The Supreme Purpose

I suspect that some who read my thoughts on heaven yesterday were either confused, or put off. It is not an easy concept I put forth. But I said I’d never try to convince you of anything (look at the header of this blog), but that I would present to you my reflections and my understandings on life, and the anxieties of life, in the hopes that both of us may go forward the better for it. But for some, perhaps not.

I look at the concept of growing in holiness throughout our life as similar to growing in any other knowledge – different people are at different levels. A college freshman knows more than a 3rd grader about calculus, and despite his best efforts, the college guy probably can’t explain calculus to the 3rd grader – he just isn’t advanced enough in mathematical principles to understand. God is the master teacher, head of the department, and everyone else is trying to learn what he knows – but they’ll never know it all. Some will be close enough in knowledge to discuss things and perhaps together learn more than each would separately. Some my trudge through all the text books on the subject alone. There is no right way, but there is an organized way – and it’s within the Church. I proceed along the organized way, but am open to listening/reading others outside the norm, in hopes of picking some kernel of wisdom that might help me jump ahead a grade. If I can show it to you, and you perceive it in the same light, you might come along. (I’ll let you copy from my paper).

Yesterday, as I was sitting thinking about some of the insights on heaven and God’s Divine plan, I happened to pick up a book of daily meditations which I was given a while back. Over a year’s time, I had read through the entire book, which was put together by a Protestant minister, and then it sat on the front room table, untouched for another year or more. But for some reason I picked it up yesterday, opened to a bookmark which was, I guess, randomly stuck in the middle, and began to read:

The Supreme Purpose

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus (Phil 3:8)

Maybe you have heard a comment that “someone is not serving the Lord anymore. It seems God called him to preach, but he’s running from the call of God.”

It may be true that someone called this person to preach, but it probably wasn’t God. The enemy uses all sorts of trickery to pull us out of a right relationship with our heavenly Father – even calling someone to the ministry. But anything that’s detrimental to your supreme purpose, anything that keeps you from being a child in a proper relationship with the Father , is not a purpose from God. “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons in Jesus Christ.” (Eph 1:4-5). It was God’s pleasure and his will (his purpose) from the beginning that we could stand before him “holy and blameless.” And he gave us a destiny – that we would be his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. This is the supreme purpose of mankind.

There will be times in our lives when God asks us to do something we find uncomfortable. But never will he demand something of us that will destroy our relationship with him.

Father, I confess that my supreme purpose is to know you, to realize that I am your child. This is my destiny, and I receive it now.
Between Sundays, by Shawn Craig (Week 26, Monday)

I reiterate: I am not trying to convince you of anything. But having picked up this book and read that page, after more than a year’s absence, well … well, ain’t God grand? That’s all I’ll say.