What is Destiny?
By: Dr. Mike Jones
Simple terms, Destiny is God’s purpose for your life. It is your appointed future. It’s what God has predetermined you to become.
Let’s look at a few Old Testament people that started out right, on fire for God but ended up in ruin.
God chose Saul to lead Israel out of bondage to the Philistines (See 1 Samuel 9:17) – God told Samuel “Take a good look, He’s the Man”.
Samuel didn’t chose Saul – Nor did Israel (Samuel 9:17) says God did! Look at I Samuel 10:6 “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy… and shalt be turned into another man. In verse 7, Samuel told Saul, :God is with thee”.
Reading I Samuel chapters 9 & 10, you would say, God loved Saul and had His hands upon him.
Saul started out right, doing what’s right for awhile. He won great battles; people were soon praising him, “Saul, you’re the Man!
Saul missed his destiny. Why, he began to cave into the applause of the people, needing to hear their approval of how he was doing and he did whatever was necessary to hear the acceptance of the people.
Listening to the people more than God that at the end of his life, he said, (I Samuel 28:15) “God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams.
He ended up going to the Witch of Endor for counsel (what was his destiny? To lead Israel out of the bondage of the Philistines.)
SOLOMON started out doing what was right. His destiny was to rid Israel of all IDOLATRY.
He was the wisest, richest, most respectful man of his time. He ended up with 900 wives and concubines from many of the heathen nations. He ended up building them heathen worship temples.
His conclusion: He said “ALL is vanity and vexation of spirit. WORTHLESS.
In Old Testament, every person had his own individual destiny. But in the New Testament, God has done an entirely new thing. Our destiny is tied into the Cross of Christ.
All our destines are wrapped up in Jesus. No more individual destinies. If you’re (an NBA star) (Senator) (Pastor) all our destinies are the same.
Apostle Paul reveals what that single destiny is in Ephesian 1:4-6 (read it): Long ago, God chose us to be His children through what Christ would come and do. Now, All praises to God for His kindness.
The CONCLUSION of all that God is saying through the Apostle Paul is this: In the last days, in the fullness of time, I have one divine purpose – and that is for every follower of mine to come into adoption by Jesus Christ – and to live. Because of what Christ done, we’ve become gifts to God that He delights in. He chose us to ne His. God’s purpose in this was that we should praise Him and give glory to Him for doing these things.
Our destiny is to be an adopted Child of God. Our single purpose on this earth id to live our lives as a praise and glory to Him.
Our destiny is to become conformed more to the image of Christ.
(Adapted from Fulfilling Your Destiny; all Scripture references are taken from the KJV unless otherwise noted.)