Rescue: Finding God In Life's ChallengesSample

"Purpose" 

Imagine you got a new job at Facebook (pick the department you’re starting in.)  One day, Mark Zuckerberg walks up to you in your cubicle and says, “I’ve been watching you.  And this job is all wrong for you.  I have BIG plans for you over here in this totally different department.  Don’t fool yourself - it’s going to be tough and sometimes scary but totally amazing!  And I promise your life is going to be more fulfilling than you could ever imagine!!  But you’ve got to get up right now, follow me down that corridor and trust me.” Would you go?  

Of course you would!

The sad part is, we would trust Mark Zuckerberg.  But most of us don’t trust God with the same offer.

One of the greatest sins of modern Christianity has been to suggest that a relationship with Jesus is the key to unlocking what YOU want out of life.  Not only is there a massive amount of Biblical evidence to the contrary, but when the bad times hit, that sort of theology is downright destructive to a shallow faith.  And the fact is the bad times WILL hit.

In the US, 1 out of 33 children are born with a birth defect. In your lifetime the odds of you dying in a car crash are 1 in 100. Taking men and women together, the odds of contracting cancer in your lifetime is about 50%. 41% of first marriages end in divorce. And of course, the mortality rate for every person in every generation since Jesus is still 100%.

The purpose of the list above is not to depress you while you’re drink your morning coffee. 

It’s to make the point: bad things will happen.  Do happen.  All the time.  

No one longs to one day have children with health problems.  No one craves life-threatening diseases. No one at their wedding pines for the day they’ll get divorced. And none of the 33 Chilean miners hoped to one day nearly die in a hole two miles underground. Terrible things happen.

So, good news and bad news.  First the bad news: if the basis of your relationship with Jesus is for Him to fulfill your dreams, then friend, you’re in for a rough waters when your ship crashes into the rocks of real life. That’s not why you were created.  And it’s not why He exists.

But here’s the good news:  in Jesus, you become a new creation.  Your dreams become supplanted for HIS dreams for you! Remember, He knows you better than you could ever know yourself.  He loved you when you were still a hot mess.  He saw (and sees) the eternal potential for you even when you’re mired in the worst sin imaginable. He becomes your purpose.

With a purpose in Jesus - where He’s looking much farther over the horizon than you could ever see – the inevitable bad times take on a whole new endurable significance.  It’s why Christian men and women throughout the ages have been able to joyfully tolerate imprisonment, sickness, poverty, torture, and a host of other circumstances. This new sense of purpose is why Paul and Silas could sing in jail. It’s why the apostles could take a beating and be overjoyed to “suffer for the Name.” 

And it’s why Stephen could be indifferent to death by stoning.  With Jesus as your purpose - if the bad times can be joy-filled - imagine what the good times must be like!!!???!!!