GOD'S PURPOSE

God made His creation that it might glorify & honor Him...His creation testifies of Him. Man's purpose is to fear God and keep his commands (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

C. S. Lewis pointed out that God desires our attention to be focused on eternity with Him or the present with Him...the present as to:

•  meditating on the state of our walk with Christ and/or our eternal union with God,
   
  
• obeying the present voice of conscience,
   
  
• bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace,
   
  
• giving thanks for the present pleasure...etc.
  

Jesus, in the Lord's Prayer, advised that we pray for daily bread. Man is subject to all sorts of Satanic influence when he dwells on the future or lives in the past.

Man fears God & keeps His commands by being a good steward of all that is God's (all things...Psalms 24:1). Man does this by knowing & relating to God through the intimacy that He offers through a man's coming to belief in His Messiah son, Jesus. Jesus, through Whom God's gift of eternal salvation becomes effective (for sure, effective while on earth...& may be the route to eternal effectiveness). Through belief in Jesus and the resulting indwelling of yourself by the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to participate in God's purpose of building and enjoying intimate personal relationships with individual humans. By these means, man does what God basically wants of man: that man glorifies & honors God by all that he does...that man does all that he does to the glory of God (examples Matthew 5:16; Romans 15:5-6; I Corinthians 6:19-20; and I Peter 2:12). Part of that glorification effort is worship. We are to worship God the Creator and enjoy and appreciate...but not worship...His creation or any component of that creation (which, no matter which belief you prefer, He created). The Jesus believer is uniquely equipped to accomplish God's above purpose because he has the internal indwelling mentoring/guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God.

Now, there is The Law (the Old Testament of the Bible) and The Gospel (the New Testament of the Bible). Before Jesus, The Law, when broken, placed a man under the condemnation of sin. After Jesus, The Law, when followed by a Jesus believer, gives a man the opportunity to glorify God by his obedience (the Jesus believer has been delivered from the condemnation of sin). Did you notice?...it is not about you in this life, it is about God!

[the good news...the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth]

(12/12/2004; latest update 7 September 2006)