March 9--Where You'll Find Your Unique Purpose

Wouldn't it  be mind-blowing if the sky rolled back and God spoke directly to you about who you are and why you're here?  This is what God did for Jesus. His same identity and purpose await you as the beloved One, who pleased his Father. Bible passages are Numbers 13-14, Mark 14:22-52, Psalm 53, and Proverbs 11:1-2.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

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March 9 where you'll find your unique purpose. I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. My first job after college was teaching high school English in a rural town in North Georgia. I loved every part of my job except for this. One student was the same age that I was. Due to Susan flunking multiple years before I arrived and my graduating early from college, both of us were twenty one years old my first year at Dawson County High. It was easy to teach students who accepted me as their teacher, but because of our same age, Susan didn't. She didn't do her homework either, and she cut class often. When she did show up, she was too high to pay attention. All her test scores were failures. On the last day of the year when grades were due in the principal's office, Susan's relatives filed across the schoolyard in front of my classroom windows with shotguns over their shoulders. I suppose they hoped I'd pass her when I saw them, but it didn't work. While Susan's relatives were fuzzy about Susan's purpose as a student and mine as her teacher, mister Wheeler, the principal, wasn't fuzzy about his purpose. He called the police and had them escort Susan's family off school property. I felt sad for Susan then, and even now as I write this. On the one hand, finding your purpose can be as easy as taking stock of where you are as teacher or student, parent or child, employer or employee. But on the other hand, don't you want to find a purpose more uniquely you than these? A purpose that fits who you are as one of a kind and unlike anyone else? It would make sense that the one who created you is the one who knows what that purpose is. It would make even more sense to talk to him about it. These passages say more about this very thing. The Old Testament chapters are numbers thirteen to fourteen. The people aren't buying it. They talk about heading back to Egypt. They talk about stoning Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb. Just when it looks like these leaders will be run out on a rail, the bright glory of God appears, and everybody shuts up. God tells Moses he's ready to hit them with a plague and take them all out. Here's what's happened. Scouts have gone in to find out what the promised land looks like. The people, the produce, the fortified cities, the forests. After forty days traveling all over the land God's been promising since they left Egypt, the report they bring back is upsetting. Most of the scouts say it can't be done. The natives are too powerful, and the whole community believes them and refuses to go in and fight to take it over. They ignore what God has expressly said that he will be with them, so they'll win. Caleb and Joshua are the only ones who believe him, saying Israel can do it because, quote, God is with us, end quote. It's the second time since leaving Egypt that God's been angry enough to do them in and start over with Moses. But Moses doesn't jump at a chance to father a new nation. Instead he says, quote, remember who you are, you're God, you're loving, you're forgiving, and you want all nations watching to know it, not just these people. God agrees to forgive them, but none of this generation will get to live in the promised land since they refuse to trust him. Their kids will live there, but everyone who is twenty and older will die in the desert, their corpses will be rotting in the wilderness. Moses reports what God says to the people, and at first they seem to repent, but then they decide, quote, arrogantly and recklessly end quote, to do what God hasn't authorized. Rather than listen again, they go in to take over Canaan, and when they do, they're beaten back all the way to their camp. While they had the chance to step into God's purpose for them, they let what the scouts reported count more than what God said. They let their fear of Canaanite natives keep them from trusting the God who'd parted the Red Sea, fed them miraculously in the desert, and brought them all the way to the land he's promised them. When they had a second chance to accept what God said and await further instructions, they didn't. They got a wild hare, maybe even a mob mindset, and they went full bore into the land to take it over. But the moment was gone to go with God's blessing. Yet again they tried to live life on their own terms rather than on God's, unable to find their way into the life God has already promised, the outcome was disastrous. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple, mankind has been allergic to doing what God says. If I'd been in the garden, I'm pretty sure I'd have done the same thing because at my core I want to live my own way and on my own terms too. From hard work to kicking back, to building a family, to becoming skilled, to getting fit, to being in the know, to living go go go, to healthy eating, to doing good, to getting, to giving. The list of ways I've tried to have it all and beat everybody in the process is unending. But none of these strategies worked long term. None of them gave me the free full life I wanted. I kept working my system and kept coming up empty, so I worked harder until I fell apart under pressure. I wasted a lot of years thinking I knew better than God does. But here's what I've learned. The life I want of purpose and abundance can only be found in living God's way, putting him first, loving him with my whole heart, talking things over in prayer, sitting at his feet and listening to what he says and doing it. This is what living God's way means. A relationship with God is like father to child, and your unique identity and purpose is to know him as your father. How can you be sure that this is all there is to it? Because this was Jesus' identity and purpose. When Jesus was baptized, heaven opened up and God said, You are my son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased, end quote. In this simple statement, God declared Jesus' identity as his beloved son, and he declared Jesus' purpose which was to be pleasing to him. It was this declaration of identity and purpose that launched Jesus' ministry, because it was from here that Jesus went to the wasteland and faced Satan's temptations during forty days of fasting. He countered each lie of the enemy with God's word and stood firm because Jesus was beloved and pleasing to his Father. These words were true, and Jesus believed them. On several occasions Jesus said he only did what his father told him to do, and he said the words his father told him to say. He did nothing of his own accord, but only what came from the Father, quote. I and the Father are one, end quote, he told the Pharisees, and it's why they killed him. Jesus was claiming to be God, which was against the law, unless it was true. But this is the genius of Jesus. Aligning himself with his Father was the fast track to his unique purpose, and doing exactly what the Father said was the deepest desire of his heart. Jesus was all in with the Father because he knew that doing his Father's will was the same as doing his own will, which was exactly why he came. And even though he asked if there was any other way he might do it, he surrendered to the fact that there wasn't and stayed faithful and true, so that we might know and love the Father like He does too. If God is really God, we surrender ourselves to Him and trust that His way is best for us, and when we can't trust Him, we confess it and ask Him to help us. When our identity and purpose are tied up in Jesus, we believe we are as beloved and pleasing as He is. And when our identity and purpose are tied up in our Father, we find that we want what He wants. God's spirit enables us to believe in our belovedness and He empowers us to live for Him. Jesus went to the wasteland so we don't have to live and die in it having never tasted the good life in the land God promises us. We can go to the beautiful land where God is anytime in worship, in prayer, in praise. We can taste and see him there all day if we want to. The God life is full of purpose because God our Father gives it to us. He knows just what we need in order to be who He designed us to be. Though His way can be hard and humbling, and we might sometimes wonder if He knows what He's doing, we don't go it alone. God walks with us, guiding us and keeping company, giving us days off and pep talks and heart to hearts. Surrender to God to find your unique purpose. The New Testament passages Mark fourteen, twenty two to fifty two. The night before his death Jesus said his purpose was complete, quote, I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. By contrast, Peter boasted about his steadfast love for Jesus, yet denied him three times before the night's over. Peter floundered when it counted and slept rather than prayed for mercy when he had the chance per Jesus' instructions. Peter doesn't live into his purpose because he thinks he can do it without Jesus' help, but nobody can. This is what Jesus tried to tell him that he came to save him because Peter needed saving. You and I do too. We need saving from our smugness, our self sufficiency, our I've got this, our pride. Peter would have been better off asking Jesus for help to be faithful, not boldly declaring he'd never betray him. To find purpose for living, humble yourself and ask for help to surrender from Psalm fifty three. God looks out of heaven for one man or woman who's quote, God expectant, God ready, end quote, and he finds none. Rather than look to God, people look to one another fulfilling. They become predators who take turns consuming each other. But life isn't for treating people like a fast food meal, it's for living God's way. Can anybody save us from using other people? God can. He can turn us around so we celebrate with those who love him rather than manipulate them because quote, God turns life around, end quote. As wonderful as people are, they can't give you what you need. They can't make life complete. They aren't sturdy enough to be your purpose for living. But God can and does and is. Surrender to God alone to find purpose for living. Prayer. God, I want an easy life. I also want a meaningful life, but I see that I can't have it both ways, trouble free and purposeful. Help me surrender to what you want for me. Keep turning and returning me to you. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 11, 1 to 2. God hates dishonest deals, but he loves fair and just ones, the proud trip and fall, but the humble stand strong. Passages in numbers, mark, psalms, and proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartleaban Roebuck.