Living Out God’ s Purpose
Living Out God’ s Purpose
by Tim Shoemaker and Mark Shoemaker
This phase of life as a young man is critical... where you’ ll make some of the most important and best decisions of your life— or some major mistakes. These next few years are when tons of guys mess up their life, and some never recover. Some guys develop dangerous habits and form incorrect views, ignoring the principles, commands, and wisdom in God’ s Word. They do things they’ d be ashamed to tell their parents or grandparents about— all in a futile pursuit of making themselves happy.
If life is so important and such a gift— and it is— there must be more to it than the shallow goal of making ourselves happy. The truth is that we’ re created by God. We’ re His project. And that means that decisions about our future aren’ t ours alone to make. We are not the captain of our own ship.
But actually, many guys go through life thinking they are the captain of their own ship. Doing things our way was how we originally got into trouble. Anytime we do something apart from God’ s way, it’ s called sin— and our sin has consequences.
Sin separates us from having a relationship with God, both on earth and for eternity. There’ s nothing we can do on our own to change our standing with God; our life purpose can’ t ever reach beyond the destruction of our sin.
But God offers us a way out: a new life where we get to live for His purpose instead of chasing our own. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the price of our sin by taking on the punishment we deserved for doing things our way. If we put our faith in Jesus, we receive God’ s gift of forgiveness. He saves us from our sin and gives us a new life spiritually. We are no longer living under the control of sin and chasing our own personal happiness and ambitions. We now live totally for God... and His purposes in our life.
And we find life is much better that way.
It all starts there. In fact, everything in this book is built on our having that relationship with God through Jesus. Those who reject Jesus end up on the rocks. They’ ll captain their ship all right— all the way to hell.
That’ s not what we want for you.
“ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”( Ephesians 2:10).
You were created, by God, for His purposes. There are things that He designed you to do. A destiny He has uniquely gifted you for. It may not be the life you expected or dreamed of or even imagined, but it’ s a life that will resonate deep in your soul. A life that will cause you to say over and over and over— I was made for this.
So, this is the first to remember: God created you for a purpose. He wants you to have right standing with Him through His Son, Jesus, and live a life pleasing to Him.
Make this decision. Talk to God about it. Tell Him you want to be the man He designed you to be and do the things He’ s made you to do. Realize that sometimes God needs to change things about you so you can become the man God designed you to be. That’ s okay, because there’ s nothing more fulfilling and exciting!
Excerpted from 72 Questions( and Answers) About Life and Becoming the Man God Designed You to Be by Tim Shoemaker and Mark Shoemaker(© 2026). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.
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