Life's Daily Challenge Devotional

Relationship and purpose

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it," John 1:4-5.

Beloved of God,

When you begin to passionately pursue your Maker something extraordinary begins to happen. In the light of God’s presence your own life begins to make sense. He is truth. As you walk toward Him, the darkness in your life is exposed. Gradually, you begin to see things that you have been stumbling over. You see yourself in ways that you couldn’t before. God calls you to come closer; to know Him. As you obey His revelations to you, He heals your blindness. His light fills the void where darkness once dwelt. Your relationship with Him deepens. The Truth sets you free. You can cease striving to have, be and do. As you align yourself with His design your yoke becomes easy and your burden light. His grace draws you toward the light even when it’s fearful and painful because life is there...not His life alone, but your own as well. As you lose your life in Him you find it. A love relationship deepens as two become one.

God’s work in your life far precedes your revelation of it. Discovering purpose is not a matter of figuring out what you are supposed to do as much as a discovery of what God has been doing all along. You don’t need to figure out what the next step is. Your purpose is revealed in Him. Your next step is in being where He is. He is moving and He invites you to join Him. As you find your place in Him a million seemingly unconnected and random life experiences begin to converge into one grand design. Life all of a sudden has meaning. All things work together when you love Him and respond to His call.

You were “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” This is why you were born. These are not random works of your choosing. They are works prepared in Christ before the foundation of the world. He calls you to walk in them. But how do you discover specifically what God has prepared for you to do?

The environment that births, develops, and protects purpose is Christ. You will never know purpose apart from your relationship with Him. The more you know Him the stranger this world becomes. Through this strangeness, you hear the divine call to make a difference in it. This is God’s longing. You can feel it because of your nearness to His heart. It beats for His people. It longs to see His work at Calvary appropriated in their lives. He has specifically equipped and prepared you to work in a way that is unique and specific to His workmanship in you. This is where the vertical beam of the cross intersects the horizontal. Your relationship with Him compels you to lay your life down for others. Your nearness to Him gives you His plan. His Spirit tells you who, what, when, where and how. He fills you and enables you to accomplish what’s on His heart. Purpose is born when you begin to give all that He has given you back to others. The way you love the least of them is the way you love Him. Each act of obedience allows you to know Him more intimately.

I would like to submit that the reason so many people lack direction in their lives is because they lack vulnerability and transparency with God. They are afraid of being hurt so they keep everything on a superficial level. A relationship with Truth can be painful. Our culture calls us to mask pain rather than deal with it. Ignorance is not bliss though. Some people avoid going to the doctor because they are afraid he might find something wrong. They ignore the symptoms and keep themselves busy so they don’t think about it. Many people do this with God as well. They constantly tell God what they want to be and where they want to go because they are afraid of hearing His diagnosis. They try to design their own purpose rather than yielding to the Master’s design. They don’t realize their attempt to save themselves is really robbing them of life.

There are a million ways to divert attention away from the issues God is calling you to face. These diversions can even take the form of religious worship and service. The fleshly part of you is more comfortable doing things for God than the things He wants you to do. Your busyness for Him may be little more than a fleshly diversion from Truth. Like Martha, it may be easier for you to do something for God than to spend time with Him because time with Him may reveal things you’d rather not see. Sacrifice is often much easier than obedience. Those who worship the Lord however must do it God’s way. They must come in Spirit and in Truth. Self protection robs you of intimacy. You cannot know the joys and depths of love without exposing yourself to the pain that comes with it. This is one of God’s greatest mysteries. When you lose your life in Him you will find it. No suffering can compare to the exhilaration and freedom that comes as a result of, “apprehending that for which you were apprehended for.” Phil. 3:12