Ep. 57. They don't know they should - Why Many Jesus Followers Don't Profit From Their Purpose

This is an extract from a Facebook Live Series

I delve into the concept of profiting from your purpose, something many people, including Jesus followers, overlook. I explore the meaning and significance of purpose-driven profit, contrasting it with other familiar concepts like purpose-driven life and business. I address the realities we all face: having a purpose and the need for profit to meet our basic needs.  I explain how living a purpose-driven life can lead to both personal fulfillment and financial success, breaking the common misconception that these two aspects must be in conflict. 

Listen to discover how identifying and pursuing your purpose can bring about a more fulfilling and profitable life.

00:00 Introduction: The Importance of Profiting from Purpose
01:00 Defining Purpose and Its Significance
03:46 The Conflict Between Purpose and Profit
07:52 Balancing Purpose and Profit
16:07 Biblical Insights on Purpose and Profit
23:25 Conclusion: Embracing Purpose-Driven Profit

Join My Next Free "5 day Purpose Driven Course Creation Challenge" - https://www.ucheokere.com/5daychallenge

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

my point today, the, what I'm gonna talk about today is that I believe managers well do not profit from their purpose because they do not know. That they should, they just don't know that they should profit from their purpose. so why do many Jesus followers, why do many believers not profit from their purpose? Why do they not profit from their purpose? I think it's important to begin by talking about what I mean by, profiting from your purpose. What does it mean to profit from your purpose? I appreciate that. That's not something I don't think that's a terminology that, that, that is quite common. I. And the phrase I often use, purpose driven profit is not, we know purpose driven life. We probably heard of purpose driven business as well, but purpose driven profit, I don't think it's something that is, is very common. It's not something we hear a lot. So it's important to, to lay foundation at least. So that one same page and you, get a sense of what it is I am talking about. Let me begin by saying that there are two realities, okay? There are two realities that every one of us face, whether you are a Jesus follower or not. So whether you're a believer in Jesus or not, there are two realities that you face, maybe one more strongly than the other, but I believe these two realities are true for every human being. Number one reality is that you have a purpose. You have a purpose. Every human being has a purpose. Every one of you listening to me right now, you do have a purpose, all right? That is the truth. That is a reality, that you do have a purpose. My worldview is shaped by the Bible. Jesus, follower. I love Jesus. I follow Jesus. so my worldview is shaped by the Bible, and as I read the Bible. I do not see that man. is purposeless. I see from the very beginning that the Bible introduces man has been created in the image of God. So there is a purpose for the creation of man. There is a reason for which man is created. Not only does God create man in his image, he has fellowship with him. he comes down in the cool of the day and he talks with him. He has fellowship with him, so man's life. It was not without purpose. There was a reason for which man was created, but then God even goes ahead and gives him an assignment. In Genesis 1 28, he says that God blessed him and he says to him, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it. We'll talk about that a lot more, but we see that there is purpose in a man's life. So every human being has a purpose. I wanna say to you. You have a purpose. i really hope that you've come to the point where you realize and you agree and you believe that there is a purpose to your life. That your life is not, you didn't come here as a result of a set of random activities. Your father, it's not just because your father met your mother and then these biological events happened and you're here today. No, but that there is, there's a reason for which you're here and that there, there are things that will not happen. If you were not here, the earth ISN incomplete, if you were not here, that, that there is a uniqueness about you, that there is something particular about you. You do have a purpose. There's a why to your life. Purpose is powerful. Purpose is important. purpose is critical to success. I believe there are three things that define success, and one of them is purpose. You can do every other thing. You can pursue every other assignment. You can do everything you want to do, everything you love to do, everything you enjoy doing. But until you do the thing that you are supposed to do, you cannot really be said to be a success. Now I'm an academic and every ever, every so often I mark student work, and if I would confess, that's the part of my job I dislike the most. Okay? That's the part of being an academic that I do not like the most. But when I mark student work, so students have to respond to a particular question. They, we set them a task. More often than not, it's got to do with testing whether they've met the learning outcomes of the module that they're studying. I teach most, mostly at level seven as masters, master's level. Now, what we're testing is not how well you can write. it's not, it's not, there is a specific thing that we're looking for in every piece of work. It is a specific thing we're looking for in every piece of work. So a student can decide to write the best, let's