Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by Richard (Dick) Innes of ACTS International.

Friday, November 16, 2018

"Cling tightly to your faith in Christ, and always keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked."¹

"Some years ago a headline told of three hundred whales that suddenly died. The whales were pursuing sardines and found themselves marooned in a bay. Frederick Harris commented, 'The small fish lured the sea giants to their death. They came to their violent demise by chasing small ends, by prostituting vast powers for insignificant goals.'"²

Over the years I've asked numerous people in many groups how many of them believe that God has a purpose for their life. Almost all hands raise in agreement. But when I ask what their God-given life-purpose is, very few have any idea. I get lots of vague generalities, but very few have a clearly defined life-purpose.

If we don't know specifically where we are headed in life, instead of making life happen, we allow life as it happens to make us. That is, instead of directing our life, we are directed by life's circumstances. We become like a rudderless ship with no real sense of direction, wasting our God-given potential on pursuing happiness, riches, or insignificant goals. Unless we know where we are headed, there is a danger that we, like the whales, may make shipwreck of our faith or even of our life.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that you do have a God-given life-purpose for my life. Please help me to discover what it is and, with your help, do all in my power to achieve that purpose. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. 1 Timothy 1:19 (NLT).
2. John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publications, 1993), p. 31.

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