The Missionary’s Predestined Purpose September 22, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in profound thoughts, theology.Tags: Bible, God, missions, MUFHS, philosophy, purpose, sin
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The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever–do not abandon the works of your hands. Psalm 138:8
September 20//
So, every, single, time i open up My Utmost for His Highest, it blows me away. it is either so terribly convicting, challenging, and compelling– or the very thing I need. (haha, i know those should actually be the SAME, but lemme explain) so some days i open it, and the thing i learn is new and challenging, and i think about it the entire day, which is really how a good devotional should be. its powerful and lets the Word carry on in my day. and then other days, I feel as if God is meeting me just where I’m at. Bringing the thing i need to hear in that moment. Today was one of those “ahah!” moments.
Today’s devo was about missions, and purpose. (ha!) I will type it here:
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances–we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for hte human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force is the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in John 3:16– “for God so loved the world…”
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.
Okay. So, WOW. is this not all the things I’ve been pondering the past week or so? YAH.
And, to add something to this, I just was talking to a student in the library at tcnj. (yes i’m at tcnj right now) and He said how the world’s lies have hidden or warped our process of discovering and following out our purpose. YES. you are right mr. atheist jewish frat guy! “The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree.”
the following are VERY loosely quoted scripture. with no context. so i dont claim they really have anything to do with this, it just sounds good for now.
The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.– Proverbs 20:5 It takes alot of “soul-searching” and a communication with God to “discover” your purpose. Aside from our delegated purpose as humans as a whole- to glorify and enjoy God.
Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.- Acts 5:38
They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast.- Revelation 17:13
BUT, God does want to be known, and wants his purpose to be known to us. And through that, our purpose too. It sure is muddled by the things of the world, but he wants us to know it.
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.-Hebrews 6:17
Summary: We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt.
rejecting Jesus August 13, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in theology.Tags: being good, gospel, irreligion, moral law, rejection, religion, sin
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“he knew that the best way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.” If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior. You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus for your standing with God. You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus.
That, ironically, is a rejection of the gospel of Jesus. It is a Christianized form of religion. It is possible to avoid Jesus as Savior as much by keeping all the Biblical rules as by breaking them. Both religion (in which you build your identity on your moral achievements) and irreligion (in which you build your identity on some other secular pursuit or relationship) are, ultimately, spiritually identical courses to take. Both are “sin”. Self-salvation through good works may produce a great deal of moral behavior in your life, but inside you are filled with self-righteousness, cruelty, and bigotry, and you are miserable. You are always comparing yourself to other people, and you are never sure you are being good enough. You cannot, there, deal with your hideousness and self-absorption through the moral law, by trying to be a good person through an act of the will. You need a complete transformation of the very motives of your heart.
The Reason for God- Timothy Keller, page 177
Who/What created morals? April 3, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in theology.Tags: evolution, God, law, morals, romans, selfishness, sin, waodani tribe
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i want to work something out on “paper” right now before i forget:
athiests and evolutionary scholars say that we are not born with morals that we get from God (because He doesn’t exist) They say that the origin of morals comes from evolution, our need to develop rules or whatever in order to further benefit our species and keep us from going extinct.
take the Waodani tribe in south america. they were extremely violent. everyone had someone in their family who was speared to death. they were killing themselves off, because they were so angry. they were quite literally down to a few remaining men, they would have killed themselves off.
is this evolution? does “we develop morals out of the best interest for the group?” explain this situation? or does this:
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.–r omans 1:28-32
i think it is fair to say that if we relied on evolution to keep us from killing each other, our selfishness has most certainly gotten in the way. in order to think of the safety and well being of others, you have to be able to put aside your own feelings and repress your own fulfillment. if i wanted to kill someone, i could. i would be sacrificing someone else’s life in order to fulfill mine. how does evolution reconcile morals and self-centeredness?
i don’t think it can. and what i think happened with the waodani tribe is this: their minds were clouded from listening to their moral compasses because of selfishness and lust. i think people who don’t know God can be very moral and have morals. because they are made in the image of God and have those natural longings for justice and love and nice things. when we have no reason to follow them though, is when we just do whatever we want. why should convince a guy not to kill someone? a worldly law? or a Godly law? obviously a worldy law hasn’t stopped people. its not reason enough to not kill.
we all have morals built into us, because we are made in the image of God. but when our sin and our selfishness cloud our desire to follow that ingrained set of morals, we kill and steal and do all sorts of awful things. GOD instilled those morals, practically for hte same reason evolutionists think we developed them: to survive.
think about it– God loves us. so he’s going to put some natural cravings for justice inside us so we don’t kill each other. duh. he wants the BEST for us. i think truly left up to our own devices we would be extinct because we also have sin nature. and unless we turn to God for fulfillment, we would follow our sin nature all the way, just like romans 1 says, and kill each other off.
thats my thought. i think it makes sense.
waodani tribe
