Diligence

 Like many of you, I was shocked at the sudden passing of Dr. Myles Munroe, his wife and associates last Sunday afternoon.

As I reflected on this, I came to the realization that others have come to – we need to be ready to meet our Creator at any time. Not only that resonated in my heart but the fact that this man was one who lived on purpose for a purpose. Dr. Myles Munroe is known internationally as an author, lecturer, teacher, coach, and leadership mentor. He was rather prolific and had published numerous best-selling books including one that influenced me greatly – The Principles and Power of Vision: Keys to Achieving Personal and Corporate Destiny (Study Guide).

This book helped me to recognize the potential in me and the importance of have a vision for your life. I was challenged know my purpose and have a vision for my life. I read this back in 2008 and was happy to find a notebook I had jot some notes in while reading it. Here are a few notes and quotes from the beginning chapters that I thought to share with you. I hope that they challenge and encourage you.

• There is gold within me.
• Lord, help me to see farther than my eyes can look. Give me vision – to see what can be and make it a reality.
• Vision makes you persistent and persistence leads to the fulfilling of your purpose in life.
• The vision-less person is the poorest person.
• The frustrated person is the one with a vision that does not know how to fulfill it.
• There is no other person like me on this earth. I was designed by God with a distinct and specific purpose to fulfill here in this world. I am unique and my vision is unique.
• Lord what is that specific vision that I was born to fulfill?
• My purpose will become my passion in life.
• Lord, help me to know my gift, stir it up and make use of it that it may make room for me and bring me before great men (Prov. 18:16).
• I am the sum total of all the choices or decisions I make every day.
• Nothing can get in the way of God’s purposes – they always come to pass.
• Purpose is why you were born, the reason God created you.
• Vision is when you see your purpose by faith in your mind and you begin to imagine it.
• Vision is as close as the desires of my heart. It is about God. It is about touching others.
• Vision is unselfish and should always be accompanied by compassion.
• Corporate vision stirs up personal vision. You don’t receive your vision through others but you are enabled to fulfill it through others.
• Nothing we are born to do is to be done by ourselves or for ourselves.
• Lord, help me to know why I’ve been born and to have a vision for my life. Father, reveal to me the deepest desires that you have placed within me.
• Mission is the general purpose of your life while vision is a specific, very precise statement with defined boundaries.
• People fail because they don’t know what they want to succeed in.
• You will be protected from jealousy when you understand your vision. You won’t worry about what the other person is doing.
• Indecisiveness is a vision killer.
• Don’t be a professional starter, i.e. starting many things and not finishing any e.g. like reading a book and not completing it and then starting another. Leaving things unfinished discourages you from completing other tasks. The unfinished has a way of haunting your life.
• The cost of vision is diligence.
• Success comes in installments.
• It is more important to know why you are born than to know the fact that you were born.
• When you decide on a vision don’t sell yourself short.
• You must choose where you want to go in life and then be decisive and faithful in carrying it out.
• My true work is what I born to do.
• Whatever you were born to do will remain deep inside until you do it.
• Is your true work – your purpose – making it uncomfortable for you to stay in your present job?
• What is it that I want to do? Lord, make my purpose and my life’s vision clear to me.
• My vision is a clear conception of what is not yet a reality but which can exist. It is a strong image of a preferred future.
• Whatever I was born to do I am equipped to do. The resources I need to do my life’s work will become available as soon as I need them.
• There is provision for the vision God has put in me.
• Eph. 3:20 – My imagination isn’t big enough for all God wants to do for me.
• God has placed His vision and His spirit within me and that is more than enough potential for my needs.
• God has given us the gift of imagination to keep up from focusing only on our present conditions.
• Responsibility leads to respond-ability or the ability to respond to the requirements of my vision.
• Everything God gave me to do, I am able to do. For everything God put in my heart to do, I have the corresponding ability to accomplish.
• God never gives us dreams to frustrate us. He gives us dreams to deliver us from mediocrity and to reveal our true selves to the world.
• You can always determine what you can do by the dream that is within you.
• Plant the seed of your vision and begin to act on it and then nurture it by faith.

Just typing out this notes to share with you has reminded me of some important truths- know your purpose, have a vision and live it out to the glory of Jesus our Lord. From what we have seen Myles Munroe, he not only wrote about serving the purpose of God in your generation but he did that himself and it is for all of us to do.

Reading and studying that book as well as another of Dr. Munroe’s books called The Glory of Living: Keys to Releasing Your Personal Glory were the starting points for me in having a clearer vision for my life. I see a lot of what I wrote then being lived out and continually being worked out in me today. I plan to take the time to revisit these books as they helped me to work through the deeper thoughts in my heart.

I hope these notes have inspired you and encouraged you to live out your life purpose. If you want more, then go visit this Amazon page – Myles Munroe – and choose a book or two from this great author and man of God. I am sure that reading his works will propel your life forward as it did mine.

Have you read any of Myles Munroe books, what stood out for you the most? What changed your life? Share a word.