From: "suyento" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
God's purpose gives life meaning and value
by Rick Warren
One of the reasons life is devalued in today's culture is that many people
value their own happiness and fulfillment over God's purposes for their lives.
As a pastor, one way you can protect the sanctity of human life is to help your
people understand that the purpose of their lives is far greater than personal
fulfillment, peace of mind, or even happiness. It's far greater than our
families, our careers, or even our wildest dreams and ambitions. If they want
to know why they were placed on this planet, they must begin with God. Each of
us was born by his purpose and for his purpose.
The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years.
That's because we typically begin at the wrong starting point -- ourselves. We
ask self-centered questions like: What do I want to be? What should I do with
my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing
on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose. The Bible says, "It is God
who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power." (Job
12:10, TEV)
Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell us, we won't
discover life's meaning by looking within ourselves. We didn't create
ourselves, so there is no way we can tell ourselves what we were created for!
If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn't know its
purpose, and the invention itself wouldn't be able to tell you either. Only the
creator -- or the owner's manual -- could reveal its purpose.
Bertrand Russell, the famous English atheist once said, "Unless you assume a
God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." He was correct; if there
is no God, then our lives really don't matter. We are just random accidents of
nature, and neither our births, our lives, or our deaths have any meaning or
value.
God, on the other hand, tells us that we are not accidents and that our lives
have significance -- because God had his reasons for creating us. The Bible
says, "For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and
invisible . everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him."
(Colossians 1:16, Msg)
To understand your life's purpose, you must begin with your Creator. You exist
only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God -- and
until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that
we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our
significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many of your people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that
is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. We were made for God, not
vice versa, and life is about letting God use us for his purposes, not using
him for our own purposes. The Bible says, "Obsession with self in these matters
is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious,
free life." (Romans 8:6, Msg)
I have read many books that suggest ways to discover the purpose of my life.
All of them could be classified as "self-help" books because they approach the
subject from a self-centered viewpoint. Self-help books, even Christian ones,
usually offer the same predictable steps to finding your life's purpose:
Consider your dreams. Clarify your values. Set some goals. Figure out what you
are good at. Aim high. Go for it! Be disciplined. Believe you can achieve your
goals. Involve others. Never give up.
Of course, these recommendations often lead to great success. You can usually
succeed in reaching a goal if you put your mind to it. But being successful and
fulfilling your life's purpose are not at all the same issue! You could reach
all your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the world's standard, and
still miss the purposes for which God created you. You need more than self-help
advice. The Bible says, "Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the
way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self." (Matthew 16:25, Msg)
How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for?
You have only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is what most
people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize. When people say,
"I've always thought life is .," they mean, "This is the best guess I can come
up with."
For thousands of years, brilliant philosophers have discussed and speculated
about the meaning of life. Philosophy is an important subject and has its uses,
but when it comes to determining the purpose of life, even the wisest
philosophers are just guessing.
Dr. Hugh Moorhead, a philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University,
once wrote to 250 of the best-known philosophers, scientists, writers, and
intellectuals in the world, asking them, "What is the meaning of life?" He then
published their responses in a book. Some offered their best guesses, some
admitted that they just made up a purpose for life, and others were honest
enough to say they were clueless. In fact, a number of famous intellectuals
asked Professor Moorhead to write back and tell them if he discovered the
purpose of life!1
Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and
purpose of life. It's revelation. We can turn to what God has revealed about
life in his Word. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to
ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life's purpose:
Ask God.
God has not left us in the dark to wonder and guess. He has clearly revealed
his five purposes for our lives through the Bible -- to worship, fellowship,
grow in Christ, serve others, and share Christ with others.
The Bible is our owner's manual, explaining why we are alive, how life works,
what to avoid, and what to expect in the future. It explains what no self-help
or philosophy book could know. The Bible says, "God's wisdom . goes deep into
the interior of his purposes. ... It's not the latest message, but more like
the oldest -- what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us." (1
Corinthians 2:7, Msg)
As pastors, we must help our people understand that God is not only the
starting point of our lives, but he also is the source of them. To discover our
purpose in life, we must turn to God's Word, not the world's wisdom. We must
build our lives on eternal truths, not pop psychology, success-motivation, or
inspirational stories. The Bible says, "It's in Christ that we find out who we
are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got
our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part
of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone."
(Ephesians 1:11, Msg)
This verse gives us three insights into our purpose that we can share with our
people:
1. You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus
Christ.
2. God was thinking of you long before you ever thought about him. His purpose
for your life predates your conception. He planned it before you existed,
without your input! You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and
many other parts of your life, but you don't get to choose your purpose.
3. The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic purpose that God
has designed for eternity.
Andrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up under an atheistic Communist regime.
But God got his attention one dreary day. He recalls, "In my 27th year, while
riding the metro in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) I was overcome with a
despair so great that life seemed to stop at once, pre-empting the future
entirely, let alone any meaning. Suddenly, all by itself, a phrase appeared:
Without God life makes no sense. Repeating it in astonishment, I rode the
phrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro, and walked into God's
light."2
Many of your people are in the dark about their purpose in life. You may have
felt that way yourself. Stop looking within or without, and start looking up --
to Jesus Christ and his Word. It is only in Christ that we discover God's five
purposes for our lives.
