Johnny tells his mom he doesn’t want to go to church. Two reasons: (1) they don’t like him, and (2) he doesn’t like them. His mother tells him he needs to go for two reasons: (1) you’re 49 years old, and (2) you’re the pastor.
Most people seem to journey through years and even decades without seriously wrestling with the fundamental question of they are here and what they want their lives to add up to in the end.
Instead of asking, “What will I leave behind me?” it is better to ask, “What am I going to take with me?” Most people don’t know where their journey is taking them. It is better to choose what we want to create than to focus on avoiding what we don’t want.
Pilot of a transoceanic jet announced to his passengers over the intercom, “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we have a strong tail wind and are making great time. The bad news is that we are lost somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and we have no idea where we are.”
Missing the Plane of Life
How did it happen that now for the first time in his life he could see everything so clearly? Something had given him leave to live in the present. Not once in his entire life had he allowed himself to come to rest in the quiet center of himself but had forever cast himself forward from some dark past he could not remember to a future which did not exist. Not once had he been present for his life. So his life had passed like a dream.
Is it possible for people to miss their lives in the same way one misses a plane?
The answer to this question raised in Walker Percy’s novel, The Second Coming, is an unqualified affirmative. Someone once said, “Fear not that your life will come to an end, but rather that it will never have had a beginning.”
In the 1990 film, Awakenings, a number of patients who had been in a catatonic state for some thirty years were temporarily brought to full consciousness through a new medication. While some were elated, others were embittered that so much of their lives was spent in oblivion. But they all seized the preciousness of each day, especially when they learned that their “awakenings” would only be temporary.
There is a sense in which many people live without being truly awake, without thinking and questioning, without a sense of wonder and awe. It is easy, even for believers in Christ, to lurch through life, never developing a clear picture of the unique purpose for which God placed them on this planet.
In 1902 Meyer Kubelski, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, gave his son a violin for his eighth birthday. It cost Meyer $50, a small fortune in those days.
The son loved music and soon was playing well enough to give concerts at the Barrison Theater in Waukeegan, the town where the Kubelskis lived. By the age of 18 he had teamed up with a woman pianist as a concert team in vaudeville.
One night as Benjamin Kubelski was playing, he felt impelled, between numbers, to tell the audience about a funny incident that had happened to him during the day. “The audience laughed,” he recalled later, “and the sound intoxicated me. That laughter ended my days as a musician.” Jack Benny, as the young Kubelski later called himself, had found his rightful career.
Most people never stumble, as Benny did, into a career path that so happily meshes ability and passion. But even if the fit is perfect, a career is not the same as a biblical purpose for one’s life. Vocational setbacks and retirement do not derail God’s purpose for us, because His intentions transcend the circumstances and seasons of our lives. Even marriage and children, as crucial as these are, cannot be equated with God’s unchanging reason for our being.
Laying hold of a sense of purpose can be a significant source of motivation, but the problem is that even as believers, we are more inclined to pursue temporal rather than biblical purposes. In fact, most people fail to wrestle with the issue of purpose at all; without thought-out purposes to guide them, they base their decisions instead on activities and objectives that have become ends in themselves.
This is the antithesis of the way the Lord Jesus ordered His earthly life. Jesus had a clear understanding of the purpose of His life, and He derived His purpose from His Father and not His own ambitions or aspirations. The hallmark of His life was to learn His Father’s will and walk in the power of the Spirit to bring it to fruition. The gospels record three particularly clear purpose statements that related to our Lord’s life mission: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. . . . For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. . . . I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (Mark 10:45; Luke 19:10; John 17:4). Jesus’ purpose was to glorify His Father by seeking, serving, and saving the lost, and testifying to the truth.
The Apostle Paul also had a well-defined sense of purpose that involved a passion for knowing and pleasing Christ and for remaining faithful to his personal calling to evangelism and edification (see Philippians 3:10, 13-14; 2 Corinthians 5:9; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).
“… that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death… I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ” Phil. 3:10, 14
“Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” 2 Cor. 5:9
“… Run in such a way that you may win…I run in such a way as not without aim… but I buffet my body and make it my slave, let possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” 1 Cor. 9:24-27
“Who are You, Lord?.. What do You want me to do?” Acts 9
Paul’s purpose was to know and please Christ and be faithful to evangelism and edification.
We cannot lay hold of God’s unique purpose for our lives without spending time with Him and inviting Him to clarify His purpose for us in His timing and way. It is never too late to begin wrestling with the reason for our earthly existence, since God in His sovereignty can use all our previous experiences to prepare us for our true mission. Ask the Lord to give you a personal purpose statement and a passion to fulfill it.
Our primary calling is to know and love God; our secondary calling is to express this relationship in everything we do and with everyone we encounter. If the secondary is not related to the primary, we slip into the error of dichotomizing the “spiritual” and the “secular” when they should really be integrated. When this happens, our relationship with the Lord is disconnected from the everyday activities of our lives.
