Christine Caine - Divine Assignment - Part 1
We want God's grace, we want God's mercy, we want God's forgiveness. But if someone has done something that you or I think, well, that's unforgivable, that's inexcusable, that's unredeemable. And then God extends exactly the same mercy and grace and forgiveness to them as he did to us, then we get just a little bit angry, like Jonah did. I am so excited that you've joined me for today's episode of equip and power. What I'm about to share with you is a message that's so near and dear to my heart. It's all about your purpose and your calling and empowering you to live on mission for Jesus. So let's not wait another moment. Let's dive into today's message, right now.
Hey everyone, I am so grateful that you have tuned in today. I know that God has got a specific word for you and I have to admit, I'm especially excited about today's word because I'm passionate about you discovering your God-given purpose. You have not tuned in by accident, I believe that you have tuned in on purpose for God's purpose. And, as I travel and teach all around the world, I have to admit I'm so grieved by the fact that there are so many people all across this world that are living aimless lives, purposeless lives and not knowing where they come from or why they are here on planet earth or where they are going, you might be one of those people. You might be wondering, you've tuned in and somehow the remote controller stopped right here.
I want you to stay with this program. You might be wondering, why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? I pray that, by today's show you're going to find out that you were created on purpose for a purpose. If we're honest, there is so much pain and so much tragedy and suffering and chaos and heartache in the world, all around us. And, some of it can be attributed to this factor, I truly believe this. That if you tell a generation long enough that they came from nowhere, that they are living for absolutely no reason and that they are ultimately going nowhere. Then eventually a generation is going to begin to act like they came from nothing, they're living for nothing and they're going nowhere.
When you see so much of the pain and suffering in the world today, it's because there's such purposelessness and hopelessness that is permeating the world and I want you to know, purposelessness and hopelessness, they go hand in hand. And that's why it's imperative that we understand that we are created on purpose, for a purpose. That God has a unique plan and purpose for us all. I want you to know right now, as you're sitting in your living room or watching this on one of your devices, wherever you are tuning in from, I want you to know that you are not an accident that you were created on purpose and for a purpose. You and I are not a product of time, but we are a product of eternity. We have been positioned in time and we've been given gifts and talents from God for the purpose of serving our generation.
In fact, in the Book of Acts chapter 17, verse 26. This is what we read, we read that from one man, he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined there appointed times and boundaries of where they live. So I need you to understand this, wherever you are watching this from, whatever country you are in, whatever city you are in, whatever village you are in. I want you to know that God has placed you on this earth, at this time, in this season, for the purpose of serving this generation. You and I, we are the salt and the light that God has sent into the world to bring hope to the hopeless. It's when we get a revelation, that we are on the planet to fulfill the purposes of God, that we begin to live an intentional life.
Without this revelation, we live an aimless life, a purposeless life, we kind of get up and just kind of think, well, I'll just go with the flow. But the fact is that we were created on purpose for a purpose. Now, if we live to please only ourselves or other people, then we are going to cycle in and out of constant disappointment, constant dissatisfaction, constant disillusionment, constant despair and we're going to have this endless list of never, ever satisfied desires. True satisfaction, true significance, and true security can only ultimately be found in and through our relationship with Jesus Christ and living on purpose for his glory in the here and now on this earth.
So many people, they're kind of waiting for one day when. One day, when someday out there, when all the planets align then I'm going to step into my God given purpose. But I want to encourage you today, to do that, step into your purpose here and now. When you realize that your life has a purpose and that every moment, of every day, is a gift from God to outwork that purpose in your life. Then you know what? Even our normal mundane every day lives have meaning and have eternal meaning and have eternal purpose. Our relationships, our parenting, our work, our school, our daily tasks, even going to the supermarket can take on a whole different meaning.
When we see them in light of our eternal purpose, not one life is insignificant I want you to know on the other side of that screen, your life is not insignificant. You might be watching this even right now and you are wondering, even if it's worth going on. Your life has been filled with so much depression, so much anxiety, so much hurt, so much loss, so much grief, so much pain, and you're thinking nobody would even notice if you weren't here anymore and it really wouldn't matter anyway, I want you to know it does matter. You're created in the image of God. You're created with incredible value, incredible significance, incredible security. You are not your greatest mistake. You are not your greatest failure. You are not what those people said about you. You are who God says you are.
So no life is insignificant and no purpose is irrelevant. No matter where you come from, where you live, what you do or what you may have done. I want to remind you today that God has a purpose and God has a plan for your life. You are not an accident. You are not a mistake. You are not a failure, you are not beyond redemption. You are not beyond restoration, you're not over the hill and it's not too late for you, it's not over for you. God has a plan, God has a purpose for your life. God loves you. God sees you. And God knows you and God has called you to himself. Now, our purpose is not always spectacular, but I want you to know this, it's always supernatural. You and I have been filled with the Spirit of God to live supernatural lives for the glory of God.
I want you to catch that. You have been created in the image of Almighty God and filled with the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, not to live a purposeless life, not to live an aimless life, not to just go with the flow, not just to satisfy and gratify your flesh, but to live for God's glory here on the earth, there is a higher purpose. Now, what happens to us is sometimes we spend so much time like scrolling through everyone else's life on Instagram, or Twitter, or maybe on Facebook or TikTok. And what happens is we scroll through everybody else's life, and we begin to compare our natural life on this earth, we their natural life instead of going to the prayer closet, locking ourselves in, laying a hold of God and discovering God's purpose for our lives here on earth.
Scrolling through someone else's life is not going to give you significance or security. It's not where you're going to discover your purpose. You're going to discover your purpose in the presence of God. You're going to discover your purpose, praying to God, reading the Word of God, allowing God to speak to you. That's where we discover our purpose. We don't discover our purpose by comparing and competing with somebody else. We don't discover our purpose by just kind of trying to make something up to make our lives better, we get into the presence of God and we allow God to speak to us. Don't ever confuse the spectacular with the supernatural. The supernatural, is exactly that.
You go, "Chris, what do you mean?" It's super as in very natural, I want you to understand that. A lot of us, we miss our purpose, man, for this big, spectacular thing. We want the burning bush experience, we want something spectacular to happen and that's how we expect that God is going to use us or speak to us. And we think if it's not spectacular, it must then be supernatural. But I've discovered that God is super, very natural. He created us body, soul, and spirit to live on this earth and to outwork our supernatural destiny in a very natural world.
So what you'll find is often the supernatural is just that, very natural, very normal. And I believe that daily in our everyday lives, in our interactions, in our relationships, in our workplaces, in our communities, in our schools, in our universities, I believe that God wants to intervene in our mundane lives and make them super natural. A lot of us are missing God in the every day because we're waiting for the spectacular. When you wait for the spectacular, you can miss God in your normal everyday life. I think if we just stopped waiting for that one spectacular moment out there. That one big miracle to happen, that one big spectacular breakthrough to happen.
If we just stop waiting for it to happen somewhere out there in the future and we realize that our God is intricately involved in the small decisions of our normal everyday lives right where we are. Right in that village, right in that town, right in that city right in that nation wherever you are. Then we will see God use our normal everyday mundane circumstances to outwork a supernatural purpose. I cannot explain this strongly enough to you. I think in the world in which we live in the fact that we all have access to the internet and to social media, we just keep thinking that if it's not spectacular, it's not God. But I've discovered that God is in our mundane, normal every day life.
Our everyday interactions, our everyday conversations, our everyday places that we go. If we can find God in the midst of that 'cause he's omnipresent, he is everywhere at all times. Then I think our boring lives would suddenly become supernatural lives, where we outwork, the presence, the power and the purpose of God in our lives. I believe that God has divine assignment for every single one of us.
Today, God, you have placed me in this place on purpose for a purpose. Father let me walk in that purpose today. Let me see you in my interactions today. Let me see you in my thought life today. Father, everything that I do the way I act, the way I think, let me be in your plan and in your purpose in this day.
So my hope and prayer is that you will choose to accept your daily divine assignment wherever you are by valuing the small conversations, or the small interactions, or the small acts of obedience that God asks you to do. And you know what? When you do that, that is how things lead to a life that is lived on mission and on purpose, and that is how great fruit is produced for the glory of God. I know sometimes we can think, man, I need to start some big not for profit or I want to do some great ministry work or I want to have sub spectacular business for the Kingdom of God. And all of those things are a noble pursuits if they're done for the glory of God, but often we never get to those because we're not willing to take the small step right in front of us. To see God glorified in our normal mundane interaction.
Now, Jonah in the scripture was a man in the Bible to whom God gave a divine assignment. And I've got to tell you, it took Jonah a little bit of time to say yes to his God assignment. But when he did, it actually led to a revival in the city that he was sent to. Now I'm wondering wherever you are in your normal everyday life, whether you are actually on the verge of a revival, perhaps in your home, perhaps in your workplace, perhaps in your school or your university or the community in which you live are you one yes, away from revival. And I think that so many of us are hesitant to say yes, to the next act of obedience, yes, to the next act of obedience in that conversation, in our thought life, perhaps in our spiritual disciplines, in our interactions with other people. And we end up missing the huge revival that we're believing God for, because we're not willing to say the small yes, in our normal circumstances every day.
Now my purpose in this series is that you will see God in your normal everyday life. You'll see that in our conversations in our thoughts, in our actions, in our reactions, in our responses, in our interactions with other people, that is where our purpose is worked out. It's not that one day we're going to wake up and here I am, and suddenly I'm living on assignment and I'm living according to purpose, I've got to say yes to God in the next thing. What is the next thing that God's asking you to say yes to? What is the next act of obedience? What is the next thing that the Lord's asking you to do? You're waiting for the one day out there, big thing. And the Lord's saying, I'm just asking you to be obedient in the next thing. So we're going to turn with that to the book of Jonah.
