Until purpose is discovered, existence has no meaning, for purpose is the source of fulfilment. Purpose, therefore, is the original intent in the mind of the creator that motivated him to create a particular item. It is the why that explains the reason for existence. Every product is a child of purpose.

Dr. Myles Munroe.

I have love athletics, but one best part is 4 x 100 meters and 4 X 400 Meters relay. I love these because these is where a team matters and strategies helped people. When I was in primary school, our games teacher use to tell us that in any relay the most important parts is strategies. His strategy was to put the best two runners first and another one last. Although we have the best four but the best of all these four should either the first to start the relay or the last to close the relay.

Our lives look the same as the relay only that we don’t have four runners but you are the one on the relay alone but at all the stages. The whole relay is your life and the people running are the stages. The slight difference is that your relay of life there is only one runner although it apply mostly that if you begin on a wrong foot it is your challenge BUT if you start with the right foot success is guaranteed. Although Jesus has come in many people’s life at the last lap and has changed the trajectory of many lives, somebody like Abraham God met him at 75 year of age and he became the father of Faith.

When I look at our lives I realise that there is a design as Prof. Ravi says it, ‘‘grand weaver’’, he wrote a book called ‘’The Grand Weaver’’ which is mostly speaking about how God designed man, you and me for a purpose and every stage should be part of the whole race until everyone reaches the finish life.

When Jesus was closing His life, Jesus recorded it very well and the last words of Jesus made it clear for us that it is not man that get finished but the race is what is completed;

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. John 19:30 KJV

‘‘IT IS FINISHED’’ that is the word, NOT ‘‘I AM FINISHED’’, Which means the race has ended. Paul also uses these words, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course…. 2 Tim 4:7. When you look at the wordings of these two, one from our Master Jesus and Apostle Paul, you do realize that truly something needs to be completed. There is a course that we need to complete. Your life and my life will be very much glorious if we understand what we are suppose to complete or what relay are running. Jesus had a discussion with Pilate in John 18 from v 33 but Jesus made one very enlightening statement,

……..To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. John 18:37 KJV

Jesus said TO THIS WAS I BORN, AND FOR THIS COURSE CAME I INTO THIS WORLD. Can anyone enter into such a challenging time and boldly say what Jesus said before they start asking ‘‘WHY ME’’. This is a very daring statement and in simple Jesus was telling Pilate don’t worry, you part of the process, whatever you are doing now is part of the script.

My friend for this script to be performed and completed perfectly or for this race of our lives to be finished well, we have to know that there are some qualities that are within which do help us to say ‘‘It is finished’’.

I like the way Jesus has put very clear the Parable of the Talents, Mathew 25:14 – 30, where Jesus explained about an employer who employed people and called the three and decided to give them talents, the first one 5, the second he gave 2 and the third he gave 1. The very important part is that the day came when the employer wanted his employees bring back returns. I like the words the master decided to use,

1. Good and faithful servant
2. Wicked and slothful servant

These are the words which will determine where you are heading heaven or hell. Because a good and faithful person cannot be found in hell and also wicked and slothful person cannot be found in heaven and this depending on how you have used whatever talent God has given you.

So for this, I would like to tell you that for you and me to understand ourselves we must begin with the design of who we are. This always refer me to Rick Warren’s insight of understanding oneself which he used the word S.H.A.P.E. This will help us understand who and what we have.

• S – Spiritual Gifts
• H – Heart Desires
• A  – Abilities
• P – Personalities
• E – Experiences

I prefer this method because it helps a lot for everyone understand as you examine yourself very well all round. This is an all-round tool to help us understand ourselves at any particular time and also will help us understand the much we can do and also know your lane.

1. S – Spiritual Gifts.

Paul open his statement in 1 Corinthians 12 by saying, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Which means many born again Christians have become very ignorant of their Spiritual Gift and this had been the devil’s strategy to weaken people.