The opposite error occurs when secondary calling replaces primary calling. When this occurs, work becomes an end in itself by turning into our principal “vocation” (from the Latin word for “calling”). In this way, the visible and horizontal swallows up the invisible and vertical. Or to use Francis Schaeffer’s expression, “nature eats up grace.” When we keep our primary calling first and seek to express it in and through our secondary calling, we become more holistic in our thinking and practice.
Although you cannot fully know or express the fullness of God’s calling on your life, it is still wise to ask the Lord for a clearer vision of His unique purpose for your earthly existence. Prayerful development of a personal purpose statement can give you focus and passion, particularly when you review and rethink it from time to time.
In the film Chariots of Fire, there is a significant scene when Eric Liddell takes his sister Jennie for a walk in the hills of Scotland to explain his commitment to training for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. He tells her, “I’ve decided—I’m going back to China. The missionary service accepted me.” Jennie rejoices to hear this, since she fears her brother’s calling to be a missionary is being threatened by his interest in running.
However, Eric goes on to say, “But I’ve got a lot of running to do first. Jennie—Jennie, you’ve got to understand. I believe that God made me for a purpose—for China. But He also made me fast! And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give it up would be to hold Him in contempt. You were right. It’s not just fun. To win is to honor Him.”
Liddell was a man of focus and passion because he pursued a growing sense of God’s purpose for his life. When I run, I feel His pleasure—what do you do that makes you feel God’s pleasure? Frederick Buechner put it this way in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” As you become a person of calling and purpose, you come to realize that God’s good pleasure is also your good pleasure. Seek satisfaction apart from Him, and you will never find it; seek to please Him first, and you discover that satisfaction is a byproduct of the pursuit of God.
Although we realize that we never arrive in this life, God has called each of us to a purposeful journey that involves risks along the way and is sustained by faithfulness and growing hope. This calling or vocation transcends our occupations and endures beyond the end of our careers. As we seek the Lord’s guidance in developing a personal vision and clarity of mission, we move beyond the level of tasks and accomplishments to the level of the purpose for which we “live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). We are first called to a Person, and then we are called to express this defining relationship in the things we undertake, realizing that the final outcome of our lives is in the hands of God. We have a sense of destiny, but our ignorance of the invisible geography of the new creation means that we must trust God for what He is calling us to become.
There is always a chasm between our aspirations and our accomplishments, between our capacities and our contributions. This discrepancy turns from an occasion for despair to an opportunity for hope when we see it as our nostalgia for our true home. This hope is the realization that our purpose is not measurable and that our earthly calling is but the preface to the endless creative activity and community of heaven.
Developing a Biblical Purpose
People without a Purpose
In the words of Václav Havel, “The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.” I find it astounding that the bulk of people on our planet seem to journey through years and even decades without seriously wrestling with the fundamental question of they are here and what they want their lives to add up to in the end. Many business and professional people get on a fast track in pursuit of an elusive vision of success without questioning whether they are selling themselves too cheaply by investing their precious years of life in something that, even if attained, will never satisfy. It is like the two-edged story of the airline pilot who announced the good news that due to a strong tail wind, the plane was making great time, but the bad news that due to an equipment failure, they were hopelessly lost. Many people appear to be making great time on a journey to futility. They may experience the thrill of the bungee jump without realizing the cord is not attached to their ankles or waists, but to their necks.
Letting the Destiny Determine the Journey
It is much wiser to follow Kierkegaard’s advice to define life backwards and live it forwards—start from the destiny and define the journey in light of it. Few of us would think of taking a two-week vacation without any plans as to where we will go or what we will do. But what many wouldn’t dream of doing on this scale, they do on the greatest scale of all: their entire earthly existence. To avoid this fatal error we should ask ourselves, “What do I want my life to add up to, and why?” “At the end of my sojourn, what will I want to see when I look back?” From a biblical perspective, the real question is not what we will leave behind (the answer to this is always the same—we will leave everything behind), but what will we send on ahead (cf. Matthew 6:20).
Many people define themselves in terms of their activities and accomplishments. But those who have experienced the grace, forgiveness, and newness of life in Christ are recipients of a new source of identity that redefines their mission and purpose on earth. Instead of seeking purpose by comparing themselves with others, they can discover God’s purpose for their lives in the pages of His revealed Word.
God’s Ultimate Purpose
There are three dimensions of purpose in Scripture. The first is God’s ultimate purpose in creating all things. Prior to creating time, space, energy, and matter, God alone existed, complete and perfect in Himself. As a triune, loving community of being, He had no needs, and it was not out of loneliness or boredom that He created the realms of angels and men. We know from Scripture that part of God’s ultimate purpose in creation is the manifestation of His glory to intelligent moral agents who bear His image and who can respond in praise and wonder to His awesome Person, powers, and perfections. But in our present state, we can hardly scratch the surface of the unfathomable wisdom of God’s ultimate purpose for the created order.
