The Purpose PuzzleSample

Have you ever considered that the early Believers who adhered to the Old Testament Law as their spiritual GPS, subscribed to 613 commands? That’s a lot of “Thou shall nots”!

As you read through the Bible, following the journey of God’s chosen nation, you will find where great biblical leaders were compelled to narrow this list. King David reduced them to eleven commands (see Psalm 15). The prophet Isaiah got them down to six (see Isaiah 33:14-15). About this same time, another prophet, Micah bound them down to three (see Micah 6:8). Finally, Jesus simplified the list of 613 commandments into two very comprehensible and achievable tasks: Love God and Love People (see Matthew 22:37-39). I've also heard this expressed as, "Know God and make Him known."

That’s the end goal for all of the commands, whether it is 613 or 2. God gave us His law as a means of understanding His heart and His character. He is love and He loves His creation. The commands really do boil down to learning to love Him and others. Keep in mind that loving someone is more than an emotional response of affection. It’s a union of “love” as a noun and “love” as a verb. Love as a noun reflects emotion and affection. Love as a verb reflects the action. They both show up with the Purpose Puzzle and give us the anchors we need to begin this process. At the end of the day, if we do nothing else but give our attention to these two commands, and apply them through the act of “love” - noun and “love” - verb we will be on a safe path toward living out our core purpose.

The use of a puzzle is key as there is a universal framework for completing a puzzle successfully. The first step most of us follow is locate the corners. Once the four corners are in place, the next critical step is to gather up all of the “edge pieces” and begin to look for connecting pieces and, eventually, which corner piece will tie those edges together.

Four corners and four edges. Get these in place and you now have a framework within you can work to begin filling in and creating your “masterpiece.” The remaining days of this plan will reveal what those corners are and give you four questions that make up the four edges.

Time to get to work.