FaithWalk Radio

Ron Susek: I want to ask you a very probing question. Do you believe that you were born with a special purpose? Or are you living as though life is just a rambling experience and maybe you bounce into something someday and that's your purpose? I want to talk with you about this very important subject. Your life is on the line. Stay with me. I'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Finding and knowing God is a faith walk. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Our hope lies in the coming Messiah, who will establish God's peaceful kingdom on earth.

This is FaithWalk with Ron Susek. Dr. Ron is an evangelist committed to encourage and equip your faith walk as we pass through these turbulent end-time days, awaiting that soon-coming kingdom. Here again is Ron Susek.

Ron Susek: We are going to have an incredible conversation today, and I hope you can stay with me through the entire program because so much is at stake. When I look at the people who are sleeping on the streets, many on drugs, many in sexual immorality, many with diseases, it's heartbreaking because you realize something went wrong. I don't know where or when or how, but all we know is that they've lost a sense of purpose, the drive that causes a person to wake up in the morning and say, "This one thing I do. This is why I'm alive. This is what I live for." That's a heartbreak.

But you know, it's not only true of people sleeping on the streets. There are many people in the workplace who are really drifting. In fact, are we not living in a day when it's hard to keep employees because people go from one job to another like they're just looking like a squirrel looking for another acorn, get another acorn, bury it for winter? And we don't have a real clear sense of who we are or what we are. I want to talk to you about that.

In a real sense, you can discover the purpose for your life. You can discover the purpose for your life. Paul was in a race in his life, the Apostle Paul. Here was a man who was committed to destroy Christianity, imprisoning Christians, even signing the execution of some, when he finally was converted to Jesus Christ while on his way to Damascus.

And as he went through life, we see the pounding memory of guilt for what he had done, that he had so betrayed God. Even though he did it naively and ignorantly, he really took the responsibility of that and trusted that God washed that away in the blood of His Son and forgave him. And then he said so much to help us find our focus as he found his focus.

And he said something very interesting toward the end of his life. He said this to Timothy when he wrote to Timothy: "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." Oh, let those words begin to drill down into you. "I have fought the good fight." That's telling us there was a tenacity, there was a warfare going on.

Just because you find your purpose does not mean now you live at ease with that purpose. There will be all kinds of things coming to bombard that purpose and to drive you out of that, to knock you out of orbit in order to try to get you in another direction. All kinds of voices will be heard, and Paul said, "I fought the good fight. I fought those voices."

"I ran the race." It's energy-burning. It's exhausting. "And I have finished. I have kept the faith." I didn't waver off the racetrack. I didn't change to a different battle. I took what God gave me to do, and I disciplined every part of my mind, my body, my will, my emotions, every part of me. I disciplined it day by day to fulfill that purpose. Listen carefully.

When you get that kind of a purpose, everything in you, every cell of your body, every part of your being focuses on that day after day. And you shut out the other voices that are trying to get you to go in another direction, and you just refuse to hear those voices. You refuse to go where they want you to go. And you endure the strain. You endure the suffering that may have to be there. You endure the losses.

I remember LeTourneau, who built huge earth-moving equipment, and he was a great giver to the work of God. But R.G. LeTourneau also, while he was an amazing man of accomplishment and success, he also knew the bottom of bankruptcy more than once. But he dared to press on.

And by the way, I was with his son, Roy LeTourneau, some years later, even after his dad died. We were doing an evangelistic campaign down in his church in Orlando, Florida. He was not the pastor, but he attended there, and he was the song leader for those meetings. Roy LeTourneau had a big, huge voice.

And I was with him in his car when he had a telephone in his car back when we never even heard of telephones in a car. It was a big box and a telephone on the side. And we were going down to an airport that he had purchased, and he also had the largest John Deere dealership in the nation.

But this is when our nation was going through a financial recession, a serious recession. And Roy LeTourneau was losing everything—the dealership, the airport—everything was going. And I was riding with him down to the airport where he was going to be signing papers. And I said, "Roy, you are so much at peace in this very dark, difficult day. How are you able to do that?"

Here's what he said: "Ron, my father taught us. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord." When you have a clear focus in life for your purpose, whether you're going through a bankruptcy, a financial crisis, a people problem, or soaring the heights of achievement with everything going your way, it matters not. You are focused on your purpose, and that's a powerful force to have in your life.

Life is a battle against good and evil. Just know that. It is a battle against good and evil, and evil despises a purpose-driven life. A person who knows what God wants them to do and they are committed to do that, evil will come against you again and again to drive you off the course. Many great men started off well and ended poorly.

I think of Saul. He started off so well. He had everything. The first King of Israel, what an opportunity he had. He was the tallest man in all of Israel. He was handsome, he was athletic, he was smart. And he thought he could outsmart God. He knew what he was to do, but he veered off and did his own thing and had a horrible death on a battlefield, and David took his place.

