Your Purpose

In my reading of the Bible I have read many instances where the people who were mentioned in the Bible were always the exact person they needed to be. What I mean is that the people in the Bible looked the way they were, did what they were suppose to, and had the traits they were suppose to have in order to do what they were suppose to do. Another thing I noticed was that whenever they were doing the best job with the talents and traits they had was when they were using them for God and were close to Him. So I began reading into this idea and found it to be correct. All the Scripture backed it up and more so. And I also looked for one of the people in the Bible who could express this idea very well. I came up with Esther.

First off some back round. At this point of time the Israelites are under the control of King Xerxes. When King Xerxes was around the highlight of his rule he held a banquet for 7 days. He called for his wife to come in order to be shown off but she refused to come. Then he made a plan to deal with her. Esther 2:2-4

Then the king's personal attendants proposed, "Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful girls into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti." This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it.

So set the stage for Esther to come in. Esther 2:7-8

Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This girl, who was also known as Esther, was lovely in form and features, and Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died.
When the king's order and edict had been proclaimed, many girls were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king's palace and entrusted to Hegai, who was in charge of the harem.

Esther was born with noticeable beauty that would soon be recognized by the king. Esther 2:15-17 says,

When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
Now the king was attracted to Esther more then to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.

God blessed Esther with great beauty that made her the queen of one of the most powerful kings in history. But she was brought to this position for a reason. A plot was made by a man named Haman. Esther 3:8-11 says,

Then Haman said to King Xerxes, "There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different those of all the other people and who do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business."
So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. "Keep the money," the king said to Haman, "and do with the people as you please.

Now the king did not know Esther was of Jewish decent when he allowed the decree. No one did, because Esther never mentioned it at the warning of Mordecai. So the order went out. Now by this time Esther had found great favor with King Xerxes, and Mordecai knew this. So he went to Esther to plead for her help. Esther 4:6-14 says,

So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the king's presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, "All the king's officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king."
When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will parish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

That was the case. Esther was brought to this position of influence for this very purpose. She at this word risked her life and went before the King. Esther found his favor and he reversed the edict. And allowed her to replace it with a new edict to grant the Jews more freedom and the right to protect themselves.

Esther was given her great beauty and her strong sense of loyalty to Mordecai to bring her to that position and to save her people when she was called to. Now most of us may not be called to be in a position of high authority, but all of us are made in a certain way to do a certain job in a certain way. And we are all called to do this.
The Bible tells us that God made us the way we are because He has a plan for us that can only be done if we are the way he made us. Psalm 139:13-16 says,

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

We were planned and made by God the way we are. We are not meant to look any other way or be able to do something that we cannot already do. We are the way we are for a reason. That reason is not always fully known to us. But it is what God wants us to do, and all things that God wants us to do can be summed up in one commandment. The Greatest Commandment. Mark 12:29-31 says,

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

We all have one universal command, to Love God and to Love others. But if we all have one same command, shouldn't we all be the same? No. We can all obey this command in our own designed way. Romans 12:1-8 says,

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

We are all made differently, but we are all parts of one body that has one command: to Love. And only by all of us using our gifts can we fulfill this command. Now if you were paying attention at the beginning it spoke of offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God in service to Him. That was written at the beginning of this passage for a reason. The reason is that if we do not offer ourselves first, we cannot use the gifts we have properly or at all. We need to be using the gifts God gave us for the purpose He designed them for or else they are useless. I recently discovered my gift for wood carving. Just picked it up right away and the reason was that I was doing it to keep from using technology that I was always wasting my time with. And while I did it I prayed to God and I ended up making crosses for my friends who gave their testimonies at my church. I'm sure there are other stories out there like that as well. I wouldn't mind hearing them if you have them.
But moving on, we all have our own gifts and if we don't use them for the purpose they were given to us for we are ignoring the Greatest Commandment. Imagine if we all didn't use our gifts like we were suppose to. We wouldn't have musicians and singers using their musical talents for worship music. And more importantly we wouldn't have preachers using their gifts of speech and writing. Churches would actually cease to exist if that were the case. And if no one was sharing their faith, after a couple generation's time Christianity would probably die out. See how important it is to use your gifts for the right reason?
This is why we must use our gifts NOW. Not later, but now. Time is short and we are a mist. James 4:14-17 says,

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then , who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

And not only must we use them now but we must use them with serving the Lord our God as our intent, and nothing else. Otherwise we are wasting the gift of time that we have been given on this earth. Time is not ours to do with what we want. It is like everything else in this world. It is something else that we can offer to God. If we do not use it for God then we sin and the other things we use our gifts for will not work or will not be what they should be. Psalm 1 says,

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will parish.

The one who dwells on God's Word and His commands will prosper in what he/she does. If you look to God and obey His commands and do what He says you will be successful with what you do with your talents. But the person who does not is wicked. And Proverbs 10:16 says,

The wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment.

When we follow God's commands and give everything we have, even time and our gifts, we receive life. That life is not for here on earth, but in heaven. But those who do not will receive punishment for their actions, or lack of. Which would you prefer?

So you see? We are all made in a special way to fulfill a purpose for God that He designed. Please do not confuse this with God controlling everything we do. God designed us in a way that if we praise Him and offer ourselves to Him we would end up doing what He wanted us to do when He made us. So realize this, you were made the way you are because you are suppose to be that way. Because the God who Loves you more than you could ever understand, made you that way. And He Loves you that way. So don't desire change because of what the world thinks of you, or because you don't like the way you are. But instead, don't worry about the way you are and remember that the God who made everything that exists Loves you.

You can't always have the body you want,
But you can always be happy with the body you have.
-JJJ

Thank You For Reading
Long Live Jesus Christ
Amen