Purpose driven life study guide free download

It also includes links to 3-minute video introductions to each chapter and a to minute audio Bible study message for each chapter. There are also appendixes including questions for further study and additional resources.

Before you were born, God already planned your life. God longs for you to discover the life he created you to live—here on earth, and forever in eternity. Let The Purpose Driven Life show you how. The Purpose Driven Life is available in audio book, ebook, softcover, and hardcover editions. The way you're "wired" is not an accident. God didn't give you your abilities for selfish purposes. They were given to benefit others, just as others were given abilities for your benefit. The Bible says, "God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts.

Manage them well so that God's generosity can flow through you Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then God will be given glory. God doesn't want his love and purposes kept a secret. Once we know the truth, he expects us to share it with others. This is a great privilege-introducing others to Jesus, helping them discover their purpose, and preparing them for their eternal destiny.

God will receive more and more glory. Living the rest of your life for the glory of God will require a change in your priorities, your schedule, your relationships, and everything else.

It will sometimes mean choosing a difficult path instead of an easy one. Even Jesus struggled with this. But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. Would he fulfill his purpose and bring glory to God, or would he shrink back and live a comfortable, self-centered life?

You face the same choice. Will you live for your own goals, comfort, and pleasure, or will you live the rest of your life for God's glory, knowing that he has promised eternal rewards? The Bible says, "Anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go,.

Who are you going to live for yourself or God? You may hesitate, wondering whether you will have strength to live for God. Don't worry. God will give you what you need if you will just make the choice to live for him. The Bible says, "Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. It's really the only way to live. Everything else is just existing.

Real life begins by committing yourself completely to Jesus Christ. If you are not sure you have done this, all you need to do is receive and believe. The Bible promises, "To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

First, believe. Believe God loves you and made you for his purposes. Believe you're not an accident. Believe you were made to la: forever. Believe God has chosen you to have a relationship with Jesus, who died on the cross for you.

Believe that no matter what you've done, God wants to forgive you. Second, receive. Receive Jesus into your life as your Lord and Savior. Receive his forgiveness for your sins. Receive his Spirit, who will give you the power to fulfill your life purpose.

The Bible says, "Whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever! If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God!

You are now ready to discover and start living God's purpose for your life. I urge you to tell someone about it. You're going to need support. Verse to Remember: "For everything comes from God alone. Jesus will give you everything you need to live for him. The moment you were born into the world, God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth.

He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. You exist for his benefit, his glory, his purpose, and his delight. Bringing enjoyment to God, living for his pleasure, is the first purpose of your life.

When you fully understand this truth, you will never again have a problem with feeling insignificant. It proves your worth. If you are that important to God, and he considers you valuable enough to keep with him for eternity, what greater significance could you have?

You are a child of God, and you bring pleasure to God like nothing else he has ever created. The Bible says, "Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children-this was his pleasure and purpose. He wired you with five senses and emotions so you can experience it. He wants you to enjoy life, not just endure it.

The reason you are able to enjoy pleasure is that God made you in his image. We often forget that God has emotions, too. He feels things very deeply. God loves, delights, gets pleasure, rejoices, enjoys, and even laughs! Bringing pleasure to God is called "worship. Like a diamond, worship is multifaceted. It would take volumes to cover all there is to understand about worship, but we will look at the primary aspects of worship in this section.

Anthropologists have noted that worship is a universal urge, hard-wired by God into the very fiber of our being-an inbuilt need to connect with God. Worship is as natural as eating or breathing. If we fail to worship God, we always find a substitute, even if it ends up being ourselves. The reason God made us with this desire is that he desires worshipers!

Jesus said, "The Father seeks worshipers. Or you may think of ceremonies, candles, and communion. Or you may think of healing, miracles, and ecstatic experiences. Worship can include these elements, but worship is far more than these expressions.

Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is far more than music. For many people, worship is just a synonym for music. They say, "At our church we have the worship first, and then the teaching.

Every part of a church service is an act of worship: praying, Scripture reading, singing, confession, silence, being still, listening to a sermon, taking notes, than music, giving an offering, baptism, communion, signing a commitment card, and even greeting other worshipers.

Actually, worship predates music. Adam worshiped in the Garden of Eden, but music isn't mentioned until Genesis with the birth of Jubal. If worship were just music, then all who are nonmusical could never worship. Even worse, "worship" is often misused to refer to a particular style of music: "First we sang a hymn, then a praise and worship song. This is a common misuse of the term "worship.

God loves all kinds of music because he invented it all-fast and slow, loud and soft, old and new. You probably don't like it all, but God does! If it is offered to God in spirit and truth, it is an act of worship. Christians often disagree over the style of music used in worship, passionately defending their preferred style as the most biblical or God-honoring. But there is no biblical style! There are no musical notes in the Bible; we don't even have the instruments they used in Bible times.

Anything you do that brings pleasure to God is an act of worship. Frankly, the music style you like best says more about you-your background and personality- than it does about God. One ethnic group's music can sound like noise to another. But God likes variety and enjoys it all. There is no such thing as "Christian" music; there are only Christian lyrics.

It is the words that make a song sacred, not the tune. There are no spiritual tunes. If I played a song for you without the words, you'd have no way of knowing if it were a "Christian" song. Worship is not for your benefit. As a pastor, I receive notes that say, "I loved the worship today. I got a lot out of it. It isn't for our benefit! We worship for God's benefit. When we worship, our goal is to bring pleasure to God, not ourselves.

If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn't for you.