God’s Universal Purpose
The second dimension of biblical purpose is God’s universal purpose, the intention He has for all people who acknowledge the lordship of Jesus. This level of purpose is shared by all believers and is communicated to us in a number of passages. There are various ways of expressing it, but they can be reduced to two essential areas: knowing God experientially (spiritual growth), and making God known to others (spiritual reproduction).
In His high priestly prayer after the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus said, “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). This knowledge is not merely propositional and theological, but also personal and devotional. Eternal life is the experiential knowledge of God, and it involves a growth process that is inaugurated when a person trusts Christ and receives His gift of forgiveness and new life. The greatest treasure a person can own is increasing intimacy with the living Lord of all creation. Although this should be our highest ambition, many believers give their hearts to the quest for lesser goods and boast and delight in things that are destined to perish. This is why we should frequently heed the powerful words of Jeremiah 9:23-24: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.”
The Scriptures expressly communicate the purpose for which we have been created: “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 8:29). God’s purpose for us is nothing less than Christlikeness! Here are four observations on this high and holy purpose: (1) It is impossible for us to attain. Only when we recognize our weakness and inability to be conformed to the image of Christ will we be ready to allow Him to live His life through us, for this is the genius of the spiritual life. (2) On the human side of the coin, we will only be as spiritually mature as we chose to be. If we do not engage in the disciplines of discipleship, such as habitual time in the Word of God and prayer, we will not become more intimate with God. (3) Growing intimacy with God is crucial to Christlike character. The personal, experiential knowledge of God transforms the heart and expresses itself in sacrificial acts of love and service toward others. (4) If God’s purpose for us is not the focus of our lives, something else will be, and whatever it is will not be worthy of our ultimate allegiance. Therefore ask God for the grace to make it your highest ambition to be pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:9).
We summarized God’s universal purpose for all who know Christ as knowing God experientially (spiritual growth), and making Him known to others (spiritual reproduction). The first part relates to the question, “Who do You want me to be, Lord?” The second relates to the question, “What do You want me to do?” It is prudent to consider the first question before launching into the second, because biblically speaking, being precedes doing; who we are in Christ is foundational to what we do. Typically, however, we put activities and objectives before purpose and define ourselves more by measurable accomplishments than by godly character. The result is that our activities determine our purposes. But purposes developed in this way are shaped by comparison with peers and role models and never lead to the universal and unique purposes for which God created us. Instead, we should embrace a biblical perspective on purpose and let this determine our objectives and activities.
Developing a Vision of Your Unique Purpose
If God’s universal purpose for us is to grow in the knowledge of Christ (edification) and to make Him known (evangelism), how do we develop a vision of the unique ways He would have us apply this purpose in our lives? The answer is that we must launch a prayerful process of discovery that involves a thoughtful assessment of what God has gifted, called, and equipped us to do. Every believer has a unique combination of experiences, gifts, and relational networks that form a sphere of ministry opportunities. We can be assured that the Lord will not call us to a task for which He has not equipped us (1 Thessalonians 5:24), but we can also be certain that the development of our life message and purpose does not happen suddenly.
The most critical component in the process of discerning our unique purpose is prayer. We would do well to persist in asking God to clarify the vision of our calling, since we will never be able to discover it on our own. This is a divine-human process of preparation and illumination in which each of our positive and negative experiences can be sovereignly used by God in such a way that we can, through His power, make a lasting impact in the lives of others. But commitment must precede knowledge (John 7:17); we must trust God enough to commit ourselves in advance to whatever He calls us to be and to do.
Another essential component in this process is our time in the Scriptures. God uses His Word to train and equip us for ministry, and our effectiveness is related to the depth of our Bible reading, study, and memorization. The price tag is time and discipline, but the benefits are always disproportionate to the expenditures. If we are shallow in the Word, we will be superficial in our knowledge of God and less effective in our relationships with others.
Other components that relate to your unique purpose are your personal experiences, skills, education, temperament, and roles as well as your spiritual gifts. Each of these elements is relevant to your vision of the specific outworking of God’s universal purpose in your life.
Begin to ask God to clarify your personal vision of purpose. This will not happen by doubling up on activities, but through prayer, exposure to Scripture, and times of reflection. This process may take months or years, but it should lead to a brief written statement of purpose that can be used to determine and evaluate your objectives and activities. (My own personal purpose statement is “to be a lover and servant of God and others.”) It is in this way that your activities will be determined more by the Word than by the external pressures of the world.
A biblical purpose is always an unchanging reason for being. It holds true for you regardless of your circumstances or season of life. When a Christ-centered purpose becomes the focus of your life, it harmonizes all the other areas, such as family, work, finances, and ministry.
