Intro:
What is the most important thing about your life and purpose? Is it your relationships, job, health, or sense of self-fulfillment? What really matters? Why are we easily distracted by seeking to fulfill ourselves? Join me as I explain why that finding your purpose and calling is what really matters. Os Guinness’ The Call:Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life is a great read!
The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible, BSB
God’s Call to Become Like Christ
True, abundant life is only found in Christ Jesus. All things and people in our lives will pass away. Our loved ones will die and leave us behind. Even the most durable objects break and age. Our health fades as we age. Inflation and stock market plunges deplete our savings/investments. We will experience joy, love, and hope in our lives as well as grief, sorrow, and troubles. We listen to the world or to the Good Shepherd’s voice.
John 10:6-10 Jesus is the Gate and Good Shepherd
6Jesus spoke to them using this illustration, but they did not understand what He was telling them. 7So He said to them again, “Truly, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.
The world’s system of materialism and desire to “grow” and become “better” apart from God/Christ is a form of manipulation and deception. Religion and false spiritualism are other evils that lead people away. Are you following the voice of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-5)?
God calls people to himself, but this call is no casual suggestion. He is so awe inspiring and his summons so commanding that only one response is appropriate—a response as total and universal as the authority of the Caller.
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Have you answered God’s call? It’s vital to remember that His call reflects His nature and identity. God is God and He speaks His Truth! This is how one can practice discernment.
What matters the most–is it my own happiness and satisfaction? What is the purpose of it all? One of the harder things in life is dying to self and seeking to bless others instead of seeking my own desires.
“Disciples are not so much those who follow as those who must follow.”
Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Jesus explains to His Disciples in Luke 9:23-24.
23Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
What does this mean? Jesus is telling His disciples about His purpose of Messiah
21Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22“The Son of Man must suffer many things,” He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Commitment to Christ means taking up your cross daily, giving up your hopes, dreams, possessions, and even your very life if need be for the cause of Christ. Only if you willingly take up your cross may you be called His disciple (Luke 14:27)
https://www.gotquestions.org/take-up-your-cross.html
For a detailed explanation of these truths:
https://www.gotquestions.org/take-up-your-cross.html
https://www.gotquestions.org/deny-yourself.html
Our purpose is found in God’s call to trust and believe upon the name of Christ Jesus. God calls lost humans to believe and trust upon Him for redemption. What matters is that God saves us and makes us new in Him. God freely offers grace and mercy to all who would call on Him to be saved repenting from self-righteousness and pride! The purpose of life is to receive God’s grace and share this wonderful Good News! We are then to be His disciples following Him and His call on our lives.
Our fallen world tempts us to seek out our own personal comfort, wealth, and happiness. We want above all else to be comfortable and untroubled especially by or with others around us. Society is full of self-improvement gurus and religions to make us “better people.” There are many books available on self-development and personal improvement.
Our enemy the Deceiver seeks to lure us into a trap of bettering ourselves through education, career changes, new relationships, ideas, etc. None of these things are bad in their nature, but they can become idols and distractions when we seek to obtain them more than we love God and our neighbors. The human heart is easily deceived and led astray by selfish thinking.
Living for Christ: Not Living for Self
We, as modern Americans, tend to seek self-fulfillment. This is a trap of the enemy when we seek this more than God’s Kingdom and Righteousness. Careers, wealth, health, relationships are blessings that God graciously gives. Yet, none of the things can fulfill us or even deeply satisfy our longings.
Consider the narrative of David pouring out the water that his men had brought to him in 2 Samuel 23:15-17. Why did David pour out this water before God (gave water as a sacrifice to God) instead of drinking it? David honored God as his men had risked their lives on a dangerous mission to get him water from Bethlehem: BSB, emphasis mine
“15David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!” 16So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine camp, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem, and brought it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out to the LORD, 17saying, “Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this! Is this not the blood of the men who risked their lives?” So he refused to drink it.”
David thus gives us an example of how to react when God gives us something that we shouldn’t keep for ourselves. He poured it as a sacrifice to God!
How and when blessings turn bitter: we hoard them
We become hoarders instead of a source of blessings for others. Like a grumpy old dragon we rest ourselves upon the pile of accumulated things daring anyone to come near and steal them from us. It’s interesting to note that dragons usually hide their riches in lonely, dark caves far away from others. A boy named Eustace (Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) turns into the dragon when he stumbles upon a dead dragon on a pile of treasure and harbors “greedy, dragonish thoughts” in his heart. It takes Aslan’s intervention and painful claws to get Eustace back into a child again.
Old Smaug (The Hobbit) had nested on his treasure pile for so long that his chest was imbeded with diamonds and jewels. He was a source of terror and destruction to all. He laid “waste” to many areas as he raided villages and collected his plunder. Smaug represents greed, lust, and how such things lead to desolation and destruction.
Blessings turn sour and bitter when he hang onto them for ourselves! We become like the Dead Sea where the Jordan River flows in, but no water flows out. The water becomes “salty” and unfit for drinking. Water becomes stagnant and polluted when it gathers and doesn’t flow!
The Solution–Pour Out the Blessings Before God, Worship and Invest in Others!
When God graciously brings something into your life, what you do with it matters! Pour out your life in worship and service to God! Invest in others, showing grace, mercy, compassion, and kindness. Who can you be a blessing to in your life?
May God overflow your life and guide you as He flows through you into the lives of others! The most important thing in life is how that God blesses others through our lives! As God flows through your life, may you experience experience a deep joy and sense of peace that will transcend all things and enrich those around you!
Words of Grace & Hope 