The Purpose Driven Life by Richard Warren
by Parker · 218 things on NewTwos
- What on earth am I here for?
- Maturity is produced through relationships and community
- It’s not about you
- The purpose of life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness
- “It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power”
- You cannot arrive at your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on yourself
- Life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purposes
- Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life
- Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way to finding yourself, your true self
- How can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself
- You are who you are for a reason
- What areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?
- Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent
- Those who hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment
- Fear driven people often miss great opportunities because they’re afraid to venture out. Instead they play it safe, avoiding risks and trying to maintain the status quo
- Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be
- Love destroys fear
- One key to failure is to try to please everyone
- Nothing matters more than knowing Gods purpose for your life and nothing can compensate
- When life has meaning, you can hear almost anything
- Your purpose is the standard you use to evaluate which activities are essential and which aren’t
- If you can’t get it all done, you are trying to do more than God intended for you to do
- A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life
- The men and women who have made the greatest difference in history were the most focused
- Prune away even good activities and do only that which matters most
- “The tru joy of life: being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” - George Bernard
- What did you do with your life—all the gifts, talents, opportunities, energy, relationships, and resources you’ve been given? Did you spend them on yourself, or did you use them for the purpose you were made for?
- Living on purpose is the path to peace
- What would my family and friends say is the driving force of my life? What do I want it to be?
- “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” - Anais Nin
- The way you see your life shapes your life
- When you see life as a test, nothing is insignificant
- Will you fulfill your purpose or will you shrink back and live a comfortable, self-centered life?
- Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it
- Everyone lived for their own pleasure, not God’s
- God smiles when we love him supremely
- God smiles when we trust him completely
- God smiles when we obey him wholeheartedly
- God smiles when we praise and thank him continually
- God smiles when we use our abilities
- “Give yourself to God…surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes” - Romans
- Fear keeps us from surrendering, but love casts out all fear
- “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become-because he made us.” - C. S. Lewis
- Surrender yourself to the lord, and wait patiently for him
- “If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos.” - E. Stanley Jones
- Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works. All other approaches lead to frustration, disappointment, and self-destruction
- The greatest hinderance to God’s blessing in your life is not others, it is yourself. Your self-will, stubborn Pride, and personal ambition
- Put Jesus Christ in the drivers seat of your life and take your hands off the steering wheel. Don’t be afraid; nothing under his control can ever be out of control
- The key to friendship with God is not changing what you do, but changing your attitude toward what you do. What you normally do for yourself you begin doing for God, whether it is eating, bathing, working, relaxing, or taking out the trash
- I must choose to be honest with God
- To be a friend of God, you must care about all the people around you whom God cares about
- If worship is mindless, it is meaningless. You must engage your mind
- As long as you’re on earth, your spirit can only be where your body is. If your body isn’t there, neither are you
- “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the lord as a reward” - Paul
- “No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” - Corinthians
- Life is all about love
- The best use of life is love
- Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition
- Let love be your greatest aim
- Love leaves a legacy. How you treated other people, not your wealth or accomplishments, is the most enduring impact you can leave on earth
- “It’s not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters.” - Mother Teresa
- Whether I get anything else done today, I want to make sure that I spend time loving you and loving other people because that’s what life is all about. I don’t want to waste this day
- Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can’t make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time
- They want you. Your eyes, your ears, your time, your attention, your presence, your focus-your time. Nothing can take the place of that
- Love your neighbor as yourself
- We discover our role in life through our relationships with others
- We grow faster and stronger by learning from each other and being accountable to each other
- Your 5 deepest needs: a purpose to live for, people to live with, principles to live by, a profession to live out, and power to live on
- Life is meant to be shared
- Intimacy occurs in the light when we are open and admit who we really are
- Sympathy is not giving advice or offering quick, cosmetic help; sympathy is entering in and sharing the pain of others
- Sympathy days, “I understand what you’re going through, and what you feel is neither strange nor crazy.”