Now, I love this prophet of, I think there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. And we're going to start this whole book is so exciting. But in Jonah chapter one versus one to three. It says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittal. Get up, go to the great city of Ninevah and preach against it because their evil has come up before me. Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship, going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. And then if we keep reading the chapter, we know that a great wind came and we know that the ship was in the midst of a storm and that there was a whole conflict happening in all of that ship. And then Jonah went overboard, he got into the belly of a whale most of us know that story. But the story starts with God giving Jonah a divine assignment. He told him to go to the city of Ninevah and to tell the people in that city to change their ways.
Now, Ninevah was a city that was full, it was really evil. It was full of crime and it was full of violence and it was full of immorality. That probably sounds a little bit like the city in which you and I live somewhere in the world today. Our cities all over the world are full of inequity and crime and violence and suffering and pain and loss and grief and Ninevah had done evil in the side of the Lord and it came to the Lord's attention and the Ninevites, were frequently at war with the Israelites. So as you could imagine, it was definitely not a safe place for a Jewish man to go. Now, it's amazing to me that often God will send us to the very places that we think look, if I go there, they're going to kill me or they're going to reject me. If I say something at school, they're going to be against me. If I make a stand for God in my workplace or if I make a stand for God, in my community, then they're going to reject me, they're going to cancel me. So I'm going to pull away, I don't want to make that kind of stand for God.
Now, Ninevah was not a place where a Jewish man would've wanted to go, out of his natural inclination. Very often, God sends us to places where we just think, "You know what, Lord, I don't think that's a good idea". We, tell God where we want to go, but he's often sending us into places of darkness, places of inequity, places of immorality, places of loss and grief and pain and suffering so that we can be salt or light. What is the purpose of salt or light otherwise, we don't need to go to a place that's already lit and add more light when there's already a whole lot of light, but we go as carrying the light of Christ into dark places to illuminate those dark places with the light and the love and the mercy and the grace and the goodness and the kindness, of God. We go into places that need salting, places that are bland, places that are just dry and barren. When you eat a piece of steak with no salt, I'm Greek, so we love salt.
And you know what? There is nothing quite like food without flavor. There are some places that the Lord sends us and it's like, look, I want you to add some flavor to that place. There is no point adding more salt to things that are already well salted. There is no point adding more light to things that are already totally lit. So it makes sense that God's going to send us to the Ninevah of the world. He's going to send us into these places that are dark, that are full of immorality and in inequity, so that we can be the light and the salt of the world in those places, the Lord sent Jonah to Ninevah. But the fact is, Jonah did not like this divine assignment. And you know, it's easy to think that maybe he didn't want to go to Ninevah because he was so frightened that he might be captured or he might be killed. But actually he's the reason why Jonah did not want to go to Ninevah. It was because the people of Ninevah might actually repent when the word of the Lord would be preached. And Jonah was concerned that God would actually forgive them because Jonah knew that God is kind and that God is gracious and that God is merciful.
So isn't it interesting that the reason he didn't want to go to Ninevah was not because he was frightened of the immorality and the inequity and the darkness, but he was more concerned that our gracious, merciful, loving, forgiving, and kind God would actually forgive the people that Jonah did not think deserve forgiving. I wonder, have you ever been in that kind of situation or maybe you've been that person, or maybe we've all known someone like that and I would say, if you are like me, we have all been that person at some time. Where we are so grateful that God is merciful and that God is kind and loving and forgiving towards us.
We want God's grace, we want God's mercy, we want God's forgiveness. But if someone has done something that you or I think, well, that's unforgivable, that's inexcusable, that's unredeemable. And then God extends exactly the same mercy and grace and forgiveness to them as he did to us, then we get just a little bit angry, like Jonah did. I think that we all have a tinge of Jonah in us. And we all need to regularly come before the throne of God and ask him to search our own hearts and to show us where maybe pride or legalism or judgment or arrogance has made us angry or unwilling to extend the unconditional love of God, to those whom we deem unworthy.
I want you to know that God loves everyone, that God has a plan and a purpose and a and God is sending us often to the very people that we deem to be enemies. To extend his love, his grace, his mercy and his forgiveness. I wonder today who it is that God is sending you to. I wonder today whether you've been withholding the love and the grace and the mercy and the goodness and the kindness of God, because you don't think that person deserves forgiveness. You think what that person has done is just like unredeemable. You don't like the way that person votes. You don't like the kind of lifestyle that person has. You don't like the choices that somebody else has made. Let's be careful in our lives that we don't expect the love, the grace, the forgiveness, the mercy of God for our own lives, but that we then refuse to extend it to someone else.