25-27/05
Youth Ministry 2005 Conference for Volunteer and Vocational Youth Workers
For a PDF informational brochure, contact bill@cadreministries.com

• Milwaukee Wisconsin Area, Saturday, 3/5/05
A Taste of Ministry Is Relationships, for more info contact bill@cadreministries.com

• Chicago Area, Saturday, 3/5/05
Training for volunteers and those who oversee volunteers in children's ministry! For more info contact info@cadreministries.com

• Central Iowa Area, Saturday, 3/19/05
Ignite National Youth Workers Conference for Volunteer and Vocational Youth Workers
For more info contact bill@cadreministries.com