Reaching Your Full Potential

God desires that we reach our full potential.  He designed you and began a good work in you when you received Christ.  The challenge is to work out what God has worked in us!  But many people are not pursuing their potential.  They are not factoring God into their decision-making or even their goal setting.  They cannot clearly and concisely say what they believe to be the Lord's primary purpose and plan for their lives.  They will stare at you blankly if you ask, "What do you believe is God's will for you? Why do you believe He created you?”

If you truly want to pursue and reach your full potential, then you must face up to these two truths:

1) God has placed more within you than you realize.

2) You likely have settled for the life you have now.

Through the years, I have met many people who are living what I call a “settled-for” life.  Someplace along their journey, they became complacent in their circumstances.  They settled for what they believed was adequate.  Eventually the person who is content with a “settled-for” life may actually feel threatened by challenges to achieve or experience more than what is the reality of her life.

If that is where you are today, I encourage you to begin seeing yourself the way God sees you.  When you look at yourself through His eyes, you will no longer be satisfied with your “settled-for” life. You may be asking, “How does God see me?”

Your heavenly Father sees you through eyes of love and forgiveness.  He sees where you are but, more importantly, He sees the person He made you to be.  God sees all the remarkable potential He created you to fulfill.  And if you are willing to line up with His plan and purpose for you, He will bless you more than you could ever imagine.  God promises to bless you with life at its best.  He sees the restored joy, peace, and sense of accomplishment that He wants in your life.

Psalms 139:13-16 is a wonderful passage that speaks to us about the way the Father sees us.  “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

These verses from God's Word speak of three important truths about the way He sees you.

First, in God's eyes, you are, “fearfully and wonderfully” made.  Meaning that He has made you in a way that is awe-inspiring and He desires to engage in the process of transforming you so that you are continually being molded into the most Christ-honoring, Spirit-yielded person you can be.

Next, the psalmist wrote, "…your eyes saw my unformed body."  Your substance is the sum of all your natural gifts, talents, dreams, personality, and abilities.  Even before you were conceived in your mother's womb, God saw you as a whole and unique person.  The Lord has always known what you could be and do, because He is the One who created you.

And finally, the psalmist wrote that the days of his life were "ordained" for him. You, too, were born at a precise time, to a specific family, in an exact location.  He made your life a fixed number of years, in an established environment so you could be and do all that He created you to be and do according to His will.  Each of us will encounter a degree of evil and righteousness, and face the realities of death and life. God created you, equipped you, and then filled you with His Holy Spirit, to face situations that, with His help and guidance, you will transform from death to life, evil to good, and bad to best.  Your purpose on this earth is to develop your God-given gifts and talents to the best of your ability so you can impact the world around you for Christ.

The apostle Paul wrote that it is the Father's purpose to conform us to the image of His Son Jesus, so that we might reflect Christ's nature and character to the world around us. (See Romans 8:29)  That character is summarized in another of Paul's writings as being marked by, “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

These are not attributes that we can produce on our own.  They develop in us as we say no to the flesh and yes to the Holy Spirit living and working in us.  The Spirit grows us into the fullness of Christ's character.  He generates in us the awareness, ability, and courage to live out a new life marked by godliness.  You cannot reach the full potential of your attributes apart from God.

God works throughout your entire life to bring you to the fullness of both your attributes and your abilities.  You cannot do it in your own strength.  You can do it only in God's strength and provision. That is the reason I say only God knows your potential, and only God can help you fulfill it.  When you truly grasp the Lord’s commitment to helping you fulfill your destiny, hope is inevitable. Rekindle your passion today by regaining sight of your God-given abilities, as well as His promise to develop them.

Our heavenly Father is in charge of fulfilling the potential He has given you—trust Him to do exactly that.

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