Life's Purpose (Part 4)

Our purpose is mentioned in Matthew 7:22-23 when it says, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.” Notice that God says he doesn’t know them (“know” being a term that denotes intimacy and relationship). God does not turn people away from heaven because they didn’t glorify Him. He turns them away because they failed to abide in a relationship with Him. The only way we can even begin such a relationship is by repenting of our sin (that originally separated us from Him) and trusting in Christ’s ability to save us by His sacrifice on the cross so that our relationship can be restored with God.
Romans 14:11 says, “For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall give praise to God.’” Philippians 2:9-11 says, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” So we see that all humans will one day glorify God—they will finally ascribe to Him the worth due to Him. But will all these people have fulfilled their purpose for living? No—a resounding no. Many will perish in eternal hell. Why? Because they refused to abide in Him when they had the chance before He revealed Himself in all His glory. They refused to have faith and trust Him back when it wasn’t so obvious. If it is true, as some maintain, that our purpose is to glorify God, and this passage states that a day will come when all humans will glorify Him, then one would have to believe that all people will fulfill their purpose. That simply is not true. Only those who travel through the narrow gate—those who believe, trust, and abide in the faith until the end (in other words come to know and find intimacy with Him) will have fulfilled the purpose of God’s plan for their lives. And only they will receive the reward of eternal life.

Life's Purpose (Part 3)

The following post is a continuation of a series. Please scroll down to read Parts 1 & 2 if you have not already:

Before the fall, Adam and Eve fulfilled their purpose. They had intimacy with each other and God. It was a common thing for them to walk and talk with God in the garden in the cool of the evening. When they sinned, the thing that was broken was their relationship and intimacy with God. We know that their ability to enjoy intimacy with each other was the first effect of the fall. They were ashamed of their nakedness. For the first time they could not share openly with each other without fear of being misunderstood. They hid from God because their capacity for intimacy, communion, and fellowship had been shattered. If their purpose in life had been glorifying God and their sin had destroyed their capacity for this, we might instead read that they haughtily hunted down God and proclaimed their own value to be greater than His now that they knew good and evil like He did. But we do not find that in Scripture. The broken thing was a relationship, so they hid as we often do when we are out of fellowship others.


My favorite hymns are ones that talk about that relationship. I love “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “In the Garden,” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” My favorite verse is Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” Why do I love this verse so much? To me, it is the perfect moment that we see Scripture come full circle. Once again we will dwell with God just as Adam and Eve did in the garden. The relationship will be restored in both a spiritual and physical sense. That word dwell pops up continually in Scripture and is a word that denotes a relationship with God.

Another great word is the word “abide”—one of John’s favorites. John 15 talks about our purpose—indicating that to fulfill our purpose in Christ, we must remain connected to the vine. We do so by abiding in Him. The word in the Greek is “meno” and means “to stay”: continue, dwell, endure, remain, stand, tarry (for). Dwelling and abiding with God have everything to do with intimacy and relationship and nothing at all to do with ascribing value to or glorifying Him.

Humankind’s Unique Purpose (Part 2)

This post is a continuation of the series starting with "Life's Purpose." Reading that first will help this make sense:
The reason that glorifying God is not a human’s main purpose is that it is not unique to us. Everything that God created glorifies Him. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork.” Stones can also glorify God. Luke 19:37-40 says, “As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, shouting: “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!" If humans won’t glorify Him, He can always get the stones to do it. Angels glorify Him. There are seraphim around God’s throne who cry out to one another about God’s holiness and glory (Isaiah 6) and believe me, they are much better at glorifying Him than we are. The largest star we have seen so far (Canis Majoris) is much more effective at ascribing to God the proper magnification/weight due Him than any of us shouting at the top of our lungs from Mt. Everest.

















So what does make human’s unique from all other created things? We must go back to Genesis for this answer. Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness . . . God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” We are God’s image bearers. We are the only thing He created that bears His image. I know that many have debated what it means to be created in His image. To find that answer, I think we must ask the question, “What makes us unique from all other creatures?” When you find the answer to that, you have the answer to our purpose. One might say it is the ability to communicate, but the serpent, Balaam’s donkey, and angels have that ability. Others think it is the ability to choose, but I disagree because when Satan rebelled, angels were also given a chance to choose God’s side or Satan’s. It appears Satan also made a choice to have pride. Not many even suggest that being made in His image means we can glorify Him because rocks, stars, angels, and angels can glorify God.

What does it mean to be an image bearer? It means we have the capacity for communion with God. We were designed to be in relationship with Him. We can know Him and fellowship with Him. That is our purpose. The hint is there in Genesis 1:26 when God says “Us” to describe Himself. He is the three-in-one God. In the very nature of God there exists communion because the one God is Father, Spirit, and Son in perfect fellowship/communion with Himself. Two of the descriptors in the Trinity are terms of relationship (Father & Son). While the rest of creation was spoken into existence, humans were unique—they were formed by God from the dust of the earth. Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” God took extra time with man by actually touching Him and breathing into man’s nose His own breath to give him life. Touch denotes a greater level of intimacy. God spewed out words that created galaxies light years away, but He zoomed in close to touch the dust by which He formed man and He pressed His mouth right up to man’s nose to breathe in the image-bearing life.

