Your Purpose

 

Salvation created a purpose for your life,  one that exists beyond this life and world, and reality. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to  His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

(Romans 8:28-29 NASB)

There is a temporal good, and a spiritual good, and an eternal one. Temporal good is what the men of the world are seeking after, and generally have the greatest share of, and the saints the least; and yet they have as much as is needful for them, and what they have, they have with a blessing; and even sometimes afflictions work for the temporal good of God’s children: spiritual good lies in a lively exercise of grace and a conformity of the soul to God; {from Gill’s commentary}

 Knowing your purpose…what do you know of your purpose?  Are you fulfilling it?  How long does your purpose last?

I live the first 42 years of my life with the following purposes:

– attend schooling until graduating from college.  I accomplished this in 1981 with a BSEE.

– marry, have a family – This was started in not long before 1981 when I married my lovely, grace filled, wife Leisa.    Son Joshua followed in the mid 80’s.

– provide for my family – I have worked and been blessed by work I enjoy.

The other purposes I fulfilled were not so good

– working too much

– too much focus on greed, money, collecting things

– losing myself and disconnecting from my family by working too much and living a life largely focused on lust for things, money

In 2000,  I rediscovered that Jesus Christ had called me to His purposes,  and my life has been going in a different direction ever since.  My purpose is to represent, preach, teach, pray for, and love others into a relationship with Christ and receive or rediscover salvation and that purpose that God intends for all to come to a saving faith.

My immoral attitudes left, most at once, some left only after additional work and attention by me.  My language choices changed, from regular use of bad or hurtful language to word choices that increasingly became more and more encouraging.  I started praying with hope and expectation. I started teaching bible classes, mostly for youth,  and occasionally for adults.

My purpose as a follower of Christ is to live according to Romans 8:29 and discover how God is blessing me with Romans 8:28.  Read them again and think about it.  My purpose includes caring about how I impact people, including my family, my wife, strangers, friends, former enemies, and people I cannot stand to be around.  This purpose extends to being prepared and ready to discuss, pray, and love someone as Christ would – no matter what they have done or are still doing.

Christ conversed with all manner of people,  the people who most needed truth and hope – received directly from God on earth the solution to living a blessed life.  He also told them to go and sin no more.

Rediscover your purpose,  allow Christ to reclaim the purpose of your life now and your life eternal!

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4-7 NASB)

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