assume as an essay, and we're asking for my field is environmental management. And let's say we're asking for an essay. I like applied, task. I don't often set essays. Well, let's just assume for the sake of it that we set an essay and say, okay, let's write us an essay on a circular economy or something like that. Okay. Or ISO 14,001 or something like that. And then a student decides all of a sudden to write us a very deep essay on the ecological foundations of something. Okay. Now, on its own, that's an excellent essay. It's a great essay. The referencing is wonderful. The context is great. The rational is excellent. The methodology stands out. It's it's a beautiful essay, but the question is. Was that the purpose of this task, no matter how well that essay was written, if it doesn't meet the purpose of the task that was set, that student does not pass. The same applies to you and I. There is a purpose to our lives. There's a purpose to our lives. There's a reason you're on planet earth, and I dare see that. The reason many of us experience, unfulfillment experience, if you like a hole in our hearts experience, that feeling that there's got to be more to life. It's perhaps because we're not living. In the center, in the heart of God's purpose for our lives, we can do every other thing. We can achieve every other thing. In fact, we can do so many other things so excellently well. But until we fulfill that one thing that we were created for, then success has not been fulfilled. that's how powerful purpose is. That's how powerful purpose is. So that's a reality that we all have, and it gets to a point in our lives when there's a talk on our heart to fulfill purpose. There's a video on my YouTube channel, and I titled it Malow Versus Jesus, where I talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and I talk about it side by side. Jesus's instruction in Matthew chapter 6 33, which I'll talk about again tonight and how Maslow says we graduate there. There are different levels of needs, human needs, and we graduate from one level to another. So until the second, the first level of the base needs are met. We don't go to the next level of needs. And I'm asking the question is that a, is that. Is that how human life should be? Or is it a description of human life? Because right at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is fulfillment. is, self-actualization, I think he calls it. and at the base are physiological needs. The fact that you have to eat the fact that. You need to, relief of yourself. The fact that you need a roof over your head, That until those needs are met, we don't go to the next needs, which are, I think, safety needs. And then, psychological needs and needs for belonging until you get to the highest level of needs. I. Which are needs for self-actualization. In other words, fulfillment, purpose. Because one of the claims that people make often is, I don't have time to pursue my purpose because my needs are not yet met. So it's must lose hierarchy of needs, a prescription for living, or is it a description of the state of the fallen Man? That's something to think about. The fact that the way it is today that we now have this tension. Okay, so I'm talking to you about the second reality. Now, the first reality is purpose. The second reality is profit. Okay? The fact that I need to earn to meet my base needs, I need to earn so I can eat, I need to earn, so I can have a roof over my head I need to earn so that I can look after my family. After all. The Bible even says that the man who is unable To look after his family is worse than an inferior. Yeah, so there is justification for my desire, for your desire to earn money. we do. And there's absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to earn money. I'm wanting to earn good money, but where the challenge is that the same resources that I needed to pursue my purpose, so the first reality are the same that I need to pursue. The second reality to, to pursue profit, what are those resources? Number one is time. I've only got 24 hours in a day. I, no matter how ingenious I am, I cannot manufacture more than 24 hours in a day, and my purpose demands a portion, if not all of my waking hours. Of those 24, out of those 24 that I have every day, my profit. Does the same. It's also demanding for me, Uche, you've got to make money to eat. You've got to make money to look after your children. You've got to make money to have a roof over your head. And so the conflict arises. So there's a tension between purpose and profit, and because one is of a more pressing nature. because the demands for profit, the demands to make ends meet, as we like to describe it, is often more immediate. It's often more, it stares us in the face. The more we sacrifice the pursuit of purpose on the altar of pursuing profits. This is what happens when that happens. This is what it looks like when it happens. It looks like. A person, a professional, somebody, and since I'm talking to Jesus followers, it looks like this Jesus follower who goes to, gets an education, okay? They get a good education. So primary education, secondary education, university education, maybe they even go have some postgraduate degrees, get a master's degree, get a PhD like yours, truly, and then maybe get a good job. I begin to work and when they get to that point, it's like, wow, I've arrived. This is the thing I've always been looking for. This is the pinnacle of my pursuit. I've arrived at the point that I always wanted to arrive at, and they do this job for three months, six months, 18 months, perhaps 24 months. And then one day they begin to