5. God’s Purpose for You
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GOD’S PURPOSE FOR YOU
Contrary to the popular thinking of Christianity today, the Lord did not reach down and save us from sin and death so that we might be merely happy, healthy and wealthy. Those who teach this have invented another gospel and portray a false christ—the god of this age rather than the God of the Bible. A gospel without the cross is no Gospel at all.
God’s purpose for man, from the moment He created us, has never changed. We have always been destined for the throne—created to rule with the One who created all things for Himself.
First, we are to be the Body—the hands and feet of Jesus in this present world.
“And he is the head of the body, the church,” says Colossians 1:18. All who believe and have been baptized into Christ are the Church. Now we know that our head, Jesus Christ, is at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. But the Bible says His body is somewhere else. His body is us. We are left here on earth to carry out His desires and will.
The purpose of the body is to fulfill the commands, desires and wishes of the head. We are attached to the head so that we might manifest the mind of Christ and do His will on earth.
God has so ordered the world that right now we are His primary agents of redemption to lost humanity. Our hands are His hands; our feet are His feet; our tongues are His tongue. This means that the basic way God expresses His limitless love today is through the Church. Lost men and women in this dark and dying world will not be found unless we search for them.
In 1 John 4:17 we read, “As he is, so are we in this world.” I love the way Moffatt translates this in his classic version of the English New Testament. It reads, “... since in this world we are living as He is.”[1] This makes it abundantly clear that a believer’s life ought to so represent Christ that the world can once again see Jesus. We follow Him in a way that others can taste again the presence of Jesus walking and living among them.
The only way that Christ is presently incarnated to a lost world is through us—we are carrying on and extending His presence, His Word and His works to a new generation. When Jesus walked the shores of Galilee, He revealed the image of the Father to lost and sinful men. This glorious ministry is now ours as we reveal the mind of Christ to the lost around us.
Second, we are ambassadors of Christ in the courts of a rebellious world.
As Jesus prepared to leave this world and return to His Father, He called the disciples together. “All authority is given to Me in heaven and in earth,” He declared. “Now go in My name—as the Father has sent Me, so I send you.” Later, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul described us as “Christ’s ambassadors.”
An ambassador is a person who represents his country in an alien land. He is given authority by his government to represent the best interests of his nation. He can make and break contracts for his government and handle all kinds of affairs, both civil and military. Ambassadors exercise enormous power and influence, particularly when they represent a powerful kingdom.
Our Citizenship Is in Heaven
The Bible tells us that we are no more citizens of this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. We belong to our sovereign King, and His name is Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords.
As ambassadors sent to this world from another kingdom, how then are we to live and represent our King?
Under a real monarchy, you do not debate the wishes of the king. You simply obey without discussion or question. The Lord Jesus left us with a clear picture of His desires for our generation. We know from Scripture exactly what He wants us to be doing. We even know what kind of behavior He wants the world to see in us, because He taught us His lifestyle both by word and example.
Third, He wants us to operate in His authority and power.
Christ wants us to move in the same mysterious authority and power that surrounded His earthly ministry. In Matthew 7:29 we read, “For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” He confounded the best academics and theologians of His day—as well as kings and rulers of all sorts.
From the beginning of the Church, we see this same quality reproduced among the apostles. In Acts 4, Peter and John are dragged before the Sanhedrin—the most powerful religious court in Israel. They are questioned about where they received authority and power to heal a cripple.
In verse 10, Peter, in the power of the Holy Spirit, boldly replies, “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.”
This was an eloquent answer, and it stunned the lawyers and priests. In verse 13 we read, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”
Now we get the full picture. These highly educated, suave, sophisticated leaders recognized that something unusual was happening. Something out of this world was going on! They weren’t used to having a bunch of blue-collar “rednecks” answer like that.
Even Unbelievers Recognize the Power of Jesus
By this they knew that these less-educated fishermen had been with Jesus. The same energy that blazed out at them from the Galilean they had killed was alive again in these disciples.
Those who did not want such light and life were very threatened.
So we see that through Christ we are potentially restored to live as God originally intended man to live in the Garden of Eden. God gave man authority in Genesis chapter one—and now we are expected to live and serve Him in that power.
Does this “job description” make you feel a little uncomfortable? It did me, too, when I compared the lives we lead today with the life of a normal Christian as described in the New Testament. How is it possible to live as His body, be His ambassador and operate in His power and authority? Isn’t God making impossible demands on His fallen creation?
Of course not! God would not ask us to have this kind of authority and power-filled life without also making a provision for us to live such a supernatural existence.
The key scripture that explains the secret of this divine indwelling is Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” God does not commit His authority at random to anyone. This verse is basic to understanding the process of incarnating Christ to our generation.
Christ’s life is mine by faith. It is called by many names, but this exchanged life is the only acceptable New Testament norm. Anything less is a sick substitute for reality.
I have been crucified—it is no longer I who live. Our ego is dead. Our will is submitted and surrendered. We cannot let circumstances, family, friends, the government, the media, religious leaders or Satan himself lead us to anything less than reality.
The Lost Message of the Cross
But something is still very wrong.
Why are so few living out the “not I, but Christ” lifestyle that Paul describes in Galatians 2:20? Although God eagerly desires to manifest Himself within us, I believe it is because so few of us have learned to let the cross do its deadly work in our flesh on a daily basis. We haven’t yet come to a full understanding of the cross.
We must return to Calvary. The glory and presence of Christ will return to our lives and churches only when we have rediscovered the cross of Christ.
The cross has two operations. First, on it Christ paid the penalty for our sins and thus bought our eternal salvation. But it doesn’t stop there. The second work of the cross provides for our ongoing sanctification—the daily, continuous crucifixion of our flesh. This great doctrine is not very popular lately because it requires a voluntary acceptance of death to ego or self.
Someone has put it this way, “If self is on the throne, then Christ is on the cross. If Christ is on the throne, then self is on the cross.”
This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:10 that we are “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” Accepting death to my ego is the only way to manifest the life of Christ. Putting my “self” to death is the only way to exchange my life for His.
I believe that this is the real meaning of Galatians 2:20 when Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.”
So here is the spiritual law of the flesh: The measure to which I will manifest the life of Christ is the same measure to which I am willing to put my “self” to death.
When Jesus walked on earth, God was showing us not only what He was like but also what He wanted man to be like. Jesus had authority and power because He constantly submitted Himself to the will of the Father in every matter. Christ pleased the Father and reflected the Father perfectly because He perfectly put to death His flesh. And we repeat this cycle as we submit to our head, the Lord Jesus.
This is the life that is connected to Jesus, the head, on a decision-by-decision basis. It is the submitted, dead-to-self life that the Lord can animate and use for His glory. It is the only kind of life He will empower and use.
If we’re rightly connected to the head in this way, it would be hard to imagine making any decision without first submitting it to Christ for His approval. What would that do to the way we spend our time? What does Christ say about the television shows and the movies we view, the music we listen to, or the catalogs and magazines we read?
What about our activities—church, clubs, leisure time, friendships, hobbies, prayer, service, sports and study?
What about our relationships with boyfriends, girlfriends, mentors and role models? Whom do we idolize and pattern our lives after?
What about our purchases, both the large and small ones? Is our shopping basket under His control? Does He direct the checks we write? What about the “big buys”—our car, home and insurance?
What about our intake of food and drink? Is Christ or our appetites in control?
And of course, there are those major decisions in life—full-time missionary service, career and job plans, education and the choice of a mate.
For the Christian, none of these things is any longer a personal decision. It is not what others say, what self says or what circumstances dictate. The only valid question is always, What does Christ say to me about this decision?
But most of us find ourselves making even the big decisions without prayer and waiting for guidance from the Holy Spirit.
Obviously, the gap between this kind of biblical Christianity and the shallow spirituality of our day is a significant one. How different is this kind of self-sacrificing faith from the pleasure-seeking, self-serving, wimpy religion so often preached and practiced in our churches!