It's for God. Of course, most "worship" services also include elements of fellowship, edification, and evangelism, and there are benefits to worship, but we don't worship to please ourselves. Our motive is to bring glory and pleasure to our Creator. In Isaiah 29 God complains about worship that is half-hearted and hypocritical. The people were offering God stale prayers, insincere praise, empty words, and man-made rituals without even thinking about the meaning.

God's heart is not touched by tradition in worship, but by passion and commitment. The Bible says, "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Worship is not just for church services. We are told to "worship him continually" and to "praise him from sunrise to sunset. Praise should be the first activity when you open your eyes in the morning and the last activity when you close them at night. David said, "I will thank the Lord at all times. My mouth will always praise him.

The Bible says, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. By doing everything as if you were doing it for Jesus and by carrying on a continual conversation with him while you do it.

The Bible says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. The Message paraphrase says, "Take your everyday, ordinary life your sleeping, eating, going-to work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering.

When I first fell in love with my wife, I thought of her constantly: while eating breakfast, driving to school, attending class, waiting in line at the market, pumping gas-I could not stop thinking about this woman! I often talked to myself about her and thought about all the things I loved about her. This helped me feel close to Kay even though we lived several hundred miles apart and attended different colleges.

By constantly thinking of her, I was abiding in her love. This is what real worship is all about -falling in love with Jesus. May the LORD smile on you Numbers NLT Smile on me, your servant; teach me the right way to live. Psalm Msg The smile of God is the goal of your life. Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that. The Bible says, "Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it. The man's name was Noah. In Noah's day, the entire world had become morally bankrupt.

Everyone lived for their own pleasure, not God's. God couldn't find anyone on earth interested in pleasing him, so he was grieved and regretted making man. God became so disgusted with the human race that he considered wiping it out. But there was one man who made God smile. The Bible says, "Noah was a pleasure to the Lord. He makes me smile. I'll start over with his family. From his life we learn the five acts of worship that make God smile.

God smiles when we love him supremely. Noah loved God more than anything else in the world, even when no one else did! The Bible tells us that for his entire life, "Noah consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him. It's the most astounding truth in the universe-that our Creator wants to fellowship with us.

God made you to love you, and he longs for you to love him back. He says, "I don't want your sacrifices-I want your love; I don't want your offerings-I want you to know me. God deeply loves you and desires your love in return. He longs for you to know him and spend time with him. This is why learning to love God and be loved by him should be the greatest objective of your life.

Nothing else comes close in importance. Jesus called it the greatest commandment. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second reason Noah pleased God was that he trusted God, even when it didn't make sense. The Bible says, "By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land.

He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told As a result, Noah became intimate with God. In the entire world, no one but you thinks about me. But Noah, when I look at you, I start smiling. I'm pleased with your life, so I'm going to flood the world and start over with your family. I want you to build a giant ship that will save you and the animals. First, Noah had never seen rain, because prior to the Flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up. Even if he could learn to build a ship, how would he get it to water?

Third, there was the problem of rounding up all the animals and then caring for them. But Noah didn't complain or make excuses. He trusted God completely, and that made God smile. Trusting God completely means having faith that he knows what is best for your life.

You expect him to keep his promises, help you with problems, and do the impossible when necessary. The Bible says, "He takes pleasure in those that honor Him; in those who trust in His constant love.

I imagine he faced many discouraging days. With no sign of rain year after year, he was ruthlessly criticized as a "crazy man who thinks God speaks to him. Yet Noah kept on trusting God.

In what areas of your life do you need to trust God completely? Trusting is an act of worship. Just as parents are pleased when children trust their love and wisdom, your faith makes God happy. The Bible says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God " God smiles when we obey him wholeheartedly. Saving the animal population from a worldwide flood required great attention to logistics and details.

Everything had to be done just as God prescribed it. God didn't say, "Build any old boat you'd like, Noah. Notice that Noah obeyed completely no instruction was overlooked , and he obeyed exactly in the way and time God wanted it done. That is wholeheartedness. If God asked you to build a giant boat, don't you think you might have a few questions, objections, or reservations? Noah didn't.

He obeyed God wholeheartedly. That means doing whatever God asks without reservation or hesitation. You don't procrastinate and say, "I'll pray about it. Every parent knows that delayed obedience is really disobedience.

God doesn't owe you an explanation or reason for everything he asks you to do. Understanding can wait, but obedience can't. Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions. In fact, you will never understand some commands until you obey them first. Obedience unlocks understanding. Often we try to offer God partial obedience.

We want to pick and choose the commands we obey. We make a list of the commands we like and obey those while ignoring the ones we think are unreasonable, difficult, expensive, or unpopular. Why be persistent?

Want to find out how your life measures up to the five purposes of the Purpose Driven Life? Take this simple test. Also helps you create a plan to help grow. Sample some of the tools Rick uses to create his own personal life statements and evaluations in the areas of mission, family, vocation, and community ministry. This link takes you to the Celebrate Recovery home page where you can find everything you need to know about this unique Christ-centered recovery program for purpose-driven churches, including finding a CR program near you.

God cares for the orphan. As one of the bestselling nonfiction books in history, with more than 35 million copies sold, The Purpose Driven Life is far more than just a book; it's the road map for your spiritual journey. A journey that will transform your life. Designed to be read in 42 days, each chapter provides a daily meditation and practical steps to help you discover and live out your purpose, starting with exploring three of life's most pressing questions: The Question of Existence: Why am I alive?

In this book, a devotion is shared for each day of the year which also includes a Bible verse and prayer. This is the perfect devotional for us because we use it first thing in the morning and turn it into a mini Bible study. Often within each devotional, a verse will be mentioned and that expands into further Bible study if desired.