realize that, that there's still a hole in their heart. That there's still something that they're longing for, that there's still something that they desire, that they see something that is bigger than the money they found, the success in quotes they found, and it's something more that their hearts longs for. This is what it looks like when we're not pursuing our purpose. This is what it looks like when we're sacrificing our purpose on the altar of profit. I experienced it. I experienced it and I talk about that in great depth in my book, and it's something I see people. In fact, today I've had to reply to two emails from two different people. I do not know who exactly, who used almost the same words saying to me, this is what I'm going through. I seem to have made it in life, but I am still empty and once said to me as a result, I've gone ahead and written books, but I still find that emptiness within me, still not satisfied. I've still not met this thing within me that is talking at my heart that is pulling me. So that's one. That's one manifestation. That's one. That's one. Yeah. Manifestation is a good word. O of what happens when we sacrifice profits or rather purpose on the altar of profit. But this, it also looks like this. It also looks like somebody who. In their pursuits of profits, in their pursuit of profits, they do everything they can to make as much money as they can. And you know what I've found? What I've found is that when money is the objective, there's hardly enough of it. You hardly make enough of it. I haven't made that much money in my life. I've not been on there. Or millionaire in some currencies, I might be a millionaire, but, so perhaps someone could say to me, you don't have, you don't have a right to say that. Perhaps someone could say to me, okay, you don't have a right to say that you haven't made much money yet, perhaps, but I've seen a few people who money is the objective, so they do everything they can to pursue money. In this environment where I live, three jobs, four jobs work every hour, God send, but it's never enough. It's never enough. And I've also seen that they end up more often than not in jobs they hate. I. They end up in jobs they hate because the objective, the driver, the drive, the intention was always to make money. The intention, the objective, the drive was always to make money. when that is the objective, when that is the drive, it's hardly ever. So this is the reality that many believers face the conflict between purpose and profit. And so the question therefore is there a way that I can live my life so that I can be pursuing God's purpose and at the same time earning from it? Because if I can marry my purpose and my profit, then that would be amazing. If there was a way that I could pursue God's purpose for my life and at the same time earn so that I am because I've got to. If you're a man and you're Jesus follower, you don't want to be worse than an infidel. You wanna look after your family and there is nothing wrong wanting to make money. I say that again. There's nothing wrong in wanting to make money. I believe a good man should leave an inheritance for his children's children. There's nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong in that. So how do I therefore pursue my purpose and at the same time, make enough money that I need to make? There's a guy, I don't think I follow him, but he pops up on my Facebook and he talks about dreams, and he encourages people to follow their dreams. Some of you might know him. I think it's David Quip something, I think it's called David Quip. he goes around with a microphone and he interviews people and he says them, what's your dream? And he encourages them to pursue their dream. Some of his views I think are extreme, but that's those are my views. But I saw it, I saw someone commented on one of his videos, I saw a post on one of his videos, the other day and somebody says somebody was accusing him and telling people not to follow his. I think it's Simon, not David. I was saying to people, don't follow this guy because he's gonna lead you as straight. He says, I listened to his advice six months ago and I quit my job. And I said, I'm following my dream today. I'm homeless today. I'm broke today. I'm in debt. Okay. Because that can be a reality that some of perhaps you've said, right, I'm gonna pursue purpose. This is God's purpose of my life. I'm gonna pursue it. And you ignore all the realities of making money. Okay? And the fact that you need to meet your financial needs. And you say, purpose, I'm gonna pursue purpose. I'm gonna pursue purpose. But by the time you realize it, you poor, you're in debt, right? Things are not going well. So how do we position ourselves so that purpose and profit are not in conflict? I believe the Bible has all the answers. I believe God's word has all the answers. So in Matthew chapter six, Jesus was talking about the daily needs was talking about the base needs in Maslow's hierarchy. Okay? The fact that he need to eat, he needs to have clothes on. And he describes a group of people as Gentiles, and then he comes to speaking to his own people who, if you're Jesus follower today, that includes you. And he says to, to, to us, don't be like these guys. don't be like this group of people, but in your case, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So that gets me thinking. Because what many of us were taught about the Kingdom of God was hardly anything to do with this plane, had hardly any, anything to do with this world. It was all heavenly. It was all spiritual. It was all esoteric. It was all extraterrestrial. there was nothing material or natural about it. It had nothing to do with. Me earning money or me. He had, it was, yeah. but Jesus talks about the kingdom in the context of the reality. The second reality I talked about of making money. What's Jesus talking about? What's he talking about? What does he mean? That by seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be added to me. Sadly it, this has been, I believe in misinterpreted in some quarters to mean prayer and those spiritual things. And that if I do those things, then money will somehow magically come into my life. But there are principles by which money operate. Money or rather, principles are God's automation and God will not break principles. There are principles for exchange of money. There are principles for how money travels. So if Jesus is saying, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and your needs will be met, you will eat. You will have a roof over your head. You will, excuse me, you will have clothes. Then there must be a connection between what he's saying and the principles. So I wanna go back to the very beginning. I wanna go back to Genesis because that's the start. What did Jesus say he came to bring? He said he came to restore the kingdom, isn't he? He came to restore the kingdom. He says The kingdom of God is here. That's how. That was his message, and that was inevitably bring him back, bringing things back to the original, what it was before man fell. What was it before man fell? What was it like before man fell? Genesis 1 28 and God bless them. And said to them, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth. Subdue it. So what's the principle of fruitfulness? The principle of fruitfulness. Okay. Seed time and harvest will not see. So without seed, that will not be harvest. Galatians six, seven, don't. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that shall heal also be Without seed, there cannot be harvest. So if God is saying that we should be fruitful, does it not therefore imply that he has put a seed in us? If God commands man to be fruitful, does he not imply that he has put a seed in? Man, that's one way to think about it, but I dunno where to look at it. Is this, which is where I really wanna emphasize and I wrap up for tonight, is the fact that. When God was asking, when God was blessing Adam and Eve, and telling them to be fruitful and to do all these things that he had already provided everything they needed. Okay? So that the reason for work. Now this, I know this can be misinterpreted in so many ways, but I'm really convinced about it. I'm gonna say it, the reason for work in God's original plan. Was not to eat the reason for work in God's original plan. so the reason Adam was gonna eat was not whether or not he attended the garden. The provision was already there. He had given them everything already. Adam's work was to contribute to the maintenance of God's purpose. God had given him a section of the garden and said, now you tend it. Look after it. That's your work. That's your purpose. You are eating your clothing. Your shelter is already taken care of as long as you are in this garden. So when Jesus comes therefore, and says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you, this is what he looks like to me. He looks to me like Jesus is saying. You have a purpose. Your purpose is to tend a particular part of God's kingdom because this kingdom was lost and I've come to restore it, and as my people, your job, your responsibility is to see your part in restoring God's kingdom back to earth. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. we pray, don't we, but is it just a prayer? Am I supposed to pray that prayer on Sunday morning, but come out on Monday and work it so that the kingdom of God will truly come in my environment? Okay, so I believe this is what Jesus was saying when he says to us, don't be like these other guys who go about running, who make eating and closing and shelter. The objective. No, your objective should be. The identification of the sector, your field, your garden in the kingdom, look after it because that is how you are supposed to profit. Your profit is in your purpose. I call it purpose driven profit. There's so many reasons why the two problems identified earlier are solved. When we ensure that we're living in our purpose and are making a connection between our purpose and our profits, number one is fulfillment. We find fulfillment because purpose is the only thing that fulfills you. You can do every other thing. It is only in your purpose that you will find with your fulfillment. Number two, when you're on your purpose, you're at your best because you're designed for your purpose. You make the most money. You make the most money when you are in your purpose because you are designed for your purpose. when you're in your purpose, you are in your zone of genius because You are operating as you are designed to operate. you're not a square peg in a round hole. No. You are a round peg in a round hole, so you make the most money. So the problem of having 10 jobs and not making enough money is eliminated because. You are in purpose. this is a starting point of profiting from your purpose. This is the starting point of escaping this life where you are doing a job you hate. You're not making enough money and there is a longing in your heart to pursue your purpose, but you don't know what to do it. The first thing you have to do is you have to believe that there is enough profit, there's sufficient profit in your purpose, and I wanna leave that with you please believe that in your calling there is profit God bless you. Bye-bye.