My to-do list vs. God’s purposes?

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. (John 12:36–43)

They heard but did not believe. A common response to what God says. So God did not reveal Himself to them because if He did, He would have to open their eyes and understand and be healed — but without really believing, without faith. 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

This is why the truth of who God is and who Jesus Christ is has been hidden from those who are without faith and from those who try to earn their salvation by doing whatever they think God wants them to do.

Faith is a gift. Gifts are undeserved, given unconditionally, not earned or paid for. Human pride doesn’t like even a hint of being unworthy. Human greed does not want something that demands their total surrender. The question is often why then do some get the gift and others don’t. Wrong question. Why does anyone get the gift? No one deserves it or earns it. Could it be for the glory of God?

He created humans in His image that we might display His glory. Sin messed up that desire and ability. Whether we realize the impossibility of glorifying God or not, sin wants glory for me. I feel bad that I cannot do it, but realize also that if I am going to fulfill that purpose, I need Him to live in me — because there is nothing much left in me that looks like God. 

Being selected to live in His kingdom is an utter marvel. Why me? Being chosen to be like Jesus is the most humbling realization of my life. Recognizing that I am here to reflect His glory could easily drive me into a dark cave so no one could see my failures. But God will not allow that. 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

In the past two weeks, two friends told me they lived to glorify God. That is rare. I’ve read “The Purpose Driven Life” and am only just getting it. The NT says:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

How much of life is so ordinary, yet in these ordinary things, I am to glorify God, to be like Jesus, to show the world what He is like and how different He is from humans with all our selfishness and pointless activities.

 The writer of that book says that we live here on earth to learn how to live and be like Christ in eternity, and for that reason, I need a greater focus on that purpose than my to-do list, goals and plans. I feel like the OT prophet who said, “Woe is me, I am undone.”

Jesus, You know my to-do lists and plans. What does a ‘keep my house clean’ got to do with eternity except to remind me to keep my life clean? What do the names on my prayer list have to do with heaven except that I might support them in the same purpose of being like You today? And this may take more than the words I send upwards. Guide me today. The to-do list is on my desk. Does it match the one You have written for me, prepared beforehand that I should walk in it? 

What is God’s purpose for me?

 

By believing that God is sovereign, I often feel pressed to understand how the events in our world seem so willy-nilly, without logic and certainly out of control. Many of them seem horribly opposite to God’s will and I struggle to understand the PURPOSE He has in mind for allowing them to happen. At the same time, the Bible gives me enough to trust that He knows what He is doing, and enough to know how I can live according to His purpose for me.

I did a run-through on some verses that describe His purpose, will, and plans. Obviously, His ways are not the world’s ways yet His will can be discerned:

Romans 12:2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Not only that, I am to do whatever I am doing according to His will as Ephesians 6:6 tells me to work, “not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.”

That said, here is an outline of what I found . . .

Job said, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” The psalmist agreed with, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.”

The writer of Proverbs knew that God has reasons for all that is going on and we are not in charge. He said, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” and “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

The Lord Himself declared, “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” and “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” The prophet echoed it in Isaiah 14:26–27:

“This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?”

God also said in Isaiah 55:10–11. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Such is the power and permanence of God’s purpose and will. Whatever He plans is a done deal! Because of His goodness, I can trust Him, even when I don’t understand what is going on.

Jesus knew the purpose of God, such as: He hid truth “from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” Jesus also understood the reason He was on this earth . . .

John 12:27. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.”

John 18:37. Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world — to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

The disciples knew Jesus’ purpose too as they declared that He was “Delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” and “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

They also knew that God wonderfully works all things together for good, for those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose. We are in the hands of a God whose power has purpose in everything!

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Ephesians 1 repeats the reality that Christians are “predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.” And later, Paul says God’s eternal purpose for the church was that God’s wisdom would be “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose that He realized in Christ Jesus.”

God plans and rules, not because of our works but “because of his own purpose and grace” yet our lives are also to be lived according to His will. He clearly says in 1 Thessalonians that “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality” and “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” The Bible is filled with more examples. All of them tell me that even if suffering as Jesus suffered is included, how important it is to live according to the will of God and fulfill the purpose He has for me.