Notes for
Lesson Eleven
Becoming Who God Made You to Be
Question# 1: Why am I alive?
Jeremiah 20:18 “Why was I born? Was it only to have trouble and sorrow, to end my life in disgrace?”
Question #2: Does my life matter?
Isaiah 49:4 “My work all seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and for no purpose at all.”
Isaiah 44:2 “I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.”
Psalm 136:16 “You... scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!”
Question #3: What is my purpose?
Psalm 89:47 “Why did you create us? For nothing?”
Proverbs 9:10 "Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding."
We must be driven by God’s purpose in our life. God has never made anything without a purpose.
Proverbs 16:4 “The Lord has made everything for His own purpose.”
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Clarity is the key to unlocking your future.
All people have this in common: we want to make a difference in the world and one of the most meaningful ways to do that is through doing work that matters.
Our goal is not to work to live, but to live to work, create and contribute.
2 Timothy 2:20-21 In any big household there are naturally not only gold and silver vessels but wooden and earthenware ones as well. Some are used for the highest purposes and some for the lowest. If a man keeps himself clean from the contaminations of evil he will be a vessel used for honorable purposes, clean and serviceable for the use of the master of the household, all ready, in fact, for any good purpose.
The truth is your life’s work is already inside you.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose.
There are three things that have to be in place and these are the three gifts that God gave you:
1) Gift number one is your talent or what you do best.
2) Gift number two is your passion or the work you love to do most
3) Gift number three is your mission or the results of your work that matters deeply to you.
Level one is the level of using your talent. When you just use your talent, it can make you successful.
Level two is when you use your talent to perform your passion. At that level, you will find some job satisfaction.
The third level is where you find significance when you use your talent to perform your passion to fulfill your mission.
1. What do you do best?
2. What trained skills are you good at?
3. What are your natural talents?
4. What people skills do you have?
5. What character strengths do you have?
6. What are some of the tasks or roles that come easily to you and that colleagues, bosses, or other people have commended you for.
7. What personality or character traits do you have that people recognize in you?
8. When you are at your best in the workplace, what do you do really well?
9. Where did I excel in school—what subject or activities?
10. What task comes easily to me?
11. What work or results do other people compliment me on?
12. Am I better at relating with people, working with objects/my hands, or dealing with data/information?
13. What’s my unique contribution when I’m involved in a team project?
Passion is the God-given desire that compels us to make a difference in a particular issue, area or people group in life.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God who is producing in you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases him.
Our passion shows us WHERE our life’s mission is.
1. What cause, group of people or thing moves me deeply? What makes you mad or what makes you weep?
Nehemiah 1:2-4 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
I Samuel 17:22-26 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it.
Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.
Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”
David asked the men standing near him,
“What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
2. What issues or causes do you feel strongly about?
3. If I were to mention your name to a group of friends, what would they say you were really interested in or passionate about?
4. What conversation would keep you talking late into the night?
5. What group of people would you like to help the most?
6. If I could snap my fingers and know that I couldn’t fail, what would I do with my life?
7. At the end of my life, I’d love to be able to look back and know that I’d done something about _______________.
8. Think about the top three positive experiences you've had in your life and briefly describe what you did and why it was meaningful to you.
9. What work do you love to do?
10. I think the area where I could make the most significant contribution is: ___________
11. What I would most like to do for others is _____________
You may have a talent, but your passion shows you WHERE your life’s calling should be.
Passion plus talents equals your life’s mission.
