1. Making a Difference Chapter 12 Purpose

2. The key motivation for living and working in this world is to have a purpose for which to exist. Without a singleness of purpose man wanders aimlessly through life and has no real reason to live. Lesson 25 Motivation

3. Anything man does that has meaning must first begin with God. He must have His rightful place in men’s hearts and lives.

4. The definition of purpose is: that which a person has set before himself as an object to be reached or accomplished; the end or aim to which the view is directed in any plan. The definition of significance is: meaning or importance.

5. Christ is the motivation for purpose. Christ alone must be the object of significance for the right purpose in life to exist.

6. The reason Christ must be the object of significance is that man can only come to God through a personal relationship with Christ.

7. Man possesses an innate knowledge of the Creator. Man responds to this knowledge in only one of two ways: a desire to know the Creator more or to rebel against the Creator and attempt to block out the reminder of the existence of the Creator.

8. The choice to accept God’s truth regarding purpose and significance leads to a life that is filled with joy and peace.

9. People that struggle with life-controlling habits, for the most part, have not had a clear presentation of who God is and man’s significance to Him.

10. People who do not know man’s significance and importance to God typically follow the path most likely to gain him acceptance by the strongest forces in his life at the time.

11. The strongest forces in people’s lives are usually peer pressures. Because he has not learned what it means to be accepted by God he has inadvertently chosen to be accepted by his peers instead of God.

12. The Church must realize that the program they develop for helping addicts is not just another addiction recovery program, but rather an opportunity to change lives!

13. The clear purpose of man is to bring glory to God. Because God created man in His image, man’s life has sanctity, value, and significance to Him as the Creator. In glorifying God, man fulfills the purpose for which he was created.

14. II Timothy 2: 15 says, “Study to show thyself approved unto God,…” What is it that God wants us to study? He wants us to study His Word, the Bible. God has given us clear instruction in His Word on how to learn to glorify Him.

15. The truth is, when man chooses of his own free will to follow God in obedience, God gives that person, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the ability to live a clean and sober life. Bondage to sin is voluntary slavery.

16. When we place our trust in God, the outcome becomes His responsibility.

17. When God becomes the object of a person’s affection it gives that person the motivation to do things that are pleasing to God and not things that are pleasing to self.

18. It takes a very long time to rebuild trust that has been destroyed through the activities associated with life-controlling habits.

19. Trust is not destroyed overnight by the addict, and it cannot be rebuilt overnight. The key here is humility.

20. Nothing can match the peace and joy a person has when they are right in their relationship with the Creator. There’s no better living than a transformed life!

21. The right kind of Pastor and church membership will welcome a recovering addict into their church and help them be accountable in this new recovering process.

22. We must have the grace of God in our lives to live the kind of life that is pleasing to Him.

23. Obtaining the grace of God is why we must yield to God everything about us and in us; our present abilities, our desires for the future, and our past mistakes.