Monday, August 27, 2018
615 - The Purpose of Asking, Part 3
Spirituality Column #615
August 28, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Purpose of
Asking, Part 3
By Bob Walters
This series started with a YouTube video of a guy who during
a near-death, I-met-God experience asked God, “What’s the meaning of life?”
That’s a
philosopher’s question, for sure, revealing a need for explanation rather than
testifying to trust. I thought a better
question to ask God would be, “What is the purpose of life?” which reveals a
desire to participate in whatever it is God is trying to do. God’s answer to the first question, “meaning,”
was “love.” I’m convinced the Bible’s
answer to the second question, “purpose,” as we wrote last week, is “God’s
glory.”
“Love” and
“God’s glory” cover a lot of divine territory.
Mature Christians also accept and roll with God’s righteousness, not
their own. They also know trusting God
is every bit as important as believing in Him.
And if heaven is your goal – or even if it’s not – the Bible plainly
presents Jesus as the only way to get there.
John 3:16 says Jesus “came for all,” and John 14:6 says Jesus the son is
the “only way to the Father.”
What’s our task
in this? To believe Jesus is who He says
He is, which we learn volumes about once we learn how to read the New Testament. Then, to love God and love others, including
one’s enemies. We mustn’t try to remake
God into what we want Him to be (as did the Enlightenment philosophers); but continually
ask God what He wants us to be, and for wisdom, and for how better to love,
trust, and honor Him. We must follow
Jesus, love mankind, and add to God’s glory rather than subtract from it.
Yet … in
truth we can’t add or subtract anything from God; He’s already complete. But adding just a bit of logical arithmetic helps
us relate to this infinite and eternal equation steeped in faith, trust, sacrifice,
freedom, joy, and cosmic mystery. Our
own notions of God, His personality, intentions, and purpose – or if He even
exists – do not determine God’s reality.
It is what it is … infinitely and eternally.
God’s meaning and purpose, God’s
love and glory … these are firm, wonderful, large things with which to occupy our
intellect and around which to arrange our lives, priorities, passions, and behaviors. We can’t “behave” our way into heaven, but we
can experience the Kingdom’s value here and now by obeying God with trust and
faith.
Oh … and
humility. Folks hate that part. For humans it is the hardest lesson of Jesus
– modeling His humility. He was God, yet
suffered the fools of Earth. God’s love
and glory are that important to Jesus
who “came for all.” Why don’t all come
to Him?
That
approximately is the question I’d ask God, not out of doubt or fear but out of raw
curiosity and the here-and-now urgent life purposes of God’s glory and the
salvation of my fellow man. Of acquiring faith in Jesus, I’d ask God: “Why some
but not others?”
Some get
it, some don’t. I didn’t, but now I do. I’m glad.
But why me?
It’s beyond a Calvinist-Arminian
thing, or an “elect,” “chosen,” or “called” thing. It most definitely is a freedom thing (see
Galatians 5:1), because divine love cannot be coerced. One theology warps toward predestination, but
that cancels out freedom. Another
theology warps toward “works,” which are canceled out by scripture.
“Why some
but not others?” Pastors don’t know,
theologians don’t know, I don’t know.
Only God knows, and I suppose it would spoil the adventure if we knew
too.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asks this
with specific, beloved people in mind.