God's Purpose And Destiny For Our Lives

I would like to look at Revelation 4:11, which is talking to God: "You created everything, and it is for Your pleasure that they exist, that we are created." Everything that God made was for His pleasure. God made you and God made you for His pleasure. That is why you should worship God, because worship is understanding that we were made for God's pleasure, and then responding in to how we were made.

Worship is an awesome thing of how God just responds back to us when we simply respond to Him. Worship is giving back to Him what He gave us. You see it is like this--parents, you understand what I'm talking about: if your kids ever come up to and they say "Thank you", you go "uh, what do you want?" But if they really have a heart of gratitude, that makes you feel good, doesn't it?

It is the same with God. We are His children, and when we go to God to express our gratitude to God, it makes Him feel good. He enjoys it when we say "Thank You" and we respond back to Him for what He has given us. It makes God's heart glad, it really does.

One day Jesus was walking down the street and some guy was talking to Him and asking Him all kinds of questions. He asked, "What is the big thing? What is the major thing that we should be about?" Jesus responded in that question in Matthew 22:37. He said, "Love the Lord, your God....This is the first and the greatest commandment."

What does first mean to you? It doesn't mean second, it's not third or fourth. I mean, first is first.; it has the highest priority. It is the greatest, and there is nothing, nothing greater than this one. So your primary call upon your life--the biggest commandment there is--is to learn to love the Lord with all of your heart, your soul and your mind . This is the first greatest commandment is to love God. It's the first one; it's the big one.

Earlier, we talked about how when God created us, He made us in order to love us. Now we are talking the flip side of that--simply responding to that love by worshipping Him. You see, our first purpose is to love and worship God. It is our primary purpose, that is why we are here.

I don't know what you think of when you hear the word worship. It is more than just having a song service, it' more than just spending time with God daily. Worship is beyond just praying. I think we need to expand what we think worship really is because there are a whole lot of things involve with worship, and with what really worship really is. Romans 12:1, says, "Because God's great mercy to us, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicate to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer."

There are three key words I want you to remember. The first one is "because," and the second it's the same word, but it is used two different times, it is the word "offer." You will see, this is the essence of what worship is.

First of all, worship is my response to God's love. God loved me and in response to that, I love Him. That is what that word "because" is-- because of what He did, because of His love, because of the way He demonstrated His love. If you can really understand and comprehend the love that God has for us you, can give that back to Him. So, what is my response to God's love? It is giving my love back to God, giving myself back to Him.

You may ask yourself, what can you give God? Think about it, God has everything, right? I mean, what can you give back to God that He does not already have? (Talk about those people that it's hard to find a Christmas presents for!) What can you give God?

That is that word "offer" means--offer is "to give." You can offer up to God your life, because that is what He wants. He wants your heart, He wants your love. When you give Him your love, you are giving Him something He has chosen not to take; something that you have to chose to give.

Love or worship is simply giving back to God. Mark 12:30 says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength." The word "all" is pretty consistent in there. It is a pretty comprehensive word that you just means "all." It is everything.

God wants us to love Him in three ways. First, He wants us to love Him thoughtfully, which means God wants us to love Him from our mind. God want us to have our thoughts, and our minds. Second, He wants us to love Him passionately. That means we love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul. Third, God wants me to love Him practically, with my strength, with my abilities. God wants me to love Him in these three ways.

We are going to use different terms for these words because we are going to talk about attention. God wants my attention, He wants my thoughts, He wants my mind. God is also going to want my affection, my passion, my heart, my soul. In addition, He is going to want my abilities. He is going to want my strength practically, loving Him. I just want us to really focus our minds on Him because worship is about Him.

Worship is when I focus my attention upon the Lord. I am to love my Lord with all of my mind. E.g., I am to give Him my attention. Sometimes when we come to a relationship with God or when we come to encounter God, sometimes we get on spiritual automatic. You know what I am talking about? Does anybody every do that?

I remember when I was in 9th grade and I was in Sunday School. My Sunday school teacher was closing the time together and he called on me to pray. I went on prayer automatic and before I knew it, I blessed the food. Have you ever been there and done that? Have you ever been on prayer automatic? I was so embarrassed that I have never lived that thing down, and my friends would never let me forget it. I shoved it to the back of my mind, but it just came up recently and I had to go get some inner healing on that.

Sometimes we just go on spiritual automatic. Some people do it every Sunday morning when they go to church. They kind of zone out..."is the pastor done yet?" You know what I mean. We get on this automatic zone, and sometimes we approach God thoughtlessly. But God wants us to approach Him thoughtfully--He wants our attention and He deserves our attention.

He deserves our mind, and to give Him our mind and we need to focus upon Him. Let me give an example. If I'm going to have a conversation with my wife, I can't be reading the newspaper or watching TV, or reading a book or anything like that. If I do, then my wife doesn't think I'm listening. She is right, because I'm not. So I've learned this, that if I'm going to talk to my wife, I have to look at her. Even then, she sometimes sees this blank stare coming over my face, and she says "You are not even listening to me, are you?' And if I don't respond, that is bad news. You women with husbands, many of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

We have to give God our attention. We can't do that if we have distractions, and if our mind is focus over here or over there. If you are thinking about those other things, then you are not able to give God your attention.

The problem is that our world is filled with distractions, and we are easily distracted. First of all, our flesh is a distraction, right? We also live in a world, in a culture that's full of distractions. Scripture says this in Roman 8:7 (in the Message Bible), "focusing on yourself is the opposite of focusing on God." Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, and ends up thinking more about self, rather than God.

If you are focusing your attention on you, you can't focus in on Him. Our problem is that within us, self-focus keeps us from focusing upon God it really hinders us in worship. We live in a culture that is self-absorbed, and our culture has so many things that pulls from us other directions, that distracts us, and keeps us from focusing our mind on God. Roman 12:2 says, "Don't become so well fixed in your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead fix your attention on God." You see we must chose to think upon God. How do you do that?

The first thing we can do is to simply spend time with God everyday. That is very important. Let me give you a hint on how to do that. Find a quiet secluded place, so that you wouldn't be tempted to go play with God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage--the focus will shift from you to God and you will begin to sense His grace. Find that quiet, secluded place. If you are going to spend time with God, you've got to find that place where you and God can come together; it's just you and God, quiet and secluded.

Now for many of you, it is not 15 minutes before you eat dinner when there is chaos in the house. It is not when everybody is running around. Find a place and find a time when you and God can get together and you guys can talk. Give Him your full attention, where you are not giving your attention to other things.

Choose a time and place that you are as free from distractions as possible, so you can give God your full attention simply and honestly. "Simply" means that you don't have to be religious, you can drop off all your religious jargon. God speaks more languages than just King James, so when you pray you don't have to revert to old English.

Just come to God very simply and very honestly. "Honestly" means that you don't have to hide anything--you are not going to surprise Him anyway. He's not going to say; 'oh, I didn't know that.' God knows everything. So come to Him in a very vulnerable and transparent fashion when you can meet Him. And we need to do it regularly and continually.

Psalm 105:4 says that we need to worship Him continually. The New Testament says, "Pray without ceasing." Continue to spend time with God, worship Him and whenever you give God your attention and your mind is focused and when your mind is fixed on Him, there is a benefit that comes in this. Isaiah, the prophet, was talking to God and he said in Isaiah 26:3: 'you keep in perfect peace, all who trust in thee, whose thoughts are fixed on you.' Did I use "thee" in there? I am so used to that "thou will keep," so let me revert to King James. "Thou will keep him in perfect peace, those whose mind is stayed on Thee." For those who don't speak King James, "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You and whose thoughts are fixed on You."

When you focus your mind on God, and you fix your thoughts upon Him, there is something that happens. God will keep you in a place of perfect peace. Does anybody need that? Has anybody signed up for the peace thing here? Boy, would I like to have some of that peace! What kind of peace is it? Imperfect? flaws? No, it is flawless--perfect peace. This is a promise from God.

Some of you need to start claiming that promise right now. You need to claim it if you are in a place where you don't have a peace of God, where your mind is consumed with worry, with discouragement, or your mind is filled with all these negative things with fear. If you will fix your mind upon God, then God will keep you in a place of perfect peace.

God can keep you in a place of peace, even if everything around you might be falling apart, even if all Hell is breaking loose. Why? It is because your peace doesn't have to be depended upon your circumstances. Peace doesn't have to be depended on what is going around you--it just depends on what your mind is fixed upon. The me correct that: it is not "what" your mind is fixed on, but "Who" your mind is fixed on.