Find Your Purpose

“A life without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing. Every day we ought to renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought.” -Thomas A` Kempis


Moses was comfortable tending sheep for his father-in-law until he met the bush that burned yet was not consumed.  For forty years after fleeing Egypt, Moses’ life was on hold – without clarity purpose or direction.  Then God spoke from the bush and Moses’ life would never be the same.  He had purpose and direction.

Saul was a man driven by purpose, but it was the wrong purpose.  He needed his zeal redirected.  When the Lord spoke to him on the road to Damascus, Saul became the Apostle Paul with a new and righteous purpose.  His missionary journeys would change the world. 

Like Moses, many people are comfortably sailing through life with no driving purpose or have lost focus on their divine calling.  Others, like Saul, are spending their energy and life pursuing the wrong purpose and never seeing their greater calling.   

If you find yourself in one of these schools, then look to the Lord Jesus for he has a noble purpose for your life. 

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord…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. (2Timothy 1:8a, 9)  
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

Being Where God Wants You

Editor's Note: Today's thought is based on all of chapter 17 of 1 Kings. (1 Kings 17)

I have commanded the ravens . . . a widow women . . . there. 1 Kings 17:4, 9.

WE must be where God desires. — Elijah spoke of himself as always standing before the Lord God of Israel. He deemed himself as much a courtier in the royal palace as Gabriel (Luke i. 19). And he could as distinctly stand before God when hiding beside Cherith, or sheltering in the widow's house at Zarephath, as when he stood erect on Carmel, or listened to the voice of God at Horeb. Wherever you go, and whatever ministry you are called to 
undertake, glory in this, that you never go to any greater distance from God.

If we are where God wants us to be, He will see to the supply of our need. It is as easy for Him to feed us by the ravens as by the widow woman. As long as God says, Stay here, or there, be sure that He is pledged to provide for you. Though you resemble a lonely sentinel in some distant post of missionary service, God will see to you. The ravens are not less amenable to his command than of old: and out of the stores of widow women He is as able to supply your need as He did Elijah's, at Zarephath.

How often God teaches best in seclusion and solitude! It is by the murmuring brooks of nature that we have our deepest lessons. It is in the homes of the poor that we are fitted for our greatest tasks. It is beside couches where children suffer and die, that we receive those preparations of the heart which avail us when the bugle note summons us to some difficult post.

God leads through death to life. — It was needful that the child should die, that sin might be remembered and dealt with; but through Death's portal the trio entered a richer, fuller life. Fear not that gateway! F. B. Meyer

The High Calling

And he [John] will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.  He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:16-17

John’s calling was the highest of callings. In the spirit and power of Elijah, John was to lay the ground work for an awakening of God's people in four areas. 

1)      John was to turn back a forgetful people, so they would once again look to the Lord.  Many had forgotten and forsaken their God.  They were seeking political solutions or revolution to the current rule or Roman.

2)      John was to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers.  Apparently, there was a breakdown in the family.

3)      There was a lack of wisdom in the land; or as in this case, a lack of common sense.  They refused to hear what was just, what was right.

4)      Lastly, John was to prepare the people for the coming Messiah and King.

When you consider the state of Judaism when John preached, you can see similarities with our present age.  Many have forsaken their Christian heritage.  The family and marriage are in a complete meltdown.  Commonsense certainly is not common, and the world needs to prepare for the King of Kings is returning!

John answered his calling.  Will we answer ours?

… when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8 (NKJV)

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