#415: Do You Want to Live A Life of Impact and Purpose?

Do you want to be a difference-maker? Do you want to live a life of impact and purpose?

I bet most people reading this are saying, “Absolutely! That’s me! I want to make a difference. I want to live a life of impact and purpose.”

Seriously, who doesn’t want that for their lives? You wouldn’t be reading this article right now unless you yearned to be a difference-maker, a person whose life impacted others in some meaningful way.

So, if leading a life of impact and purpose is what you desire, read on as we learn what it takes to be a difference-maker from Ezra’s example.

 Ezra’s Great Challenge

Cyrus, the Persian King, released some 50,000 Jewish captives allowing them to return to Jerusalem in 538 B.C.

With the king’s permission, Zerubbabel led this group of Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the Temple of God. Over time, they rebuilt the Temple, and for a while, they worshipped God and prospered.

Unfortunately, after about 57 years, the Jewish people fell back into their old sinful ways. The reigning Persian king, Artaxerxes, granted Ezra permission to take another group of exiles back to Jerusalem. Artaxerxes paid all the group’s expenses to return to Jerusalem and ordered that Ezra restore the people’s worship of God.

When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he found that many men, including their leaders, had forsaken God, married pagan women from neighboring tribes, and followed pagan practices. Ezra confronted the leadership with their sin, and together, they devised a plan to deal with all the men who had married foreign women.

Ezra’s challenge included restoring the people to God, reorganizing the leadership, and reforming the people. He had his work cut out for him!

Ezra, the Difference Maker

Examining Ezra’s life (Ezra 7-10), we see seven character traits combined to make Ezra a difference-maker.

1. Humble

Ezra was a humble man of God. Nowhere in this entire story of his life do we see Ezra brag about himself or his accomplishments. However, Ezra humbly devoted himself to God.

“I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions” (Ezra 8:21).

2. Devoted to God

Ezra was a Godly man. He devoted himself to the study and observance of God’s law. Furthermore, he taught God’s laws to the people.

“For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).

3. Trustworthy

The Persian king, Artaxerxes, called specifically on Ezra to lead this group of exiles back to Jerusalem. Artaxerxes gave Ezra the goal of rebuilding the city and entrusted Ezra with significant wealth and resources to accomplish the work.

“this Ezra came up from Babylon…The king had granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him” (Ezra 7:6).

4. Teambuilder

Ezra wisely recruited an extremely specific team of 18 Godly men who were family heads to accompany him on the journey to Jerusalem. He knew these men would influence others to join them (Ezra 8:1-14). First, Ezra called on priests (Ezra 8:2a), then men from the royal line of David (Ezra 8:2b-3a), and finally, representatives from all 12 tribes of Israel (Ezra 8:3b-14). Ezra brought over 1,500 men and their families back to Jerusalem.

5. Prayer

Ezra was a man of prayer. He prayed and held a fast with the people, asking God to grant them success on their journey (Ezra 8:21). He also prayed when he discovered how the people of Jerusalem had fallen away from God.

“While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites–men, women and children–gathered around him. They too wept bitterly” (Ezra 10:1).

6. Integrity

Ezra was a man of integrity. He was sent to Jerusalem to restore the people to God, yet the conditions were far worse than he imagined when he arrived. Instead of backing down from the challenge, Ezra stood his ground, confronting Jerusalem’s leaders and the people with their sin and calling them to repentance.

7. Conviction

Ezra was a man of conviction. When Ezra learned how the people had rejected God, it grieved him terribly. He wept and prayed until Jerusalem’s leaders repented of their sin and took an oath to return to God (Ezra 10:1-4). He then maintained a vigil for three days while all the men of Jerusalem came family-by-family to confess their sin and recommit their lives to God.

A Life of Impact and Purpose

These seven traits, taken together, contributed to Ezra being a difference-maker, a person whose life had great purpose and impacted an entire nation’s lives.

However, as marvelous as Ezra was in leading the people of Jerusalem back to God, these traits alone were not enough. One often-overlooked aspect of Ezra’s story stands out, and that one thing is the most important.

God was with Ezra, and this mission to restore the people of Jerusalem. No less than six times in the book of Ezra, we read a phrase like, “the hand of God was on Ezra.”

The hand of God, the blessing of God, was on Ezra because Ezra was doing what God had called him to do. God was with Ezra because Ezra was a man devoted to God, committed to doing what God called him to do.

It did not matter in the least that Ezra was one man calling out the sins of over 50,000 people. One man with God, doing God’s work, is always a majority.

Do you want to live a life of impact and purpose, to be a difference-maker? Then, by all means, emulate Ezra’s character traits and do the work that God has called you to do!

More Articles

I have written several articles on a leader’s obedience to God. You can find them by typing “Obedience to God” in the search bar. Meanwhile, here are five of my favorites.

• #385: Is the Path You Are on the Right One?
• #365: Do You Lead Like an Owner or A Steward?
• #345: Disobedience to God Always Leads to Lost Opportunities
• #299: 3 Take-Aways From the Life of a Harlot
• #277: A Compass Can Only Point You in the Right Direction…

Join the Conversation

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Which of Ezra’s traits impress you as most important, contributing to his success?

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Category: Personal Development | Obedience to God