Purpose

This was meant to be an introductory post explaining the purpose of the blog, but the key word for Perspectives this week was Purpose, so I might as well just jump right into things.

If you haven't heard of Perspectives, I highly recommend checking out their website.  It's a 15 week course offered all over the US and the world (mostly in churches) designed to understand God's global purpose and heart for missions. 

My dad took this class wayyyy back (in the 80s?) and has since retaken it, and he's been encouraging me to take the course since I started high school. But, coincidentally, life got busy around that time, so I didn't get around to taking it until now. AND IT'S AWESOME. AMAZING. FANTASTIC. HIGHLY EXCELLENT. 

Yes, I'm only on week 1, and I have yet to do most of the reading for this week, but it's already changing the way I see God and the world. 

So this past class, the speaker went through the Old and New Testaments, highlighting passages that show that since the beginning (and I mean like starting in Genesis beginning), God has had a plan and God has had a purpose: bring salvation to every tribe, tongue, nation, and people. 

I highly encourage you to look up the following passages in their entirety. Even more powerful with context!

Psalm 67

(^how many times have I heard the first half of this sentence and not the second half?!)

Genesis 12:1-3

Deut 4:5-6

Ex 9:16

Ex 12:38 

Joshua 4:22-24 

1 Sam 17:45-46 

1 Kings 4:34

2 Kings 19:19

2 Chronicles 6:32-33

Ps 22:27-28

Ps 86:9

Ps 96:3, 7-10

Isa 49:6

Daniel 6:25-27

Jonah

Mark 6 and Mark 8 feeding of the 5000 and 4000 (note Jesus's attitude towards the people vs. disciples' attitude)

2/3 of Jesus's major miracles are towards non-Jews

Matt 24:14

Acts 26:22-23

Rom 1:5

Gal 3:8, 13-14 

2 Cor 5:17-20

Romans 15:20

Rev 5:9

Rev 7:9

I don't know if you're as mind blown by this as I am, but this definitely has, at some level, restored my faith in the goodness of God. 

My brother committed suicide last summer, and I was struck by the seeming randomness of, well, life in general. I know that God is sovereign. Having grown up in the church, there are some attributes of God that I take as being fact without truly trying to reason through or understand what that means (both a good and bad thing, but a discussion for another time). And, as taught in Sunday School, I knew that Sovereign meant that God knows everything (Wise), can do anything (Powerful), and is Good, so therefore everything that happens is under God's jurisdiction and not random (and in fact is working toward the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28)). And yet, I had trouble sensing this in my own life. Specifically, why me? Why not my brother? Why did God choose to be so faithful to me? In many ways, I feel like the testimony of my entire life is God choosing me, putting me on this path of faith, me wandering dangerously close to the edges, pushing God away, being ashamed of Jesus, hiding my faith, etc., and God picking me back up and guiding me back onto the center of the path. 

Anyways, this is something I've been struggling with for about half a year now. But going through the Bible and seeing how God has had a Purpose since the beginning has made me realize it's not about me. It's so much bigger than me, bigger than my brother, bigger than the small percentage of the world that I know. It's about God getting His name glorified. It's about Him being glorified and honored and praised forever. By all the nations. And that's comforting. More than anything else, this is comforting. God has had a plan since the very beginning. This plan is a big plan, and a good plan. And even right now, we get a glimpse into what it looks like when this plan is accomplished. And isn't it a glorious picture?

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Rev 7:9-10