If you would permit me, please allow me to share with you what I believe is the truth concerning our purpose. Our purpose, I believe is found in the Word of God, the Scriptures, what humanity has termed "The Bible". This compilation of 66 books is the textbook of truth, which our Teacher the Holy Spirit teaches us from. If we would endeavor to understand what purpose is, we must open our hearts to the great Teacher, the Holy Spirit and have our ears open to what the Spirit has to say. If you will look at our scripture heading listed above, you will see a few words stand out. What this scripture here in 2 Timothy 1:9 says is that God has called us according to His own purpose. Right off the bat, from the very get go, we must understand that our purpose is God's purposes.
2Tim 1:9 "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began," KJV
The word purpose as defined by the Greek scholars is: "The setting forth of a thing", Vine, Thayer, and Strong all agree essentially with one another on this word as being defined this way: "A setting forth of a thing." Uniquely enough, the word for purpose in the Greek is prothesin and it is generally translated in conjunction with the "shewbread". This is because the bread was laid out before the tabernacle at every Sabbath, thus it is bread laid out or bread shown. The purpose of God is laid out or shown in Christ Jesus, the "Bread of Heaven" or the Shewbread. My friend, Jesus is the purpose of God. God's own purpose is revealed in Jesus Christ. This statement is supported by the Scriptures:
Walking in the Spirit. That is, walking in the realm and sphere of the Spirit. That means letting the Spirit of God be your teacher, leader, guide, counselor, etc.
To walk in the Spirit is simply to be led of the Spirit in your life. One must cultivate a relationship with God and begin to respond to the Spirit's beckoning. The Spirit of God will lead and guide us. All we have to do is respond. It is when we try to get ahead of the Spirit of God, we stumble and fail.
We live in the Spirit - See Galatians 5 ,The sense of this verse probably is, "We who are Christians profess to be under the influences of the Holy Spirit. By his influences and agency is our spiritual life. We profess not to be under the dominion of the flesh; not to be controlled by its appetites and desires. Let us then act in this manner, and as if we believed this. Let us yield ourselves to his influences, and show that we are controlled by that Spirit." It is an earnest exhortation to Christians to yield wholly to the agency of the Holy Spirit on their hearts, and to submit to his guidance; Roman's 8:5-11
5"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful mane is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. "
9"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. In addition, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."
Furthermore, we must accept that the things that happen to us when we walk in the Spirit are things that are part of Gods plan for us. This is because when we find ourselves in the Spirit, we in the flow of God’s love and grace.
I always thought if it were possible to become strictly an observer at the most maximum macro level, we would find all is on purpose and very connected. I was once asked about the human condition and how that condition makes it so difficult for us to understand the will of the "creator" or God as so many of us refer to him. I say Gods will is a Rube Goldberg Machine. Those of us in our late to mid forties are familiar with the Looney Tunes Cartoon that has a machine that begins with a rolling marble that lands into a groove that rolls to a switch that lights a match that pops a balloon that moves a domino to fall that begins a chain reaction ........and so on and so on........until we have a toaster activated and POP!! We have Toast. Well, with all of the above being said, we look at this from a very limited perspective. We may see the marble or perhaps only the balloon popping along with its "catastrophic noise" and from there we have no idea what the purpose of this "contrived event" can be. Well, if we step back from the most advantageous perspective we come to understand...GOD WANTED TOAST...........we are but Spiritual beings having a human experience.
God is not a cosmic Santa Claus or ATM catering to our every whim, and Jesus did not come to eradicate poverty or show people a path to financial success. He came to right relationships: our relationship with God, our relationship with each other and our relationship with the material creation that God set up for us as a home. That naturally touches on our attitudes and behaviors concerning wealth and power, possession and consumption, and the Christian gospel calls for restraint in how we pursue and handle them. Jesus warns us that life is about more than food and clothes the rich have a hard time entering God's kingdom, and we are not to store up treasures for ourselves on earth, which only rot or get stolen . He says we cannot serve both God and money. His apostles warn us that riches are not lastin we are not to put our hope in wealth, and pursuit of money is a danger leading to ruin and destruction, even loss of faith.
After all, nothing really ever "belongs" to us: "The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it" -- and during our short stay as his guests here, "we bring nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it".
We’ve been taught to believe that dissatisfaction is a bad thing, and that we should do everything possible to avoid it. Shove it down. Ignore it. Act like it doesn’t bother us. Take a pill. Plaster on a smile. Buy something new, or decide that misery is part of “bearing our cross.” But above all, don’t consider that God might be using it to make us uncomfortable so we’ll want to swim in another ocean where our gifts can shine.
Ephesians 6
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Don’t get me wrong; dissatisfaction can be a result of spiritual warfare and not an indication that we are out of God’s will. However, it can also be a road sign that He has another purpose for us. So if you are miserable in your current career or job, (and you have been for a long time), you have prayed, sought counsel from others, looked for guidance through Scripture, and you are still miserable, consider that God may have another plan.
But the key in all of this is to maintain a spiritual perspective. Stay away from the flesh at all costs. The flesh, much like the Devil is flawed and is our adversary, separates us from God. The Spirit is after all, who we are. The flesh is but a vessel so that we may dwell here on earth. The people who worry about what others have or that the rich has too much or that they deserve the fruit of another man’s sweat as the judge those whom they do not know are very much in the flesh the entire time they spout their hateful rhetoric. Galatians confirms it by describing the flesh and the sinful nature, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions as found in chapter 5 verse 20 are but a mirror image of what we are seeing in the occupiers. In some instances we get the full menu, the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery.
We see all of this in one owned by his or her own flesh, they claim to love and care but they cannot yet they do not realize it because as Jesus said they have ears and do not hear and eyes and do not see. They are blind to the Spirit because they are in the dark.
God’s purpose involves grace and a peace of mind that only comes with walking in his Spirit. That is the key to any Christian journey. To be in the Spirit.
We must constantly examine ourselves to see if our walk is in the spirit, if our faith is strong in Christ, if our demonstration is one in concordance with God’s will. Certain verses for me bring those examinations to light.
2Corinthians 13:5
*Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test? 2
*Lamentations 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
*Psalm 139
23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24See if there is any offensive way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
1Thessolonians 5:21
..... Test everything. ... but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.
We should always test everything we do to see if it is guided by the spirit and not by the flesh. The flesh will work to deceive us and at times it is hard to discern. We must always be vigilant.
Jeremiah 17:9
To live in the spirit is a constant struggle and work within ourselves. It is a demand from the spirit to be every vigilant and ever conscious of the conflict with in. Prayer and constant communion with God is essential and required to maintain a path of living that is pleasing to God.
It’s kinda like when you cut out fatty food from your diet and over and extended period of time you find that even trying a fatty portion of anything is like eating something your body no longer agrees with.
We need to spiritually change our diet. Spiritually avoid those things we know are of the flesh. It will not happen over night but it will grow upon our soul to the point we no longer want what the flesh has to offer and the struggle is no longer there. We have become men and women of the spirit and to me, that is a moment I will strive for consistently through out my days until my flesh has little effect on who I am. That is because I am defined by my walk with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Not a bad thing for a man who still struggle with the flesh within.
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