For This Purpose

"For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world . . ." (John 18:37)

Jesus was able to say honestly and confidently before Pilate, "For this purpose . . . " And just as He did, so we also should be able to state, to declare those words about our lives. Because we do indeed have a purpose.

Our ultimate purpose is to glorfiy God and bear witness to the Truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But in that we also have specific purposes that God desires to work out in our lives daily in what seem to be the meager details of existence.

God has a purpose for our life today just as it is. It is not a purpose that is on hold, for which we wait hopefully or pine impatiently. It is a purpose, a set of purposes which are for now, for this very moment.

Our experience of peace and joy and contentment is dependent upon and determined by whether we recognize and allow to resonate deep within us the truth that we are to grow and sow right where God has planted us at this time in whatever place or state we find ourselves by His sovereign design.

We sometimes wonder how it is that we are to go about the business of death. As Jesus commanded us that we must take up our cross, die to ourselves and follow Him.

I am convinced that death is most effectively carried out when we accept the here and now of our lives, rather than waste hour upon precious hour granted to us to do the work of God by thinking of, wishing for a future that has not yet and may never come to be.

In fact, we must realize that the greatest of what God might do in us simply will not be attained if we are distracted by what is held by tomorrow and known only to God Himself.

It is not that there is no value in listening for God's direction as it may apply to His plans for our future. But we must keep ever in mind the truth of Christ's words that "tomorrow will worry about itself."

If we are obedient unto death, as Christ, even in this day and what God has placed before us in it, there is all certainty that the future in which we will one day find ourselves will be a rich harvest beyond description or expectation.

"We create our own history, day by day, decision by decision, habit by habit."

- Jeff O'Leary