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Saturday, February 9, 2019
Registration is live for the Second Global Congress on Sport and Christianity
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Friday, February 1, 2019
Purpose
Purpose
Over
the last several years more and more people are talking, thinking, and writing
about purpose. From Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and
its accompanying market offshoots to any number of websites, podcasts, and
blogs it seems purpose is on everyone’s mind. A simple Google search of the
word “purpose” leads to this message – “About
3,130,000,000 results.”
I have been contemplating how the Lord might express His
thoughts about purpose and I took a leisurely stroll through the Bible
searching for answers. A sampling of the most direct expressions of purpose are
below with some simple remarks on each.
God’s
purpose:
I cry out to God Most High, to God who will
fulfill his purpose for me.
Psalms 57:2
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay;
Acts 13:36
For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
Acts 20:27
Psalms 57:2
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay;
Acts 13:36
For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
Acts 20:27
David,
the psalmist, speaks of God having a purpose for him, and then the Apostle Paul
echoes the sentiment hundreds of years later. Later, Paul also speaks of having
declared the whole purpose of God to his friends. I will not presume to know
what the whole purpose of God is, but I am sure it is being revealed, day to
day, as we follow the Lord Jesus. Our joy is found in the pursuit and eventual
fulfillment of His purposes.
Jesus’ purpose:
"Now My soul has become troubled; and what
shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to
this hour.”
John 12:27
John 12:27
Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:7-8
Jesus
speaks more overtly of His purpose as He prays in Gethsemane. Decades later,
the Apostle John, speaks of Jesus’ purpose in the strongest of terms.
Thankfully, we are the beneficiaries of the Lord’s fulfillment of His life
purpose.
Paul’s
purpose and ours:
We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and
teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete
in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power,
which mightily works within me.
Colossians 1:28-29
The
Apostle again speaks about purpose, this time his own. He writes most clearly
and directly about the subject, object, and manner of the fulfillment of that
purpose. It’s about Jesus. It’s directed toward others. It’s fulfilled by
admonishing, teaching with wisdom, to present individual persons complete in
Christ, according to the power of God. That’s a remarkable sense of purpose.
We
may similarly find ourselves engaged in that same purpose. If we are actively
engaged in serving sporting people with the aim of presenting them complete in
Christ, admonishing and teaching with wisdom, laboring and striving as
empowered by the mighty power of God, we are. You and I share in the same
purpose of God’s calling as the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and all the saints
before and behind us.
“We are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.”
Ephesians 2:10
Walk
on and fulfill the Lord’s purposes for your life.