Thinking About Your Purpose
Point to Ponder: It's not about me.
Verse to Remember: ". Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in
him." (Colossians 1:16b, Msg)
Question to Consider: In spite of all the advertising to the contrary, how can
I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?
Taken from www.pastors.com
=======================================
From: Alice Goeretthie
God and the tsunami
How can a merciful God allow such disaster and suffering?
Anne Graham Lotz (daughter of Bill Graham), author of "Visions of His Glory":
I know that God is a loving God. I don't look at the tsunami and what has
happened at Asia.
I look at the cross. And when I look at the cross of Jesus Christ, when God
sent his own son to die to take away my sin, I know that God loves me. So, I
don't know the love of God is in question when this happens.
Why he has allowed it to happen, I don't know. I can't answer that question.
But I think one of the things that we need to do when there's a disaster like
that is to look up and ask God, Are you trying to get our attention? Is there
something we can learn from this? Is there something you're trying to say to
us?
What is interesting about this is that this tsunami did not increase death.
All of those people who died were going to die anyway. And I don't mean to be
cold. We desperately don't desire to see people suffer in such a horrific way.
But, at the same time, every single one of us is going to die. And the
critical thing is to determine what is going to happen to us the moment after
we die. Where are we going to spend eternity?
And that's why God, who does love you, and he sent his own son to die on the
cross, that, when I place my faith in him, I can be forgiven of my sin and I
can know for sure that, when something happens to me and I can die on the
highway. I can die as a result of a disease. It doesn't have to be a tsunami.
But one day, I'm going to die. And I know when I do, I am going to be ushered
into my father's home into heaven because I have placed my faith in Jesus. So,
this is a tragedy and it's a disaster, but it's not a reflection on the fact
that God doesn't love us, because God loves us and the proof of that is the
cross.
Jennifer Giroux, director, Women Influencing the Nation:
Throughout history and reported early in the Bible, God has always used
plagues, floods and natural disasters as a source of punishment.
One can talk about a sad lost generation over there in the disaster going on in
Asia. We have a lost generation of 40 million aborted babies in this country
that is being ignored by so many people. I believe that this situation that
happens makes all of us look inward, realize God is ultimately in control of
life and death.
Look at what we're looking with just in this country with cloning,
homosexuality, trying to make homosexual marriages, abortion, lack of God in
the schools, taking Jesus out of Christmas. I can't pretend to know the mind
of God. But, historically, there have been warnings. And God, who is
all-loving and all-good, and he will not be mocked.
What I'm saying is that God does allow natural disasters to happen. He always
brings good out of bad. There is sin in this country. There is sin around the
world. There's no way anybody could look over there and say they are more
deserving than anybody else to have this disaster. We all look with horror.
And I think one thing that really has made all of us think is, we all know in
the Bible it says death comes like a thief in the night and we know not the day
or the hour. And it makes all of us look inward and ask, Am I ready to meet my
maker? And am I ready, if this were to happen right now, where is my life? Am
I doing what God wants me to do? And am I living a moral life?
We as individuals and as a country need to turn to God again, ask for
forgiveness and mend our ways.
Tim Lahaye, co-author, "Left Behind":
Bible prophesy is history written in advance. And it doesn't mean that God is
arranging all these activities.
I think the God of the Bible is a God of love, as Anne has described. But in
order to understand what he does in an isolated situation like this, we have to
come back and understand who he is. And although it's true as, I think the
rabbi said, that Jesus prayed, Why have you forsaken me? the fact is, that's
not the end of the story. If you go on, three days later, Jesus was raised
from the dead and God raised him up from the dead, proving that his sacrifice
for sin was acceptable.
But the point is, we're looking through a glass darkly. We don't see the end
from the beginning. Bible prophesy tells us that, as we get closer to the end
of the age, there will be more and more of these natural phenomenon. And
that's one of the things that I resent, people trying to say that this is the
judgment of God. No, this is just the natural result of the phenomenon of
nature.
As the Earth changes and shifts on its plates, you have earthquakes caused and
such tidal waves that are just unbelievable and you have death and so on. I
don't believe God is picking on these people. But we're approaching a time
when people have to make sure that they are right before God, because all of
these uncertainties and certainly death is an uncertainty when it comes, it's
an uncertainty. It points out to us that we have to be ready at all times to
understand not the God that man sees just in an isolated event, but the God of
the Bible.
The amazing thing about it is, if you go to the U.S. Geological Society, you
will find that they chart earthquakes and they have been increasing. For the
past five decades, every decade has increased the number of earthquakes, killer
earthquakes we're talking about. And this is one of the granddaddy of all
earthquakes, and it has taken so much life. And the good thing about all of
this is, it points out that man really has to get right before God, because the
time is short.
Things are happening so rapidly today. Even unsaved secular scientists say
they see no hope for this world beyond 25 or 50 years. What should our
response be?
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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