Luke:Overjoyed

My sister’s 4th child is Luke. He is 2 years old. He was a very happy baby (only showing a little frustration when all 3 older siblings would try to kiss him at once). Last summer he was so excited when the kids played in the sprinkler outside. When I visited last summer, he was in that stage where facial expressions are very entertaining and peek-a-boo is still fun so we had a great time doing that in the car. He loved putting things in his mouth, especially my fingers. And just because I am a loving (or crazy) aunt I was quite willing to let him do this even when he would bite just because it brought him such happiness.

Luke is always happy and having fun with his family, but he is very shy around strangers. When I would visit, it would take him a day to warm up to me before he was comfortable being himself (reminds me of myself). Ruth tells of a funny story when they were at a sporting event in a large crowd of people. He kept hugging onto the leg of the stranger standing next to them. Ruth couldn’t figure out why because Luke isn’t like that around strangers. She finally figured out that the guy was wearing shorts similar to his dad’s. Ruth lifted Luke up to show him the face of the stranger whose leg he had been hugging. He was shocked it wasn’t his daddy. After that, every few minutes he would look over at the man and give a low growl and furrow his brow in a scowl! Too funny :-)



One of my favorite memories of Luke is during last Christmas. The extended family all opened gifts at the home of my grandparents on Christmas Eve. We gave Luke a play vacuum cleaner that makes noises and talks when you push it. We had noticed that he was at the stage where he liked pushing things around, but the only thing in their house he could push was his sister’s baby stroller and she was never too happy about that. We know we gave him the right toy, because he spent the rest of the evening pushing it around. He was very engrossed in it.

I’m sure he’s onto a new phrase now, but I can still hear him in my head saying “Don’t!!”—a word taught to him by his older sister who makes sure he is always clear on what toys he can’t play with. Luke is a real cutie!

Life's Purpose (Part 1)

In April, my brother-in-law posted a topic on his blog about life's purpose. He included the following quote:
Purpose Driven Church author and Saddleback Church pastor, Rick Warren, said this in a recent interview:
"People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven."

Brian then asked for people's opinions on the topic. Some agreed. Others said they did not. Rather, they said they thought our purpose is to glorify God. I did not respond to his question yet and my response is too long for a comment on his blog. Instead it will be part of a series on mine.

I disagreed with everyone else. I don't think our purpose is to prep for eternity or to glorify God. I think it is about relationship. We were made to be in communion with God. Here is the first of my ramblings on this subject:

Many people state that our purpose as human beings is to glorify God. These people are well-intentioned, but unfortunately misled. I attribute much of this to the teaching of John Piper. I had to read his book “Desiring God” when I was in seminary. My initial reaction when reading it was that it was off and made me feel uncomfortable. I should have listened to the Spirit then. But like others, I was swept along by his rhetoric and scripture quoting and became convinced. He describes God as a self-seeking, self-worshipping, self-loving God. It smacks you in the face (as it should) as being off because what we have been taught about God is that He is a self-sacrificing lover of humankind. Piper eloquently defends his position that God loves Himself most and it is not “selfish” because it is right—He is the only one worthy of worship. Piper says God’s main purpose is to bring glory to Himself. What I don’t understand is why such a self-loving God would bother to create humans when He knew that many would choose not to glorify Him. If glory was His goal, He messed up when He made man—because even the best of us don’t have a clue how to give Him the glory He is due. In fact we are the only aspect of His creation that fails in this regard.
One of the reasons I think so many people think this is our purpose is because they don’t really know the true meaning of the word “glorify.” The Hebrew word for glorify is “kabed” (kaw-bade) which means “to be heavy.” Probably not at all what you were thinking it meant, right? In a bad sense this means to be burdensome or dull. In a good sense it means to be numerous, rich, honorable. It means “to make weighty.” So, when we glorify God we are ascribing to Him the proper weight or value due Him. We recognize His worth. We bring Him honor. The Greek word for glorify is “doxazo” (dox-ad-zo). It means to render or esteem glorious, honor, magnify.

Poll on Utensils

After reading "Spaghetti with a Spoon," please take the time to vote on the new poll (scroll down on the right side of the page to find it).

Spaghetti with a Spoon

I'm sure all of my alert readers have been waiting with great anticipation for the entry that would shed light on the enigmatic reference to my preference for spoons in the Intro. paragraph. (One reader commented on this so I know at least one person noticed). The mystery will now be resolved.

My family members know that I am very particular about EVERYTHING. I have favorites and preferences about things most people don't waste time contemplating. The normal person has a favorite color, dessert, song, and movie. I admit here that I have a favorite utensil. And that would be the spoon. As a child, I hated forks because I always thought I'd spear myself to death with its sharp points (okay, so I'm not very coordinated). Ask my family members, I still prefer the forks with shorter points. I never understood why most people used forks for almost everything. Spoons are so much better at handling things without spilling them--especially things like peas. I only use a fork for things like meat or green beans--things you need to spear. I even used a spoon to eat cake until that became difficult because most people don't supply spoons at parties. You will always find a spoon at the place setting in my house. I usually have to remind my family to give me a spoon when I'm eating at theirs.

I suppose the most surprising dish that I eat with a spoon is spaghetti. I actually "cut" the spaghetti by turning my fork on its side and cutting in rows horizontally and vertically. So I create neat bite-sized sections. Then I scoop those up with a spoon. Really--you should try it before you knock it. It is much more effective than trying to twirl the long uncut noodles around a fork. Here is a picture: