Wednesday 21st October ,2009

Have you ever thought – Why do I exist—why was I born?

What is the meaning of my life?

Were you put here for a reason? You can know—you must know!

Why were you born? Is there a reason—a meaning—for your life? Is your existence part of a divine plan?

Was mankind actually placed on earth by an all-wise Creator as part of a great Purpose—a MASTER PLAN?

Knowing the answer is supremely important!

Think for a moment. What could be more important to understand than the purpose for your life?

Ecclesiastes 10:1-12:14 – Ecclesiastes is a rather negative book written by one of the wisest men who ever lived. Solomon, however, saves his wisest words for the conclusion of Ecclesiastes. After sharing that all of life is vanity, Solomon does give the major priority of life. If we lived our lives on earth with what he shares as our first priority, the conclusion of our lives would not be vanity. The conclusion of our lives would be lives lived to the glory, honor and praise of God.

What is this priority? Solomon speaks these words of wisdom: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Eccles. 12:13).

This admonition sounds very much like the statement made by the One who is all wisdom, Jesus Christ.

Jesus replied to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” with these wise words: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:37-39, KJV).

Each day that we live we are challenged to keep the main thing central in our focus and not get distracted by events happening around us. Interestingly both Solomon and Jesus shared with us what the main thing is.

What is the main thing? The main thing is to love God and love your neighbor.

Why do you think it is so hard to do this? Love benefits all concerned. Love benefits the one who gives love and the one who receives love. You sometimes hear people say “Life would be so easy if people would just love one another.”  This does not mean life will be without difficulties and trials, but love will carry us through every trouble.

The reason people find it so hard to love one another is simple –because love never fails. Satan the enemy of our souls knows this, so he works tirelessly to cause division and strife, bitterness, jealousy, pride and anger in our lives.

The cost required from us to love another is exactly the same. It means laying down our pride, the result of worshipping ourselves. Pride causes selfishness, strife and jealousy. Another reason it is so hard for us to love God and others is that we cannot do it in our own strength. We must depend upon God to firstly give the gift of love to us, so we can pass it on to others.

To receive His love demands that we daily submit ourselves to Him for that wonderful work to be accomplished in us. Perhaps you will want to join me this morning in a simple prayer that sums it all up:

Lord, I love You. Help me to love today as Jesus loves. Amen.

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Here is something to chew over in your spirit man ….

A very modern theologian from Sheffield, UK, Bishop Tom Wright says all mankind has clear evidence of the Kingdom within us by what he terms “the echoes of the Spirit of God”. These echoes are described by Bishop Wright as our universal desires of

• Longing for justice and mercy among all people
• Quest for true spirituality and intimacy with the Creator of the Universe
• Hunger for meaningful relationships with significant others
• Delight in both natural and created beauty

The Kingdom of God as the Living Body of Christ is predominantly happening outside the gathered church.

Now before you get upset at my statement, simply think about the allocation of available time each week.

There are 168 hours each week.

Usually as Christian believers we only spend 6 to 8 hours in each other’s presence, unless we are living in a community, or Bible College, or a monastery!

But when you read the Book of Acts you find they spent time every day with each other.

Why did they do this?

Most times it was because of persecution and the safest place to be was with each other. Otherwise it was because of the diffculty of being free to serve Christ as we can do today.

If you are employed by an employer, your first obligation to earn your wages is to do what your employer (master) wants done first.

Any spare time after satisfying your boss, or employer would be spent with family and other believers in Christ.

But when you read of the mracles recorded in the Book of Acts, they were the result of men and women who made themselves available to serve God 24/7 in their ordinary life.

Consider the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7)

Consider the conversion of Ethiopian government official (Acts 8),

Consider the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10),

Consider the seekers and religious worshippers at Athenia (Acts 17

All of these events recorded here happened outside the corporate gathering time of the believers, but we are so restricted in our thinking that we only expect God to show up and do miracles at the regular weekly Sunday meeting!

God will not be confined or restricted simply to our regular weekly gathering – He wants to be active in our lives every day, 24/7! But He cannot reveal Himself unless we seek after revelation, and expect Him to do the impossible.

So dear friends, now that you have heard the Good News of God’s Unchanging, Unshakable, Eternal Kingdom” my challenge to you is “Are you living in the expectancy of the unexpected?”

There are three very unusual things that Jesus used to describe His Kingdom.

(a) He said it is “like the smallest seed” – Mark 4:30-32 Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven as being like unto a grain of mustard seed (the smallest seed of all) which when planted grows into the largest tree.  In Matt 13: He also describes the seed as being the Word of God which we first receive, and then we ourselves become transformed by the power of God to become the “living seed” that is planted in the field of God’s world.

(b) In Luke 13:20-21 Jesus says the truth of God’s Kingdom is like “yeast” that is mixed into the dough as bread is being made, built the entire mixture is affected by the yeast that was added.

(c) Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like”salt” that gets either used or lost.  Matt 5:13 “You are the salt of the world. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty again? It’s good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled on by people”

Salt can only be useful if it is mixed into food, or used in other ways, but it must completely lose its identity in order to achieve its purpose.

All of these three elements must die before they can be of useful effect.

If we embrace the truth of God’s Kingdom we must learn that the Kingdom God works first within us, before it works in the world around us.

The truth is no use if it is simply sitting on the shelf like an urn of some dead realtive’s cremated ashes. The ashes speak to us of the person who once was. We honor the dead when we live our lives by the unchanging truth of God’s Word.

The Kingdom of God has the greatest effect when it is taken out of the gathered church and put into the world. That is what God wants from you and me.

Bishop Tom Wright of Sheffield, England said it this way – “For God’s will to be done on earth God’s passion must become our passion” (Bishop Tom Wright).

Is your passion God’s passion? If not, it needs to be. Be blessed today as you seek to live in His Kingdom,  Kevin Dyson