Despite what you've been told, you matter and you can accomplish something great.

You are something new in this world. Never before, since the beginning of time, has there ever been anybody exactly like you; and never again throughout all the ages to come will there ever be anybody exactly like you again.

Generally speaking we are in God's will whenever we are leading the kind of life he wants for us. And that leaves a lot of room for initiative on our part, which is essential: our individual initiatives are central to his will for us.

Our destiny is to join a tremendously creative team effort, under unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and enjoyment.

Human initiative is not canceled by God redeeming us; it is heightened by immersion in the flow of God's life.

The intellect is good. Our natural abilities of perception are good, and they are not opposed to faith. Please hear me: our natural abilities are not opposed to faith. Yes, we live by faith and not by sight, but try not using your sight at all and see how that works. When Jesus walked this earth, he used all of his human powers—all of them—and we are called to devote all of our human powers to God in order that we might live under him as he intended.

We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God's full world.

Our challenge is to fill our hours, minutes, and actions from day to day with the appropriate amount of love for God's creation and creating, and then work to produce more of the good he has put in this world. This is every person's calling.

Fact 1: It is okay to be who you are wherever you are.

it is good that you are alive: your life is good, it is good that you are who you are, and it is good that you do the work you do.

And of course it is discipleship, real-life apprenticeship to Jesus, that is the passageway within The Kingdom Among Us from initial faith in Jesus to a life of fulfillment and routine obedience.

Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being. It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone's hand. It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny.