Category: Purpose

James 1:2, ” Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, “

Happiness is a fleeting experience in a fallen world; it is unpredictable. It comes from strange places and hides from the obvious. An antagonist fails; we find happiness in the act. A promotion or a vacation leave us indifferent, why? If finding happiness in life is your thing, welcome to the world of sporadic, maddening, and inconsistent fulfillment.

James 4: 1-2, ”  What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. “

Joy is another issue. Joy can be created, at will, regardless of the situation. It is critical that we, as Christian, know the difference. We need to understand that there will always be challenges, but the challenges need not define us. What defines us is the way we react to the challenges. Do we lean into Christ, or do we separate from Him?

Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”

There are two main obstacles to creating joy; one is to avoid running after other gods, and the other is focusing on the right question.

Running after other gods.

Psalm 16:4, “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.”

One of my vices is that I do not always see other gods in my life as other gods. I have a passion for or dedication to something; I don’t recognize that it might slowly elevate itself to a god in my life. Most of the things I am talking about are good things, like family. The problem comes from me putting it before Christ. Do I derive my happiness from it, then allow my joy to be an extension of that happiness?

“You must have more joy in Christ than anything, or you are an idolater.” – John Piper

Our Children are important, we can sometime elevate them. You want them to be well rounded. You want them to have experiences that broaden their horizon. You’re in the car seven days a week taking them everywhere, sports practice, music lessons, dance lessons, tutoring, you are exhausted. Between the kids, housework and a job there is no time for sleep. Exhaustion brings on mistakes, mistakes create conflict, conflict can separate us from God. But you won’t give it up; it is your kids. You have a responsibility.

We can say the same thing about marriage, jobs, careers, school, vacations, hobbies, and even church (little c). The goal is admirable, the process sucks the life out of you, yet you continue.

Wrong Focus

Sheryl Crow “Soak Up the Sun, “It’s not having what you want; It’s wanting what you’ve got.”

It’s all about focus and perspective. I remember several years ago at a Champions for Life Weekend; I heard the testimony of Bruce Collie. Bruce won two Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers. Bruce was a hard-charging, live life to the fullest kind of guy. But after the Super Bowl wins, he was left empty. He spent his whole life wanting a ring; now, he had two. He talked about it not being the highlight of his life, but the low point. He questioned his whole existence. Luckily for Bruce, he went to the Philadelphia Eagles and ran into Reggie White. Reggie opened his eyes to the Gospel and turned his life around. Christ gave Bruce a real purpose that never disappoints.

John 15:9, “Jesus loves us with the same love that the Father loves him.”

How do I change my focus to eliminate the idols in my life? Here is the hard part. It should be the natural part, but it’s not. You have to believe in your heart of hearts that God cares about you. I mean, really cares about everything you do. He cares about your kids, your job, your education, your life. There is nothing about which he does not care. In everything He wants the best for you.

James 1:16–17, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”

The massive things that I can’t handle alone, I give to God. Why not, it’s too big for me anyway. It is the small things, the things I want, and I think I can do by myself, that I hold to myself. These are the things that build up stress and anxiety and eventual disappointment. It is at this point I have a choice. I can pout because bad things happen to good people, or I can decide that God is in control of everything, and this will prove to be the best. It has always been about Him, not me.

To believe that God redeems even when I can’t see takes faith. It takes faith to believe that God really cares about me. It takes faith to believe that the small things in my life are just important to God as the big things. All things work for His glory (Romans 8:28).

Joy is a choice, but it is a big choice. Many times, it is a hard choice. It is counter-intuitive. The God that created the universe cares about my bad day. The fact that He can even see that I am having a bad day is mind-boggling. You would think He had better things to do. He doesn’t, He cares that much about you.

Psalm 37:4-6, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.”

James 4:14, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

There is so much I could say about this. I could extol the virtues of loving hard means hurting hard. I could rejoice in their heavenly freedom from pain and worry. I could wallow in my sadness. But none of these would begin to paint the picture of the depth and width of my despondency.

When morning their loss, I must face my future. The life they lived raises a mirror to my own life. I desperately want something more. I don’t necessarily want to be remembered, but I don’t want my time here forgotten.

“Give me a longing for a scent of a flower I have not found, the echo of a tune I have not heard, and a grace so powerful that it changes all the lives I touch.” – CS Lewis

I want people to weep over my passing because they want just one more day with me. I want to have an impact. I want Heaven to dance and Christ to sing. I want to be the man God made me.

Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”

Eternity is a very long time. My lifespan Is a blip on the screen. But it is all the time I have to gather those who need to hear the message. I am not an evangelist; we talked about that this last week in my Monday night group. I’m a life-on-life kind of guy; an empower other people type of guy. It is who God made me. Seeing those close to me and their impact on God’s kingdom makes me want to be a fireworks display. I want my life to explode into the night with sound and fury and light. I want to be unmistakable, intentional, and deliberate.

John 15: 13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

When the emotions of the moment ebb and flow away, I have to hold on to the reality that I will leave a legacy. The question is, what legacy? 

Proverbs 3:27, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.”

“When it is in your power to act,” This is a specific command to do. Not to think about, pray about it, and plan about it, but to do. Everything starts with prayer. When God opens the door, prayer without execution is dead. James 2:14-26, read it, and believe it. I must act according to God’s will.

In doing this, Heaven will dance, and Christ will sing. A rock dropped in a still pond send out ripples in every direction, so can I. I can be a light to a broken world regardless of the size of my actions. My task may be small, or it might be significant. It doesn’t matter to God. It matters that I am obedient and intentional.

Today I will do what others won’t so that tomorrow I can be what others can’t.

Ephesians 5:1, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

John 18:37, ” In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

They will all sit around a roaring campfire in peaceful harmony, eating smores and singing kumbaya until the cows come home: and truth will pass by them.

Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ,”

I will be the first to acknowledge that finding the truth in our hyper-personal world is extremely hard. We are constantly bombarded with data-rich, personally targeted marketing designed to change our world view. Trying to find and then hold on to truth is exhausting. 

John 18:30, “‘ What is truth?’ Pilate asked. And having said this, he went out again to the Jews and told them, “I find no basis for a charge against Him.”

Over 2,00 years ago, we were struggling with the concept of truth. Pilate himself questioned it when Jesus stood before him. He, like many people today, did not seek an answer but was willing to leave the question unanswered. He washed his hands and moved on. 

James 5:2, “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

We do have a source of truth. It is a foundation from which we can build all of our worldly interactions. It will not create peace among many because the truth requires a measure of accountability. Postmodern philosophy allows us to disagree without liability. I have my truth, and you have yours, they don’t have to agree. But real life doesn’t allow for that ambiguity. Real-life can sometimes be very diametric; just because you don’t believe in gravity doesn’t mean you can fly. 

John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Conversely, God doesn’t need our acknowledgment to exist. He does exist, with or without our consent. We will be faced with judgment, like it or not. Judgment is not a punishment from God, but a chance to avoid a fate destined for all who do not acknowledge the truth. This acknowledgment is incredibly important concerning how we spend eternity, but it is also vital to the understanding of why we need to pursue God’s plan for our life. 

God’s plan for us exists. It is real. It has meaning and impact. We can choose not to believe in it, but that does not make it go away. It does make it unfulfilled, and with that, us unfulfilled. 

Galatians 4:16, “So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?”

We will and should struggle with contemporary definitions of current affairs. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. But we do have a foundation to build on; it is the foundation of the Gospel. Anything that swims upstream of the Gospel is not the truth, no matter how well it fits our narrative. 

You are going to be happy said God, but first, I will make you strong.

1 John 4:5, “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of falsehood.”

1 Corinthians 13:13, “But now these three things abide: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love.”

.God speaks to me in short sentences that are not easy to remember. The clarity of a moment ago is lost in the present.

I cannot recapture what God has told me this morning, but I will try. It had to do with the importance of love and correspondingly loss. How are these two concepts united? I have a sense of longing for deep, true love. This longing is both good and bad. Good because it is built within all of us to love and be loved. Destructive because that longing can become an obsession. It drives many of us to do things that are contrary to God’s will for our lives. When this happens, we come into conflict with the very God that breathed life into our lungs. This conflict invariably brings pain and a sense of loss.