The greatest mistake a lot of people make is being ignorant of their spiritual gifts while others tend to change the spiritual gifts to become titles to them instead of them being spiritual abilities.

A spiritual gift is a God given ability to every born again Christian through the Holy Spirit. Which means that the Spiritual Gift is residence in the Holy Spirit, you cannot have the Gift function in you while the Holy Spirit is absent in your life. These are god given abilities to enable us accomplish a purpose which the bible say ‘‘To Edify the Church’’. In plain English, ‘‘TO DEVELOP THE CHURCH’’. Because we are the church so there is ‘NO GIFT THAT IS UBFIT TO DEVELOP OTHERS’’. Every gift is for the purpose for DEVELOPING EACH OTHER. The gifts are many but I have categorised them into 3 categories, which are;

1. Manifestation Gifts
2. Operation Gifts
3. Administration Gifts

1. Manifestation Gifts, 1 Cor 12:

These manifestation gifts are basically the gifts which do operate in the life of a believer and they are the tools that helps the believer to function well as God has designed for him to be. These gifts act as the tools for the believer who have the 7 Operational Gifts,

Manifestation Gifts are also categorized into three 3 Categories

Speaking Gifts                                                                

1. Speaking in Tongues, speaking a message from God in an unknown tongue     
2. Interpreting Tongues, ability to bring to knowledge whatever has been spoken in an unknown tongue   
3. Prophecy, Ability to speak the mind of God                                                                                                            

Power Gifts

1. Healing, the ability to minister supernatural healing to the sick
2. Working Miracles, the ability to do extra ordinary things which humanly impossible.
3. Faith, ability in a given situation to believe without any doubt

Revelation Gifts

1. Word of Wisdom, ability to speak the truth of what is hidden
2. Word of Knowledge, know something that could not be known from any natural or intellectual point of view.
3. Discernment, Knowing the source/Motive behind and action or a situation.

• Operational Gifts for the ministries Roms 12:

These are gifts which reside in an individual person at least each one must have one while some have many, these reside in the life of an individual person to help them minister well. This is the basic for the Manifestations gifs to come on board.

These gifts are

1. Exhorting, Stimulating, motivating and encouraging people
2. Service, ability to demonstrating the love of God by deeds
3. Mercy, ability to comfort the distressed and weak
4. Administration, ability to administer and oversee things
5. Giving, ability to accumulate finances to give to others to alleviate the financial pressure
6. Proclaiming, ability to speak in order to reveal sin and bring persons to the love of God
7. Teaching, ability to explain the truth

• Administrative gifts for the church Eph 4

This are gifts given to the church but in the people because this is how the Holy Ghost administrate the church, these are the gifts which mostly do the  overseeing the church in terms of leadership, management and also the developing [building] of other ministers.

Eph 4:11 – 13

The Administration gifts are as follows

1. Teacher, a person who has the ability to present the truth of God’s word in a clear and understandable manner
2. Pastor, a person whom God uses to shepherds, gives oversight, spiritual guidance to the local body of Christ
3. Evangelist, a person with special calling to win others to Christ
4. Prophet, a person who the message from God for a particular situation
5. Apostle, a person gifted for establishing the church, starting new churches, was also called a “missionary”.

These Gifts are Given by the Holy Spirit to anyone who is born again, as Jesus stated that Those who believed in Him He gave them the power to become, John 1:12. They are also not earned, that is why they are called gifts. You cannot work hard or do something to get a gift. Also they given by the Holy Spirit depending of what you can do and the grace God has given you. This is also the promised helper and Comforter in John 14:16-18 and 16:13.

So everyone who is born again or saved MUST HAVE A GIFT OR GIFTS of the Holy Spirit because someone can have more than gift and these are My few steps to unwrap your gift.

1. Know the gifts
2. Think through how are best involved with the life of others
3. Compare the focus of each gift to see if one of these fits your frame of reference
4. Review the problems or inherent dangers of each of these gifts to see if they reflect similar weaknesses you may have.
5. Get involved with other people, try out the gifts, take time to do others as you get involved with other people
6. Dialogue with other Christians who understand the gifts to get their opinions who understand these gifts.
7. Respond scripturally to the Administrative Gifts (Pastor, Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist and Teacher)
8. Don’t despise prophecy
9. “No pressure principle” Check yourself things that you don’t need to be told to do, you just feel and have passion to do.

You can do a survey and an assessment to understand which gift do you have as an individual when you follow the links below [1, 2]

There are people who told

2.  H –         Heart Desires

We know very well that when the heart is mentioned, this deals with interests, desires which in no wise wont leave emotions and affections outside. In this regard, you will realize that your passion which is the fuel for your heart is geared towards specific issues. Your passion will make you

1. Like to do specific things, play specific role in any event
2. Like specific people rather than others not that you that you hate others
3. Like a passion for a course choice

Like to do specific things, play specific role in any event.

In every event and any activity you wont like everything but you realize that you like specific issues. Like in a church you will realize that you would like to do specific issues and you will be very keen of these specific issues. For an event you will find you like either,

• Serve or Help,
• Design or Plan
• Organize, Operate or Maintain
• Perform, Operate
• Lead or Guide
• Improve or Preserve,

Like Specific people, very passionate when you hear some people talked about.

The second part is that you find that you like specific people because you wont like everyone. You will realise that you like working with,

• Children, Orphans, molested, abused, girls, boys,
• Men, widowers, single parents, alcoholics, poor
• Women, Single mothers, widowed, abused,
• Elderly, Sick, homeless, or abandoned
• Youths, Girls or Boys

Like Specific Course of choice or ideas.

There is a specific idea that you know you are very passionate about that when it is mentioned somewhere you know very well that you have to stand or listen to it. You find yourself very much keen about that topic or a course or an idea like,

• Politics, Leaderships, Governance, Management,
• Holiness, Purity, Integrity, Sincerity,
• Violence, Abuse, Rights, Gender problems
• Parenting, Family, Homes, Children
• Technology, Electronics, communication, Media,
• Finance, Business, Money, Economy
• Health, disability, illness,
• Drugs, alcoholism,
• Art, Music, performance, videos

 

3.  A – Abilities

When we talk about these ABILITIES, this we are talking about the talents which you are born with. We have the abilities to do some specific things very well and also exceptionally. Many people have had varied opinion about their numbers. These abilities can be activated and someone can do his even whether one is born again or not. The difference is that these was in someone from birth while the Gifts are gotten after getting born again. These are;

• Designing, Landscaping, graphics, Editing,
• Artistic, Musical, curving, drawing,
• Sporting, Playing, dancing, running, boxing,
• Teaching, Mentoring, guiding, trainings, Coaching
• Linguistics, speaking, writing,
• Evaluating, Auditing, Editing, Counselling,
• Technical, mechanical,

When you evaluate yourself very well you know of who you are and you develop what you have, you will certainly hear God tell you ‘Good and Faithful servant’ not ‘Wicked and slothful servant’. In the developed countries the children are evaluated at an early age when they are examined to get their Talents so that education is sharpen their talent rather than trying to educate him or her like trying to give the child another talent.

You can go through a book by Brian Tracy, Discovering your talents, it will help you understand your talent.

4. P – Personalities

When I got born again, I wanted to be like some people and it was my very big struggle, because I wanted to be speaking too much like someone but when I speak, I realize that I have humiliated myself and the other person is very shining. I have realised that people are very different from other people and I realized that we are very different. I first come to realize that there personality begin by being an;

1. Introverted person, this person tend to be very close within himself or only a few around him. This person is a me person not open to people, or things
2. Extroverted person, a open person that must be around people, must be very visible and audible.

This helped me realise that really these people two different and are living in two different worlds apart, but most of the time some people want to clone others to look like them or some want to clone themselves to look like others in order to feel great. Everyone is great here because your personality is your design and it is for a purpose. Carl Gustav Jung broke these personality types to 16 types and Myers-Briggs ^[3] can help understand them much. I just want us to touch a list about the 4 personality or 4 Temperaments types as listed.

1. Sanguine
2. Phlegmatic
3. Choleric
4. Melancholic

1. Sanguine

The Sanguine personality is affected by a chemical called dopamine, which makes these people intensely curious and creative. Sanguine people usually possess high amounts of energy, so they may seem restless and spontaneous. ^[6]

• Phlegmatic

People with phlegmatic personality are unassuming, agreeable, and intuitive. They possess the ability of “web thinking”, i.e., to see the relationship between many bits of data they collect. ^[7]

• Choleric

The Choleric personality type is associated with testosterone, and although every temperamental makeup is represented by members of both genders, most choleric people are men. ^[8]

• Melancholic

Men and women with melancholic personality share many traits – they tend to be loyal to their family and friends and extremely careful.

Respectability and moral issues are particularly important to them; they prefer to follow typical “norms” of society and family traditions. ^[9]

These Personalities have also helped many people not only spiritually but also career wise. Because it become very hard to find a person who is an introvert to put it at a place where the person is engaging people and sharing things with people. This is very dangerous and it also make people frustrated, when you get someone chooses a career in line with their personalities and Abilities this person will be very comfortable with the career.

5.  E – Experiences

Experience simply means that you have accumulated knowledge from directly participating in an event or an activity.

Nowadays in any job advertisement they must quote that the qualification must not be below 5 years. This simply means that they have directly participating in the activity.

This experience is the main method with which the bible has used this kind because many people became great by going through the experience through the tutelage of another person. Nobody just was anointed or appointed by God and automatically climb the throne without going through a tutelage for getting an experience.

The experience can experience are met in different fields like;

1. Spiritual Experience,
2. Work Experience
3. Painful Experiences

I have seen many people who have been doing ministry effectively have these combinations together have become the best ministers in their ministries. Most of the people who have had some painful experiences in life become the best to help others of the same issues.

Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. 

2 Cor 1:4 KJV

The bible has just informed us that God does comfort us so that we may comfort others. Paul says that;

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Rom 8:28 KJV

The apostles when they were presented before the Sanhedrin, they said that, ‘‘…cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’’. Acts 4:20 KJV. This means that the disciples were in the tutelage of Jesus for three years and the training and teaching which after receiving the Holy Spirit, they did wonders in the book of Acts, it is called the Acts of Apostles.

When we combine all these five attributes together, that is Spiritual Gifts, Your heart’s desire, Abilities acquired and born with, personalities and then Experience generated passion will make one explode with and bring out his best.

Purpose presupposes design, which means all these are the abilities which has been installed in us to help us be able to fulfil our purpose. For us to make this statement ‘‘IT IS FINISHED’’.

We realised that all these 5 when brought will help a Christian who is born gain to achieve his or her purpose.

 

Related Links for further readings.

1. https://spiritualgiftstest.com/spiritual-gifts-test-landing/  How to test and examine to know your gifts
2. https://gifts.churchgrowth.org/spiritual-gifts-survey/ Gift Testing to know your gift
3. https://www.truity.com/page/16-personality-types-myers-briggs , 16 personalities types on display and survey
4. https://www.personalityperfect.com/16-personality-types/ 16 Personalities types related to career
5. https://www.hiresuccess.com/help/understanding-the-4-personality-types The 4 personalities types related to Career positions.
6. https://psychologia.co/sanguine-personality/  Explaining the Senguine personality
7. https://psychologia.co/phlegmatic-personality/ Explaining the Phlegmatic personality
8. https://psychologia.co/choleric-personality/ Explaining the SCholeric personality
9. https://psychologia.co/melancholic-personality/ Explaining the Melncholic personality