I think of so many people. I think of David's son, Solomon, who started off so well. He prayed for wisdom so that he could run the kingdom well and in honor to God. What happened? As life went on, this man who was gifted by God because when God came to him in a dream, he did not say to God, "I want wealth or power." He said, "I want wisdom to know how to run your affairs."

God said, "Because you wanted wisdom, I'm also going to add to that wealth and prestige, and I'm going to add to that knowledge." And God made him a knowledgeable man, a wise man, a wealthy man, and the kingdom was at peace. And guess what? Why don't we ever get it? Why can't we get it? Why can't we handle peace? What did he do? In his comfort, he decided that he was going to marry foreign women.

So what? What's the problem with that? The problem was very simple. God commanded Israel not to marry foreign women because He knew they would lure them to their gods that are not even gods at all—nothing but empty-headed statues, useless things. Well, he married foreign women, and that split the Kingdom of Israel. That split the Kingdom of Israel for about 3,000 years.

It's only in the last century that that kingdom has been slowly coming together, piece by piece. It's a serious matter. How many kings started well and ended poorly? Many started as evil and ended evil and had horrible endings. I think of Ahab and Jezebel. What horrible endings they had.

Well, my friend, what happened? Either they never got the purpose of God because when they came into power they had an evil streak in them and they lived that out, they did everything against God—we have leaders doing that to this day—or they started off well and then they got consumed with luxury and pleasure and before long they were making compromises and they lost their purpose. And the moment you lose your purpose, the discipline to purpose, you're in very, very deep trouble.

God's ultimate purpose for you has been revealed. Now when I say the ultimate purpose, I want to give you the big purpose. I know exactly what God is doing in your life 24 hours a day. I know what His purpose is, and I want to share that with you. Mark this down, think this through, make it yours. It's found in Romans chapter 8, verses 28 and 29.

Now we all have memorized verse 28, and I'm just throwing that in by way of contrast because in memorizing verse 28, we use that many times out of context and we don't remember what it means. Well, verse 28 reads this way: "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose."

Oh, that verse has been quoted on hospital beds and by people in financial difficulties. "All things work together for good." Well, okay, that's a valid thing to do, but I want you to know the real purpose of what is said in that verse. It's found in verse 29, and it reads this way: "For those whom He foreknew"—God saw you before the world began—"for those whom God foreknew, He also predestined"—predestined, that's a powerful word—"to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers."

Pause there. There is purpose. Every time you wake up in the morning, the God of this universe has one main purpose for you, and that is to take the experiences of the day to do further work in conforming you to the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. And one of the things we don't like about that is that there is more heat and pain involved in being conformed to Christ than what we like.

We think that, "Well, sure, I want to be like Jesus," and we try to be nice to people, we open doors, we say thank you, and we're polite and so forth. That's all well and good. Job was an incredible guy, but God drove to the deepest part of his being to reveal a sin that had to be dealt with. God will bring pain into your life as well as blessing.

What is He doing? Always, always working. He's predestined, He's predetermined, and when God predetermined something, it's going to happen. He predetermined to shape you and me into the image, the likeness, the identical likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. That is God's ultimate purpose.

So that's why you can praise and worship God in the good times and the hard times, knowing that God's doing something in you deeper than you can even imagine, very important to your eternal future in heaven. Would you believe that Job understood this truth? Job understood this truth. Let me read it for you and then we'll talk about Job for just a moment, verse 13.

"But He is"—speaking of God, Job speaking of God—"but He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him back? What He desires, He does." Now watch this phrase in verse 14: "For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind." Pause there. Did you get that?

Here is a man with boils breaking out across his body that were so painful. He was disgraced, he lost his dignity, he lost his reputation. Children that once whispered around him were now making fun of him. He lost his wealth, he lost his family. This man was in a destitute condition, and yet he said, "He will complete what He appoints for me."

Are you ready to say that in your losses and your difficulties and your trials and tribulations? He's going to fulfill what He appoints for me. Job got it, and he lived with that and he hung on to that. King David knew this truth. I love this about King David. Here's how he put it in Psalm chapter 138 and verses 6 to 8.

"For though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly. But the haughty He knows from afar"—the proud, the arrogant, He sees them from afar, He rejects them. "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You preserve my life." God won't waver from His purpose, so don't worry about your problems. God's working His purpose.

"Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You preserve my life. You stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand delivers me." Now follow this in verse 8. Get hold of this: "The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of Your hands."

What a powerful, powerful thing that he said. I would encourage you to memorize that phrase in the Psalm: "The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me." No matter what God is taking you through, if you are seeking Him and you're wanting to walk with Him and you want to fulfill His will and fulfill His purpose, my friend, no matter which direction God takes you in life, it's a path to fulfill His purpose.

His number one purpose—remember what it is?—to form Christ in you. His number two purpose is to work through you to fulfill His will, that His will in heaven gets established on earth. Isn't that marvelous? There is purpose to get up for in the morning. There's a reason to wake up, there's a reason to smell the coffee, there's a reason to get up and go at it. Oh, my friend, I hope that purpose is pumping through your veins.

