With a Subtitle: Why a believer’s worth and purpose are rooted in Christ, not performance

A brief Excerpt: Many Christians are told to find their purpose, but Scripture points us somewhere better. In Christ, purpose is not invented or chased down. It is revealed as we are transformed by God.

The Author is: Ogo Cathern

The Danger of Searching for What Is Not Lost

We’ve all heard this exact phrase or a variation of it: find your purpose.

This idea somehow alludes to the fact that purpose is something you need to search for, when in reality, it couldn’t be further from the truth — at least not for a believer in Christ.

We live in a world where everything is inverted. So when you hear phraseology such as this — especially how appealing and widely circulated it is — you can almost be certain it does not embody God’s truth.

“Find your purpose,” whether overtly or covertly, has driven many Christians into searching for what is not lost. And because it was never lost, they never truly find anything — so they make something up.

Needless to say, this “something” becomes pockets of satanic manipulation.

A mind-bending tool used to directly connect our worth to what we do and/or achieve.

When Performance Becomes Your Identity

This is where the deception takes root.
Once your purpose is defined by what you do, your worth becomes measured by how well you do it.
So when you are not producing, not achieving, or not meeting expectations, you don’t just feel behind — you feel like you don’t matter.
And what began as a search for purpose has now become a quiet attack on your identity.

In one of our prayer meetings, I came across this mindset at play.

It was a prayer request by a young man who is feeling the pressure of not performing according to the standards assigned to him by society.

This young man is a dedicated worker in church — loved and cherished by adults and children alike. Always willing to serve. But he is feeling like a failure because he has no job.

Let me say this, there is nothing wrong with having a job, but everything is wrong when it becomes the measure of your worth.

Yet nobody seems to be challenging this mindset.

As Christians, where did we pick up that it is okay to gain our value by what we do?

For the unbelievers, this way of thinking makes sense because there isn’t much else to glean meaning from other than what one can achieve.

Yes, as humans, we are instinctively predisposed to seek meaning in life — and so we go searching.

The Christian’s Meaning Is Found in Christ

But for the Christian, it ought to be different.

We do not search for meaning in life because the meaning of our lives is in a Person — and that is Jesus Christ.

When an individual comes to accept Jesus as Lord, his or her preoccupation becomes to know their new identity in the Kingdom they now show allegiance to.

This new Kingdom you’ve come into has different ways of doing things from what you’ve known.

The only way to benefit from this new citizenship is to take time to familiarize yourself with its laws, practices, values, and processes — while gradually letting go of the old mindset you came with.

Transformation Comes Through a Renewed Mind

But to successfully let go of the old mindset, our bodies must be given up as a living sacrifice — as well as our desires and aspirations — so that God can transform us by renewing our minds.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” — Romans 12:2.

Only in this instance are we able to know the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God — which is purpose.

Purpose Is Revealed in Christ

Purpose is not something we find. It is revealed by who we are becoming in Christ.

The revelation process is a painful one.

It comes with confusion, uncertainty, and near misses.

It is not necessarily that you are doing something wrong — it is part of the learning curve.

The goal of this discipline is so that you will learn:

• Patience
• Trust
• Obedience

Patience, Trust, and Obedience in the Process

As believers in Christ, we need a reset in orientation.

Our self-worth should never come from what we do.
It should always be rooted in whose we are.

Our confidence should never come from what we’ve achieved.
It comes from Who is with us.

Yes, we live in this world — but we belong to a different ecosystem, where constraints and limitations hold no sway.

But if we allow the systems of this world — logic and reason — to stand in the way of opening ourselves up to the Majesty of God and how He governs, we will be forced to conform to the mindset of this world.

Looking for what is not lost.

God Restores What Seems Lost

If you are feeling the pressure of not performing according to the standards given to you by this fallen world, I encourage you today:

• Remain steadfast in Him.
• Keep seeking.
• Keep growing.

And at the appointed time, your purpose will be revealed.

And the cherry on top is this: He is the ONLY restorer of time.

He can cause you to recover time and regain all the years you seemingly lost.

“I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten…” — Joel 2:25.

As a believer, purpose isn’t something you find.

You already have it — that’s why you are here.

Obsess over the same mandate Jesus had, and allow God to work it all out.

Luke 4:18 - “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed."