DIRECTION FOR OUR LIVES

When God formed man and breathed life into him, He placed within man an objective, a direction for his life. Now this objective and direction is like a prize that is placed before us, a goal to be reached. Paul told the Church at Philippi this way, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14) Sadly some Christians have made heaven their goal; others make a ministry their goal and focus their prayers and efforts on their work and themselves instead of others as God has purposed our prayers to be. Whatever we may do or accomplish for God in life is never to be the “goal” to which we are to attain. Rather, it is the means by which the Lord causes us to come through to the objective that He has placed before us. As a present reality this objective for our lives is calling out from deep within us to stir us to attain it. Thus Paul prayed, “But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12) All of the things that we do for Jesus are splendid, but we are not to become so involved in them that we lose our perspective and sight. These things will eventually pass away therefore, we must only become involved enough to get from them that which the Lord intends. In a school room there are many books to study. But these are not the education we seek; they are merely the collateral that helps to produce it. We receive our education by becoming a reacting agent, and allowing all these factors to play upon us. It is like our ministry, for through it, the Lord is doing something creative within us. He will never ask us how much work we have done for Him, but He will ask what has that work done within us. All this will be registered upon our immortal spirit, and will do something within these marvelous beings that we are, so we will not be the same as we were when He first saved us. There is to be within us a progression; our spiritual development and growth toward spiritual maturity. I am saved, but how far have I come into this process of “becoming” that which Jesus desires me to be? If heaven or my ministry is not to be an objective then what is to be held up before us to which we can focus my living? Ah that is an easy question, “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (I Corinthians 10:31) and “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God gives: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever.” (1 Peter 4:11) The Lord has placed before us the “glory of God” as the objective that will require all that we are and have to submitted to Him. To glorify the Lord fully we first must come to know the heart of the God of the universe. The first vocation which was placed upon man when God created him was to know God and out from knowing God (our direction in life) we come to know the glory of God. We were made in God’s image and all that God put within man screams of God’s desire for man to come and have a personal intimate relationship with Him and the prize is God will be able to reveal His glory to man. God could only reveal a small portion of His glory to Adam and Eve because of their willful disobedience. Did you know our disobedience stops God’s glory in our lives? Our sin (carnal nature of earthly man) and our sins (individual acts of the flesh even after we are saved) were dealt with through Jesus’ death on the cross. God is not offended by sin man is. As matter of fact because of man’s sin God sent His son (Jesus) to earth to die for our sin and our sins. Sin is the occasion for God’s mercy and grace given freely to man. I hear many Christians say when Jesus died on the cross He cried out, “My God My God why has thou forsaken Me” and then God the Father turned His back on His only begotten Son because He could not look at His Son with sin, but in reality God looks at sin every day when He sees unrepentant men or women. Now please do not miss my point here; our sin nature is evil and we must allow the finished work of Jesus on the cross be the answer to our earthly, carnal nature and if we are sinning we must stop it, ask God (and maybe man) to forgive us, and never do it again, but what I am saying is our disobedience is far more evil than our sin to our soul. At the heart of our sins (our sin is our nature) is doing that which God told us not to do. The act of murder, committing adultery, lying, bearing false witness, etc. (even though heinous) does not make us a sinner, but doing what God told us not to do makes us a sinner, sin is to know right but do wrong. Adam eating the fruit was not the sin. Does eating fruit (even the same fruit Adam ate) today make us a sinner? No of course not it was Adam’s disobedience. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) Adam became a sinner because he was disobedient doing what God told him not to do. Paul told the Church in Rome, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19For as by one man’s disobedience (Adam) many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one (Jesus) shall many be made righteous.” (Romans 5:18-19) Please notice because of Adam’s disobedience and not sin “many were made sinners” and because of the obedience of one (Jesus’) “shall many be made righteous.” Again in Romans (8:35-39) Paul asks the question, “who shall separate us from the love of God?” Well the answer to this critical question is our own willful disobedience to God (especially when we know better) can separate us and cut us off from God’s glory. We will never be able to know God’s glory unless we come to know and understand Him. If we lose our way here we lose our direction for our lives. We are to know God personally and we are to “glorify God” in all we are and do. When God made man He placed him in a garden and set him apart to know Him and bring glory to Him not to help Him do something. Man was made to know God and give Him glory for who He is, not what He can do for us. But we are born into sin and come short of His glory. Sin comes from a Greek word which means, “to miss the mark” the failure to do that for which it was made. The arrow (man) was made and pointed to hit the bull’s eye (knowing God and His glory), but it has missed the objective for which it was designed. This is sin, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Why are we sinners? Because we have come short of knowing God and His glory, the things for which we were made. Whenever God does not receive the glory that should come to Him, we sin. Did you know my friend we can keep the Ten Commandments all the days of our lives and never come to know God and His glory and when we die we could (God makes this decision) go to hell? Many years ago Pastor Nicu Gramesc from Suceava, Romania (whom I love very much) told me something one day that has always stuck with me; there are three “Gs” of God we must never touch; God’s gold, God’s girls, and God’s glory. Man was made for a mark called the “glory of God” and we come to this mark by knowing Him. How then are we to glorify God? If we are willing to abandon ourselves in the very root of our being to Him, God will take us into His possession. He will cleanse us and bring us into an orientation around Him, instead of around our ego - “I.” You know I can tell where someone is in God by how they pray (self-centered), how they give (selfish), and how they use the word “I” (self-serving). We are born egocentric therefore He has to bring us into a new orientation of thinking and service. After God formed Adam He placed the benediction of His approval upon him being well pleased with His arrangement and creation, but Adam was innocent and had not yet functioned as God totally purposed being still “limited and dependent” on God. The instrument (man) was there, but it had not yet moved out where it could come to know God and glorify Him. The LORD says, I will now push you out into an arrangement here on earth and make a new law in the realm of your spiritual living (Genesis 2:16-17) – the law of testing and proving. This is the only way to develop and bring us to a place where God’s glory can be released. God’s nature is a gift. We become a partaker of the divine nature purely on the basis of a gift. He gives us salvation, but He cannot give us a Christian character. We have to build it; we are to grow and learn to subject our ego continually to all the arrangements which God has placed in our life activities to release us and set us free for the real thing that He desires. As we come to know Him and as we do the will of God He is automatically glorified for He is glorified whenever His will is done. Whenever God acts in a creative mood it is to His glory. He made the heavens and these declare His glory. What is our objective in living? It is to come to know God so we can come to know His glory. How can we do it, by accepting the will of God in for our lives. Therefore God knowing who and what we are places within our lives all the material that is necessary to reshape, recast, and make over that which He desires us to be. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) He can take the most disturbing thing in our lives and turn it 180, making it become the means of His glory. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.” (Romans 8:29) God’s objective is that through all the things that He subjects us to, He is conforming us to the image of His Son. He is approaching us because of His Son and what He sees in Him, He is tracing upon our spirit, that we may be “conformed to His image.” For one day He will take us not just to heaven, but to be eternally associated with the Son. When we see this we will be able to accept the trials, the discipline, the testings, and provings; for we see that this is the will of God and through it He will trace upon our immortal spirit the image and likeness of His Son. Only then will we find the satisfaction and fulfillment for which we were created and only then can we render the glory back to Him that is due and learn of the direction for our lives that will accomplish God’s purpose and intention for our lives. Written by David Stahl