T. D. Jakes - When Power Meets Potential: Unlocking Gods Purpose in Your Life

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mothers womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them (Psalm 139:13-16).

For we are Gods masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10 NLT).

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV).

YOU HAVE A PURPOSE

Your hands have formed me and made me (Job 10:8).

You have a purpose.

You were created on purpose.

You were formed, fashioned, and knit together by a skilled Craftsman, not some arbitrary cosmic explosion.

You are not an accident.

You are not an incident.

You are not a mistake.

You are not just a glob of protoplasmic material that is the result of a reckless night or a weekend between two passionate lovers.

You are not just a mere mixing together of DNA.

You have a divine purpose. You were allowed access into this dimension of life by the nod of the Creator Himself, that you would be strategically placed at this time, at this age, in your gender, in your ethnicity, with your gifting, and with your talent for Gods divine purpose.

Even the wealthiest person on the planet could not offer up any suitable form of tender that could purchase purpose. Surely they wish purpose could have a dollar value assigned to it, because then the relentless nagging of their souls could be silenced. They could rest easy knowing that the one unknown of life has been secured. Purpose is priceless, while purposelessness is very costly.

You can live in this world and make all the money you could ever dream of and be as beautiful as you want and be as educated as you please and accomplish whatever you want to, but if you die without accomplishing your purpose, you are a failure, a reject and a fool.

THE ROOT OF PURPOSELESSNESS

The fool has said in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1).

The fool has said, There is no God, there is no purpose, there is no meaning. He further adds, I can do my own thing, go my own way, live my own life.

The fool who says in his heart, There is no God has essentially said, There is no purpose. To divorce ones perspective from the reality of a Creator, a Master Designer, and a Purpose-Author, one is rejecting purpose and meaning as a whole. This is no small statement because it is no small action. The repercussions of saying, There is no God are far-reaching into every arena of our lives and society. It is downright deadly to reject the reality of a Creator, for it is that very Creator who assigns value and purpose to the created. If the created is without a Creator, then who or what assigns value or purpose to the created? There are no constants. Theres nothing certain. We are without anchors. No one knows who they are, because they are detached from the truth of Whose they are.

The value of your Creator should cause you to reconsider your own worth and value.

When Genesis 1 becomes a fairy tale and we are disconnected from the fact that we were created in the image and likeness of God, (see Gen. 1:26) that we were in fact hand-crafted in the image of the perfect Craftsman, purposelessness abounds. Now, more than ever, we need this vision of the Creator and created; for as the Scripture says, Where there is no vision, the people perish (Prov. 29:18 KJV).

The world perishes because of the purposelessness of its people; people perish because they live without vision. I want to invite you to consider the vision of your Creator. As mentioned earlier, you are not some type of cosmic accident. You were hand-crafted and custom-made by a perfect Creator. The value of your Creator should cause you to reconsider your own worth and value. God did not make you in the image of an animal. He did not create you in the image of an angel. Rather, He created you in His very own image and His likeness. Time after time, Scripture invites us to consider the unlikeness of God.

Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? (Exodus 15:11).

Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven or on earth like You (2 Chronicles 6:14).

Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high (Psalm 113:5).

Because God radically stands out and above everything and everyone else in created order, consider the precious value that someone created in His image and likeness carries. This someone is you.

GOD CREATED YOU UNIQUELY

Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness (Genesis 1:26).

Once you realize that you were created on purpose, and created in the image of the Creator, you begin to recognize that there are secrets stored up inside you. These are the very secrets that must be discovered and unleashed to a purposeless planet and a purposeless people.

There are secrets inside you that God has planted, secret talents and secret gifts and secret wisdoms that have been divinely orchestrated. These gifts, these talents, these abilities, these wisdoms, these solutions, these creativitiesthese are uniquely yours. God the Creator is multi-dimensional enough to create you uniquely. Trust His design. The moment you start to embrace how you have been formed and fashioned is the moment you step into the very purpose you were created for. God is not the author of prolonged purposelessness; you are. One of the most prevalent enemies to you stepping into your purpose is the downright deception that the grass is greener. In other words, something in someone else causes you to reject, and ultimately neglect the unique purpose within you. This keeps you exactly where the enemy wants you, and sadly, where the world cannot afford to keep you. You cannot make a difference sitting off in a dark corner somewhere, wishing that you were someone else.

Stop, stop, stop wanting to be somebody else. Do not insult your Creator by insulting His creation. You were fearfully and wonderfully made. Can you even fathom what the psalmist is expressing by using those wordsfearfully and wonderfully? (See Psalm 139:14.) You were created with awe. God didnt just throw you together, stand back and say, This looks good. Because God fashioned you in His very image and likeness, He has a right to stand back and actually awe His own creation. Why? Its simply God standing in awe of His own handiwork; God awe-ing God. This is how He looks upon you.

In fact, God considers you a masterpiece (see Eph. 2:10 NLT). God made you the way He wanted to make you so He could use you at a particular time in a particular way; and if you start trying to be like somebody else, youre going to miss your purpose.

People dont miss their purpose and bypass destiny because God decides to take it away; they miss purpose because they fail to invest in their purpose. One of the greatest ways we fail to invest in what God has wired into our DNA is through rejecting who we have been uniquely created to be and what we have been created to bring to this moment in history.

YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness