The Purpose Driven Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate - Hardcover

Warren, Rick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0310337356 ISBN 13: 9780310337355

Publisher: Zondervan, 2013

Synopsis

This beautiful keepsake book provides a priceless reminder of the bountiful life God has planned for your graduates, helping them uncover and understand His purpose for their life.

Graduates have choices to make beyond what college to attend or what job to accept. What will they do with their lives? And for whom will they live?

Based on the New York Times bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, the collection of thoughts and Scriptures inside these pages will help high school and college graduates develop deeper meaning for their life by embracing these key truths:

• You were planned for God's pleasure
• You were formed for a family and community
• You were created to become like Christ
• You were shaped for serving God
• You were made for a mission

More than just a book, The Purpose Driven Life: Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate, now updated and expanded, is a catalyst to embracing each graduate's unique, God-given purpose.

About this title

About the Author

As founding pastor of Saddleback Church, Dr. Rick Warren leads a 30,000-member congregation in California with campuses in major cities around the world. As an author, his book The Purpose Driven Life is one of the bestselling nonfiction books in publishing history. As a theologian, he has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, University of Judaism, and dozens of universities and seminaries. As a global strategist he advises world leaders and has spoken to the United Nations, US Congress, Davos Economic Forum, TED, Aspen Institute, and numerous parliaments. Rick has also founded the Global PEACE Plan, which Plants churches of reconciliation, Equips leaders, Assists the poor, Cares for the sick, and Educates the next generation in 196 countries. You can listen to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, his daily 25-minute broadcast, or sign up for his free daily devotionals at PastorRick.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE

SELECTED THOUGHTS & SCRIPTURES for the GRADUATEBy RICK WARREN

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2013 Rick Warren
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-33735-5

Chapter One

WHAT ON EARTH AM I HERE FOR?

"Why do I exist?"

"Why am I here?"

"What is my purpose?"

These are the most fundamental questions you can ask in life. Have you ever asked these questions, wondering where to turn for the answer?

Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won't discover your life's meaning by looking within yourself. You didn't create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for! You must begin with God, your Creator.

It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power.

JOB 12:10 TEV

You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

PSALM 139:15 MSG

IT ALL STARTS WITH GOD

The exciting truth is that God has never created anything without a purpose. Colossians 1:16 says: "For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, ... everything got started in God and finds its purpose in him" (The Message). The very fact that you're alive means God has a purpose for your life!

And you weren't created for just one purpose. You were created for five special reasons that are explained in God's Word. As you start this new chapter in your life, may you come to understand God's wonderful plan for you and find answers to life's most important questions.

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

EPHESIANS 1:11 THE MESSAGE

YOU WERE PLANNED FOR GOD'S PLEASURE!

You, God, ... created everything and it is for Your pleasure that they exist and were created.

REVELATION 4:11 NLT

* * *

Long before he laid down earth's foundations, [God] had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.

EPHESIANS 1:4 MSG

Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children—this was his pleasure and purpose.

EPHESIANS 1:4–5 TEV

The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us.

ROMANS 12:3 MSG

No mere man has ever seen, heard or even imagined what wonderful things God has ready for those who love the Lord.

1 CORINTHIANS 2:9 LB

The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.

PSALM 35:27 NIV

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

PSALM 103:13 NIV

The Lord takes pleasure in his people.

PSALM 149:4 NASB

Smile on me, your servant, teach me the right way to live.

PSALM 119:135 MSG

The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives.

PSALM 37:23 NLT

God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene.

1 CORINTHIANS 2:7 MSG

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works.

PSALM 104:31 NIV

[The Lord] brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

PSALM 18:19 NIV

If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm.

PSALM 37:23 NIV

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

GENESIS 1:27 NIV

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth.... And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. "For in him we live and move and have our being."

ACTS 17:24–28 NIV

I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.

ISAIAH 44:2 CEV

MADE TO LAST FOREVER

Right now, you're probably thinking only about your immediate future—college, your career, or maybe even marriage. And while those things are important, there is also another life waiting for you after this one. God designed you, in his image, to live for eternity.

When this tent we live in—our body here on earth—is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last forever.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:1 TEV

I am here on earth for just a little while.

PSALM 119:19 TEV

This world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.

HEBREWS 13:14 LB

There are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. ... All they think about is this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.

PHILIPPIANS 3:18–20 NLT

Every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home with Jesus.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:6 LB

Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul.

1 PETER 2:11 MSG

All these [heroes of the faith] died in faith. They did not get the things that God promised his people, but they saw them coming far in the future and were glad. They said they were like visitors and strangers on earth.... They were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he has prepared a city for them.

HEBREWS 11:13, 16 NCV

The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:18 MSG

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness," says the Lord.

JEREMIAH 31:3 NIV

You saw me before I was born, Lord, and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your Book!

PSALM 139:16 LB

God decided to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the things he made.

JAMES 1:18 NCV

"I have carried you since you were born; I have taken care of you from your birth. Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when your hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and will take care of you," says the Lord.

ISAIAH 46:3–4 NCV

You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created everything.

REVELATION 4:11 NLT

The Lord is pleased with only those who worship him and trust his love.

PSALM 147:11 CEV

I will thank the Lord at all times. My mouth will always praise him.

PSALM 34:1 GWT

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

ROMANS 12:1 MSG

"I don't want your sacrifice—I want your love. I don't want your offerings—I want you to know me," says the Lord.

HOSEA 6:6 LB

Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.

EPHESIANS 5:10 MSG

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments."

JOHN 14:15 TEV

By [Christ] therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

HEBREWS 13:15 KJV

Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

1 JOHN 4:18 MSG

You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you.

ISAIAH 26:3 TEV

I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.

PHILIPPIANS 3:13–14 NLT

Let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you'll see it yet!

PHILIPPIANS 3:15 MSG

WHAT DRIVES YOUR LIFE?

Perhaps you've been trying to find your purpose in life through a career, your education, or a relationship. These things alone, no matter how wonderful and fulfilling, are not your purpose. If you are searching for your purpose in life, don't worry about seeking out your gifts and talents, your goals or visions; start with your first and most important purpose—loving and knowing God. Everything else will fall into place when you seek first to fulfill this purpose for your life.

Jesus said, "Why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? ... "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For ... your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

MATTHEW 6:28–33 NIV

WHAT MAKES GOD SMILE?

When you love God, you want to express it. That is called Worship. Whether you're singing a song or praying or simply enjoying a beautiful sunset and thanking God in your heart, that is worship.

[God's] pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

PSALM 147:10–11 NIV

Jesus said, "That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship."

JOHN 4:23 MSG

Use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God.

ROMANS 6:13 NLT

Jesus said, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

JOHN 13:34–35 NIV

May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—those good things that are produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

PHILIPPIANS 1:11 NLT

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.

1 PETER 4:10–11 NLT

As God's grace brings more and more people to Christ, ... God will receive more and more glory.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:15 NLT

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

COLOSSIANS 3:23 NIV

Just tell me what to do and I will do it, Lord. As long as I live I'll wholeheartedly obey.

PSALM 119:33 LB

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFEby RICK WARREN Copyright © 2013 by Rick Warren. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0310337356
• ISBN 13: 9780310337355
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 136