“To please God,” “To bring glory to Jesus,” and “To save souls!” are responses that I often hear. Each of us has a different view of our God as he reveals different facets of His infinite nature to us. Our individual relationships with him are incredibly unique. Our perspectives of purpose reflect this.
Is one better than the other? I can’t answer that. Each individual is called to walk in the unique measure of Grace given to them (Romans 12:3). But it is clear in scripture that there are foundational truths of being a child of God and things that build upon that foundation (1 Corinthians 3, Hebrews 5). The point is that we must be willing for our perspective on God’s nature and our purpose as His creation to be “under construction.”
I know that I am much more comfortable embracing a constant: something unvarying, something to which I don’t have to adapt. “But wait!” you may say. “God’s nature is unchanging! He is the same yesterday, today and forever!” You are absolutely right. God will never contradict his nature or his word. But what I found is that he will often contradict our understanding of his nature and his word. “WHY IS THIS? I thought I could just read the Bible and figure God out!”
Throughout my life, there have been many of these times where God’s methods and his very heart seemed clouded from view. Unanswered questions would arise in my heart. Contradictions and confusion would crowd what I saw in life and even what I read in the Bible. “Why, God? What’s going on?”
These questions drove my quest to know the heart of God, motivated by desperation. There I discovered the great invitation: to know Him intimately, to feel the vastness of His affection and the infinite glory of His presence. What would have happened if there were no questions to drive me deeper? What if there was no inner conflict or contradiction as I studied the word? What if I could have learned everything from diligent study and righteous living? I would have sat, faithfully doing the work of God and never been near Him.
This search brought me to the true nature of my purpose as God's son: to intimately know my creator; to be loved by Him, and to love on Him. That may offend you. You may be thinking of how irreverent I am, how I am sensationalizing Christianity, or how I am discarding the full nature of God’s holiness. The reality is that every single move God has made in the history of mankind was to bring us back to His love and intimacy. I’m not going to try to prove that to you. That’s your journey to make. Maybe God is birthing in you a crisis invitation of your own. I encourage you to accept.
- This blog was written by Nate Hinton as part of the Radical Series. Nate is the Worship Director at Elim Gospel Church.
1 comments:
Great insight, Nate.
I have always been amazed at how uniquely the Lord deals with me - and with all those He is drawing.
Even though we tend to separate ourselves and define ourselves with human limitations, God reaches through ... no, He bursts through to touch our lives with His truth. And He does this in such a unique way that we are forever changed.
I am thankful that He, our loving Father, does not consider our attempts at limiting ourselves to be the final word. He has great futures for all of us, a great eternity in fact, that starts right now! And, yes, He is inviting each of us to draw close, to taste and see that He is indeed good.
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