11 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Many of us, most of us, and maybe all of us; have come into conflict with love. We have loved mightily and lost. We have felt the searing pain that goes to the very marrow of our bones. It is so intense that we have to remind ourselves to breathe. It so envelops our being that we think that it will never cease. There will be no relief. There are not words or actions that will make it go away. We start to see this pain as an extension of ourselves, part of our DNA. It has permanently transformed us.

The lucky ones overcome this feeling and love again. The unlucky ones live with it in solitude for the rest of their lives.

This morning I look at the relationships in my life. I know that my existence is because God has a purpose for me. I will pursue that purpose with abandon. It is what keeps me going. I also know that all of the deep relationships I have around me will someday bring me a sense of loss. That loss will come through death or disappointment. Just as my passing and possibly my actions will bring suffering to others. All earthly relationships end — the stronger the love, the greater the pain. I will not forsake the love to avoid the pain; it is because God first loved me. God experience incredible pain to show the extent of his love. He gave His son to die on the cross. God will forever live with the knowledge of that sacrifice. It is part of who He is, and it ripples through eternity.

Romans 5:8, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

So, I sit here in the darkness of early morning, embraced by the God of the universe, trying to make sense of who and what I am. I am a survivor. Like all survivors, I wear the scars of my battles — the more extraordinary my triumph, the deeper my scares. Death would release me from all of this, but it would rob me of the joy of life. I am an alien here on earth. My home is in heaven. 

Philippians 3:20, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

While I am here, I am driven by love to take as many people as I can home with me. To do this, I must overcome my fear and love them as long and as deeply as humanly possible. My obsession should not be for the comfort of being loved, but the joy of loving.

There will come a day of rest, but not before my work here is done

James 2:18, “But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

One of the essential reasons to align yourself with God’s plan for your life is that it is a beacon to others.

The challenge with being His lawyer is that we will need to supply the answers to people who don’t ask the right questions. There then is legality to our existence as if there was a formula. That formula solved all the problems and answered all the questions. The truth is that God hasn’t given us all the answers, and we are not smart enough to ask all the right questions. There is an aspect of God that we cannot fathom. God lives outside the natural laws of our existence. We are not in a position to defend His existence. 

Being a witness is less complicated. All we need to be able to say is: “This is how God worked in my life.” It is a reality that cannot be disputed because we lived it. We own the facts of the situation. Others can hypothesize alternative realities, but they cannot replicate the actual event. Our testimony is, “I was there. I had the experience.” 

2 Timothy 2:15, “Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately.”

Of course, being a witness brings with it the need to have something about which to witness. To truly have a compelling story to tell, we must rely on God. We can’t serpentine through life using our own will and expect to witness Christ’s redemptive powers. To be a credible witness, we need to submit to God’s will and allow for His direction in our life. Surrendering to the will of God is hard work. It is hard work only because our ego and self-centeredness are strong forces. They push and pull us to act independently. We have this innate arrogance that we don’t need help.

Our testimony starts with the understanding that there will be a temptation, turmoil, and tribulation in our life. Some of it is self-inflicted gunshot wounds, and some of it is outside our control, but none of it is outside of the redemptive power of Christ. Anxiety and stress do not have to be the norm in our lives. We can achieve peace even when circumstances do not change. Acknowledging that God has a plan for our life and that plan is to prosper, not destroy will give us hope. With hope, we can find peace. 

Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Pursuing God’s plan for our life is worthwhile as it gives us a life worth living. It also provides the testimony to others that the assurances God gives to us through scripture are real. Our life needs to reflect God’s character so that others might see it. The closer we are to becoming the very thing that God created us to be, the better the testimony we have. We do not have to know what God has in store for us; we need to be continually working toward finding it. With the journey comes the testimony. 

Hebrews 13: 21 “(Now may the God of peace) … equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

In pursuing God’s plan for our life, get up and do something small. Something small might be having coffee with someone who you admire to find out what they know. As we slowly expand your activities, we will start to understand what we like and don’t like. We will gain experience that will further encourage us. The goal is not to go on a mission trip or lead someone to Christ; it is to be more Christ-like. The key is consistency. Every day think about it, pray about it, read about it, and do something.