- Sympathy meets two fundamental human needs: the need to be understood and the need to have your feelings validated
- When people sin, you should forgive and comfort them, so they won’t give up in despair
- Because we’re imperfect, sinful people, we inevitably hurt each other when we’re together for a long enough time
- You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others
- Whenever you are hurt by someone, you have a choice to make: will I use my energy and emotions for retaliation or for resolution
- Community requires commitment
- Cultivating community takes honesty. You will have to care enough to lovingly speak the truth, even when you would rather gloss over a problem or ignore an issue
- Most people have no one in their lives who loves them enough to tell them the truth (even when it’s painful), so they continue in self-destructive ways. Often we know what needs to be said to someone, but our fears prevent us from saying anything
- Speak the truth in love
- An honest answer is a sign of true friendship
- We’re all connected to each other. When you lie to others you end up lying to yourself
- Until you care enough to confront and resolve the underlying barriers, you will never grow close to each other
- In the end, people appreciate frankness more than flattery
- Live in harmony with each other. Don’t try to act important, but enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all
- Give more honor to others than to yourself. Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others
- Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less
- Humble people are so focused on serving others, they don’t think of themselves
- Courtesy is respecting our differences, being considerate of each other’s feelings, and being patient with people who irritate us
- One key to courtesy is to understand where people are coming from. Discover their history. When you know what they’ve been though, you will be more understanding. Instead of thinking about how far they still have to go, thank about how far they have come in spite of their hurts
- Gossip is spread by wicked people; they stir up trouble and break up friendships
- We will share our true feelings, encourage each other, support each other, forgive each other, speak the truth in love, admit our weaknesses, respect our differences, not gossip, and make group a priority
- Blessed are those who work for peace. Those who actively seek to resolve conflict
- How to restore a relationship:
- Talk to god first
- Always take the initiative
- Delay only deepens resentment and makes matters worse
- To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do
- You are only hurting yourself with your anger
- Sympathize with their feelings
- Look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own
- Patience comes from wisdom and wisdom comes from hearing the perspective of others
- Listening says, I value your opinion, I care about our relationship, and you matter to me
- People don’t care what we know until they know we care
- We must bear the burden of being considerate of the doubts and fears of others. Let’s please the other fellow, not ourselves, and do what is for his good
- Confess your part of the conflict
- Admit your own mistakes
- First get rid of the log from your own eye; the perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friends eye
- If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves
- Attack the problem, not the person
- In resolving conflict, how you say it is as important as what you say
- Cooperate as much as possible
- Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody
- For the sake of fellowship, do your best to compromise, adjust to others, and show preference to what they need
- Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution
- Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focused on the problem
- Relationships are always worth restoring
- Focus on what we have in common, not our differences
- Let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character
- Settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency. Maturity is living with the tension
- Choose to encourage rather than criticize
- When someone begins to gossip to you, have the courage to say, “please stop. I don’t need to know this. Have you talked directly to that person?”
- People who gossip to you will also gossip about you. They cannot be trusted
- Gods ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development
- Never forget that life is not about you. You exist for God’s purposes, not vice versa
- We choose to do the right thing in situations and then trust God’s spirit to give us his power, love, faith, and wisdom to do it
- The Holy Spirit releases his power the moment you take a step of faith
- God waits for you to act first. Don’t wait to feel powerful or confident. Move ahead in your weakness, doing the right thing in spite of your fears and feelings
- Make every effort in our growth towards becoming like Jesus. You don’t just sit around and wait for it to happen
- We must choose to let go of our old ways of acting. Everything connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it
- We must change the way we think. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds
- Allow God to direct your thoughts
- We will change from the inside out, we become more beautiful, and we are set free to soar to new heights
- Develop new godly habits
- Your character is the sum of your habits
- God uses his word, people, and circumstances to mold us
- Gods word provides the truth we need to grow
- Gods people provide the support we need to grow
- Circumstances provide the environment we need to practice Christlikeness
- God is far more interested in what you are than in what you do
- We are human beings, not human doings
- Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out… unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well formed maturity in you. “You must make a counter-culture decision to focus on becoming more like Jesus
- Decide to become a disciple
- Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make
- To change your life, you must change the way you think. Behind everything you do is a thought. Every behavior is motivated by a belief, and every action is prompted by an attitude
- Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts
- Change your autopilot—the way you think
- Change always starts first in your mind
- The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel influences the way you act
- Stop thinking immature thoughts, which are self centered and self seeking
- Start thinking maturely, which focuses on others, not yourself
- It is never too late to start growing
- Every problem is a character building opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for building spiritual muscle and moral fiber
- Troubles produce patience and patience produces character
- What happens outwardly in your life is not as important as what happens inside you. Your circumstances are temporary, but your character will last forever
- Many people become bitter, rather than better, and never grow up
- If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within you’ll be depressed. If you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest
- The secret of endurance is to remember that your pain is temporary but your reward will be eternal
- Don’t give in to short term thinking. Stay focused on the end result
- Whenever we try to avoid or escape the difficulties in life, we short circuit the process, delay our growth, and actually end up with a worse kind of pain-the worthless type that accompanies denial and avoidance
- If you are facing trouble right now, don’t ask why me? Instead ask, what do you want me to learn?
- There is a purpose behind every problem
- Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God had promised those who love him
- “My temptations have been my masters in divinity.” - Martin Luther
- Every temptation is an opportunity to do good
- On the path to spiritual maturity, even temptation becomes a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block when you realize that it is just as much an occasion to do the right thing as it is to do the wrong thing
- God develops the fruit of the spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you’re tempted to express the exact opposite quality. Character development always involves a choice, and temptation provides that opportunity
- God teaches us love by putting some unlovely people around us. It takes no character to love people who are lovely and loving to you
- You can’t claim to be good if you’ve never been tempted to be bad. You can let claim to be faithful if you’ve never had the opportunity to be unfaithful. Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest; humility grows when we refuse to be prideful; and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up
- Temptation starts when satan suggests (with a thought) that you give in to an evil desire, or that you fulfill a legitimate desire in a wrong way or at the wrong time
- You can’t keep the devil from suggesting thoughts, but you can choose not to dwell or act on them
- Run from anything that gives you evil thoughts, but stay close to anything that makes you want to do right
- The battle for sin is won and lost in your mind. Whatever gets attention will get you
- Every time you try to block a thought out of your mind, you drive it deeper into your memory. By resisting it, you actually reinforce it
- Don’t fight the thought, just change the channel of your mind and get interested in another idea
- We naturally move toward whatever we focus our attention on. The more you think about something, the stronger it takes hold of you
- Repeating “I must stop eating too much or stop smoking” is a self defeating strategy. It keeps you focused on what you don’t want
- Don’t repress it; confess it. Don’t conceal it; reveal it. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing
- Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Problems grow in the dark and become bigger and bigger, but when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as sick as your secrets
- The reason we hide our faults is Pride. We want others to think we have everything under control. The truth is, whoever you can’t talk about is already out of control in your life
- Don’t carelessly place yourself in tempting situations. Avoid them
- It is easier to stay out of temptation than to get out of it
- There is no growth without change, no change without fear or loss, and no loss without pain
- You were put on earth to make a contribution. You weren’t created just to consume resources-to eat, breathe, and take up space
- Who’s needs can I meet?
- Spiritual maturity is never an end in itself. We grow up in order to give out
- We are only fully alive when we are helping others
- Your heart reveals the real you-what you truly are, not what others think you are or what circumstances force you to be
- When you are doing what you love to do, no one has to motivate you
- Forgotten experiences are worthless
- Don’t be envious of the runner in the lane next to you; just focus on finishing your race
- Be sure to do what you should for then you will enjoy the personal satisfaction of having some your work well and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else
- If my life is fruitless, it doesn’t matter who praises me, if my life is fruitful, it doesn’t matter who criticizes me
- We are to cultivate our gifts and abilities, keep our hearts aflame, grow our character and personality, and broaden our experiences so we will be increasingly more effective in our service
- Take advantage of every training opportunity to develop your shape and sharpen your serving skills
- Whoever wants to be great must become a servant
- You can tell what they are by what they do
- Without a servants heart, you will be tempted to misuse your shape for personal gain. You will also be tempted to use it as an excuse to exempt yourself from netting some needs
- Real servants make themselves available to serve