Global and Role Purposes
My life purpose is to be a lover and servant of God and others.
Three global purposes emerge from this personal mission statement:
Global Purpose 1 (loving God completely): To know God and His character and grow into conformity with His Son in faith, hope, and love.
Global Purpose 2 (loving self correctly): To see myself in the light of God’s character and grow in humility and obedience.
Global Purpose 3 (loving others compassionately): To see others in the light of God’s character and grow in love and service.
Seven role purposes emerge from global purpose 3:
Role Purpose 1 (husband): To love and serve my wife in such a way that she is free to live up to her full potential as a woman of God.
Role Purpose 2 (father): To love and serve my daughter and son-in-law in such a way that they know that dad and mom know and love God.
Role Purpose 3 (son): To love and serve my mother and father in such a way that they know that they are honored and cherished.
Role Purpose 4 (friend): To love and serve my friends in a way that nurtures commitment, transparency, and vulnerability in relationships of mutual acceptance and esteem.
Role Purpose 5 (neighbor): To love and serve my neighbors in such a way that they want to know Christ (seekers) or grow in Him (believers).
Role Purpose 6 (minister): To love and serve unbelievers and believers in such a way that seekers are evangelized and Christians are edified.
Role Purpose 7 (writer and publisher): To love and serve readers in a way that helps them manifest eternal values in a temporal arena by drawing them to intimacy with God and a better understanding of the culture in which they live.
Prayerfully reflect on your own global and role purposes. Then consider what specific goals and objectives would assist you in fulfilling these purposes for your life.
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The problem of the little boy who went to an amusement park with his friend. His funds were limited and so he chose his rides very carefully. His friend urged him to join him on the merry-go-round, but the little fellow stubbornly refused. So the friend jumped on by himself, had a great ride, and as they walked away to new experiences, turned and asked his buddy why he had not joined him. “Well, look at you. Ya spent all your money, ya got off where ya got on, and ya ain’t been nowhere!”
A man went swimming in a large lake at dusk. As he was paddling at a leisurely pace about a hundred yards offshore, a freak evening fog rolled in across the water. Suddenly he could see nothing: no horizon, no landmarks, no objects or lights on shore. Because the fog diffused all light, he could not even make out the direction of the setting sun. For thirty minutes he splashed around in panic. He would start off in one direction, lose confidence, and turn ninety degrees to the right. Or left–it made no difference which way he turned. He could feel his heart racing uncontrollably. He would stop and float, trying to conserve energy, and force himself to breathe slower. Then he would blindly strike out again. At last he heard a faint voice calling from shore. He pointed his body toward the sounds and followed them to safety
Wrong textbook, map (•Purpose)
Developing a personal mission statement.
“The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do. . . to find the idea for which I can live and die.”—Soren Kierkegaard
Worldviews: what they are, what yours is, logical implications, living consistently with these implications. Examples.
Death bed issues. Regrets. Funerals.
Jesus wants us to have the incredible aliveness of doing something wonderful with our lives. Most of what we do won’t amount to a hill of beans before God. Our credentials won’t matter much at the judgment seat. / Black church. Student recognition day. Studying law at Harvard, etc. Pastor says, “Children, you’re doing to die. They’ll drop you into a hole, fill it with dirt, and go back and eat potato salad. Did you live for those titles or testimonies?” Pharaoh/Moses; Nebuchadnezzar/Daniel; Jezebel/Elijah; Pilate/Jesus. When it was all over, all he had was a title. //When you were born, you were the only one who cried; the others laughed. But when you hang up your sneakers at the end, will you be the one who laughs while others cry? If I had it to do over again, I would do more things that would last. Jesus wants to do something splendid with your life.–Tony Campolo
“Lay down your life and you will find it.”–Loren Cunningham “I want to spend the rest of my earthly life for the will of God.”–Patrick Morley. To be a lover and servant of God and others.
The Puritans wisely sought to connect all of life to its source in God, bringing the two worlds together rather than dividing them into sacred and secular. They had a saying, “God loveth adverbs; and careth not how good, but how well.” Adverbs describe verbs—our words of action and activity. The proverb implies that God cares more about the spirit in which we live than the concrete results.
Pleasing God doesn’t mean that we must busy ourselves with a new set of “spiritual” activities. As the Puritans said, whether cleaning house or preaching sermons, shoeing horses or translating the Bible, any human activity may constitute an offering to God.
We spend much time immersed in the mundane. “But we have the mind of Christ,” Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 2:16). That truth is to guide everything we do. Caring for an elderly parent. Cleaning up after a child. Sitting on a porch with a neighbor. Fielding a customer’s complaint. Filling out patient charts at a nurses’ station. Sitting in traffic. Sawing lumber. Reporting tips. Shopping for groceries.
We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks. — Philip Yancey
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