A second thing that I want you to see, stay with me on this, this is so critical. When was your purpose established? When was it established? When your mother first conceived you in that instant? Well, I think it preceded that. Psalm chapter 139, verse 16, says this: "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written every one of them." Ah, we're talking now before time began. "The days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them."

Before I existed, You knew me and You had a plan and purpose for me. Isn't that marvelous? Let that sink in. Just ruminate on that, meditate, think about it. You're not here by accident. I don't care how you were conceived, whether it was something your parents didn't plan or a rape or incest. I don't care how you got here. I'm telling you that you have a God who had a purpose established before you, and it's higher than anything this world has to offer.

I get disturbed sometimes at guidance counselors. What do they do? They take your talents and say, "Here's what you should do, here's where you're talented." Your abilities. "Here's what you ought to do, here's your ability." Those are fine. But listen to me now.

Most of the men that I think of who have been mightily used of God in the Bible and right down to our time were used not with God working through their capabilities, but God taking them beyond their capabilities to fulfill His will and His purpose. And therein He was glorified by taking the thing that was weak to bring down the mighty, the thing that looked foolish to bring down the wise, the thing that was nothing to bring to nothing the thing that is.

My friend, that's purpose. That's a reason to get up in the morning. That will put drive into you like nothing else. That'll cause you to toss the drugs away, get rid of the booze, get rid of the things in your life that are hindering that purpose, and you will drive on by the power of God to rare accomplishment. That's when your purpose was fulfilled.

I want to read a couple of things to you that I'm going to read them simply because they were word-crafted just for you. Seeking God is the secret to fulfilling your purpose. Seek God, seek God, seek His face. He'll reveal His purpose. He'll bring it to pass. You will fail to find your purpose in life if you crave your passions over God's purpose. Did you get that?

You will fail to find God's purpose for your life if you crave your passion over God's purpose. You will not find your purpose in life. Just another note. Not one person ever found and fulfilled their purpose at their first breath. That's not where you find it. Everyone must come into this world and ignore the numerous voices that are trying to pull you in different directions until you finally discover God reveals, "Here's what I want you to do."

And you can say, as did Isaiah, "This one thing I do." I don't hear any more voices. I'm done listening to people. I'm done watching the ads. I'm done watching people lure me into financial schemes and I can get rich and I can do this and I can do that. No, I'm going to fulfill God's purpose if I do it in poverty or blessing—doesn't matter to me. I'm going to fulfill His purpose.

Now, third thing I want you to note down. The battle to fulfill your purpose is a real battle. The Apostle Paul had a fight every day of his life. He wrote about that in Romans chapter 7. He had to fight every day of his life to keep on purpose. Here's what he said in Romans chapter 7 and verse 21: "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members." Verse 24: "Wretched man that I am!" Boy, that puts it on the line, doesn't it? "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

Ah, there's a solution to it. Here it is in verse 25: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." What is he saying? There is in my flesh this law of sin. It wants to go its own way. It wants to be like Saul was before he was converted, or King Saul who went his own way as a king.

Our flesh wants to do its own thing. That, we were born with that sinful drive in us. And Paul said, even as an apostle, having been in the heavenly realms and having written many of the scriptures that would guide the church for 2,000 years, he's saying, "O wretched man that I am. I have a battle every single day of my life. Here is my victory," he said.

"I can't conquer my flesh. I can't conquer the drives of sin and the enticements. I look to Jesus Christ," who said Himself, Jesus said in Isaiah 49, "My God is my strength." I am looking to God through Jesus Christ, Paul is saying, to be my strength, to give me the power to ignore the voices, to ignore the innuendos, to ignore all the things that are trying to lure me away, even things that my flesh would love to enjoy.

I want to be a Moses who would rather suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. God, I need your strength to do this. That's what Paul is saying. So he's not saying, "I caved in and I was a double-standard man. Oh, I preached the gospel then I had little sinful things going on at the side." No, he's saying every day I not only preached the gospel and taught the word of God, I fought the good fight.

I ran the race. I finished the course. I fought daily by calling upon God's strength to give me the ability to defeat those things in me that would surrender to sin and surrender to this world. Are you ready to seek God for your purpose in life? No matter where you are, whether you're a young person—I hope you are a young person watching this. I hope so. I'm on your team.

Or whether you're an older person, and you feel, "Ron, somehow I feel like I've blown my life." Let's begin anew right now. Right now. I'm going to give you a prayer, all of you, give you a prayer, but I want you to think this through, make it your prayer. Let's pray this together. Dear God, on the basis that Jesus died for me, I'm trusting your forgiveness for all my sins. I want to fulfill your purpose in my life.

I want to stand before you and hear you say, "Well done." Give me the power to break the vices that have tried to control my body and mind. Give me the power to get away from the people that mislead me. Grant to me the strength of faith to let you give me the strength of body and mind to fulfill your purpose for my life. This I pray in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you. Stand firm.

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