Hebrews 10:36, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”

In time a plan will start to form as we get a clearer picture of where God wants us. The initial idea might be to add a skill or experience. Working that plan will provide more information for the next idea. Each new step will get us closer to the ultimate goal of using your passion for God’s purpose.

The day will come when we realize the tremendous testimony we have to God’s overwhelming grace. We will stand out to others as a faithful witness to God’s character. 

Ephesians 5:15-17, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

Proverbs 16:1, “All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD.”

The Setup

I write about things with which I struggle. God has blessed me. It is so obvious and blatant that I would be a fool to try to hide it. Along the way I have made terrible decisions. I have run and hid and lied to avoid accountability. I have let my ego and my selfishness direct my steps. All of this to say: I’m human.

Because I live in this diametric world where I am blessed and simultaneously rebellious, God having a plan for me that perpetuates God’s kingdom on earth seems ludicrous. I have strong Christian friends that are so wholly convinced of the assurance of their salvation that they think I am simple-minded. Assurance is: certainty about something or a positive declaration intended to give confidence; a promise. Christ gives us assurance, not a guarantee.

They feel I am complicating the process of sanctification, and they may be right.

Now I am neither seminary-trained, nor do I want to be perceived as having answers, so I want you to know this is a personal concern for me. I read the series of passages below and can’t help but think: I have a role in my sanctification. I cannot save myself, but I can deceive myself into believing I’m saved.

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast”

James 2:17,” Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Matthew 7:22-23, “On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many powerful deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers.”

Matthew 22:37-38, “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These verses paint a picture for me that it is through grace I am save by the blood of Christ, but it has to move from head knowledge (consciousness, reasoning, logic, habits, skills, values) to heart knowledge (spirit, surrender, trust, brokenness, character), and the outward display of that transformation will be a change in behavior driven by love.

The Caveat

There are no hidden clauses in the Bible. God is very straight forward. Salvation is too important to play games with. If you have to “interpret” a verse, maybe you are reading too much into it or crafting it to your desires. Here are some examples of “IF” statements that God uses to clarify our sanctification.

Matthew 6:14-15, “Jesus said: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

John 14:15, “Jesus said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

1 Corinthians 15:2, “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”

Genesis 4:7, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Exodus 19:5a, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.”

Deuteronomy 6:25, “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

Isaiah 48:18, “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”

John 15:14, “Jesus said: “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

The Delivery

The struggle I am dealing with is not what I do, but why I do it. God has a plan for me; we know that from scripture. I can accept that and mechanically work through the process. But if I sleepwalk through his purpose, I miss the point.

I am reasonably adept at teaching micro-enterprise development, I know how to write and review business plans, and I can evaluate opportunities. All of this is mechanics. It is head knowledge enhanced with experience. It is not what God wants me to do. It is a tool he wants me to use. What he wants me to do is love the lost.

Loving the lost is different; it’s complicated. Not because I perceive the lost are not worthy of love. It is because I don’t know them, I don’t have a relationship with them. They are strangers. For some people loving others, having compassion for them, and being able to show empathy comes easy. I am not one of them.

God built me to be goal-driven. You set a point on the horizon, and then you drive toward it. All ships rise on the same tide. I believe in pragmatically helping people. I believe in giving them fish until they are strong enough to fish for themselves.

Reread Matthew 22:37-38 above; it defines the point on the horizon we are to drive towards.

The Payoff

Ephesians 1:18, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”

God does an amazing thing when I step out in faith: He gives me a new heart. It is incredible. A stranger can approach me, and I sense their need, not their physical need, it’s deeper than that. There is a draw to them. There is a neediness about them that they can’t hide with small talk and witty sarcasm. It makes me want to know them better. It’s an exciting experience. To experience this, I have to have the guts to step out of my shell and speak to them.

Ali Baba used “Khulja simsim” to open the cave of the 40 thieves. God used “Can I help you?” to open the door to my heart. As they talk and I listen, God works on both of us. I find these conversations the most stimulating conversation I ever have. These are wonderful people who are in an unfortunate position not unlike my own.

It’s always about people. 

This post takes you a long way around the block to say: pay attention to the real purpose, not just the tools God puts in your life to achieve the purpose. Don’t deceive yourself and, in doing so, jeopardize your salvation. It’s not about activity.