Purpose, We all struggle with knowing and understanding it sometimes. Even as believers we want to know what my purpose is. What am I called to do? (and let me begin by saying that this topic answers this question for followers of Jesus.).
Jesus tells us exactly what our purpose is. We have discussed it here many times before. We have talked about them as COMMANDMENTS WE MUST FOLLOW but it is also our purpose. It is our WHY. Why we do what we do. It’s why we are kind, it is why we are self controlled, it is why we have peace, joy and patience (It’s why the fruit of the spirit is evident in our lives!)
Mark 12:29-31 NLT
29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lordour God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’[a]31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] No other commandment is greater than these.”
The purpose is two fold-
- You MUST Love the Lord Your God with ALL your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (it’s not optional)
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
Now I am going to say something radical
It doesn’t matter WHAT else you do with your life as long as you do these two commandments and you will be fulfilling your purpose!
You can be anything! You can do anything! because when you keep these two commandments (your purpose) you won’t sin against God . Ok so I know what you are thinking. Yes we are still sinners, yes we are going to make mistakes. But when you keep these things forefront in your life. You aren’t letting things like anger and bitterness hold on to your heart…Your heart isn’t divided.
See there is this little word ALL and it is used as emphasis. I didn’t when I listed the first commandment.
When you love God with :
- ALL of Your Heart
- ALL of your Sul
- ALL of your Mind
- ALL of your Strength
There isn’t room for much else.
See you cannot love God with ALL of your heart and have hidden anger and bitterness in it. It’s just not possible. You aren’t going to sacrifice your morals and convictions to follow your passion or dream. Too often we think we have to let those go in order to achieve……..You fill in the blank. Often times it starts with dishonesty on a resume).
It’s not about doing better
I know that the propensity for me is to look at these things and be like “I’ll just do better” I’m not relying on God and building my relationship with him. I am fighting to do things on my own and THAT my friends is not what we are called to do.
I need to surrender these things to God. That’s what it means to LOVE HIM WITH ALL of our being.
Let’s be honest- We live divided
We don’t want to admit it- I know I don’t but we have divided hearts, souls minds and strength.
I live in a constant state of dividedness and if I don’t keep myself in check with Jesus it isn’t long before impatience, unkindness, anxiety and all of those other negative influence traits we talked about a few weeks ago start creeping in.
I want you to see that ALL of these things are connected. Our purpose is DIRECTLY connected to our influence. We cannot subdivide our lives and declare our influence different from our purpose and our purpose different that our walk with Jesus. When we become Followers of Jesus we surrender ALL parts of our lives and dedicate them to Him- They become His and if they aren’t his that we have
- divided hearts
- divided souls
- divided minds
- divided strength
And a negative influence.
Hmmm Sounds like a blog series to me!
(The one I promised a few weeks ago). Welcome to the DIVIDED series! We will discuss these areas of Dividedness next Tuesday Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Thank you
I am so glad that you joined me today as we learned about our purpose and set up the framework for our upcoming mini series.
If you are new here please introduce yourself in the comments below. I would love to get to know you.
Feel free to check out my 100 day blogging project series called Choosing Courage and My Write 31 Days Challenge called The Power of Your Influence
