Glorify God or Share the Gospel? What is Our Purpose?

What is our greatest purpose here on earth? Many times we are quick to answer that question with a variation of the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. This statement is absolutely one-hundred percent true, however our assumption of what this statement means, I believe, is sometimes misunderstood. Some might understand this phrase as a call to live life no different then they would if they were not a follower of Christ, but simply giving God the credit for everything the accomplish instead of taking it for themselves. Others might understand this phrase as a call to live life radically different than they did before, doing a plethora of good works and spending a lifetime learning the deep theological truths of scripture, taking no credit for anything they do but saying all the credit goes towards God. While both of these responses in themselves are not bad, it is possible to live each of these lifestyles without focusing on what I consider the most fundamental and important aspect of Glorifying God, which is obedience.

Our greatest purpose here on earth is to to Glorify God; the greatest way that we can Glorify God is to obey Him. We do this by not by living lifestyles that are "good", by doing "good" social works, or even through knowing the deep theological truths of scripture. We do this by being consumed and obedient to the commands and the Gospel.

When we think of the most familiar commandments of God, the ten commandments undoubtedly quickly comes to mind. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that the sum of the ten commandments is Matthew 22:37-40, "Love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves". I don't think it is by mistake that Jesus sums up all of God's commandments in this statement. Jesus is making it clear that we Glorify God best through obedience to Loving God and Loving Others as ourselves. It is no accident that the most loving thing we can do in loving God and loving others is in fact the same thing, sharing the Gospel.

In recent years in Southern Baptist life their has been great disagreement over what the greatest purpose of Christians here on earth is; Some have argued that it is to Glorify God while others have argued that it is to share the Gospel and fulfill the great commission. I submit to you that the answer is both. The greatest purpose we have on earth is to Glorify God through the obedience of His commands in sharing the Gospel. While it is easy to live lives of grand social work or to study the deep theological truths of God's word, if this is where our obedience stops, then we are merely doing good works and studying God's word, not allowing the Gospel to completely consume us. Jesus calls us to action through the great commission, therefore to be obedient and to glorify Him, we must obey Him.

Share the Gospel today.

Does God Love Failures?

I am a failure. Do you ever feel like that? I try and I try, and then I try again to live a life that is fully and totally good, then I realize that I have failed once again. Another day, another sin, another wasted opportunity to make a choice was right and I failed. This leads me to wonder does God love failures?

For a person to be a failure there must be a standard. There must be a level that is considered perfection or either to be the right way for one to choose a wrong way. If there were no right or wrong then one would never be a failure, right? So who makes right and wrong? Who determined the standard? I would argue and insist that God is the one who has made the standard or right and wrong since the beginning of Creation as evidenced in the bible. If you would argue against that just take a look at the most well known and simplistic orders of the law which are the ten commandments. We could all agree that it is wrong to murder, to cheat on your spouse, to steal, or to lust after your neighbors wife or possessions right? Why is that wrong? I would argue it is because it is God's law and He is the author of right and wrong; He set the standard of How a person should live.

But what if we fail? What if we all fail? What if we see the new house of our neighbor, or the new car of our friend, and we lust after it? What if we stole a pencil as a child because it was cooler then the one we had? What if we thought about killing someone and wished they were dead out of anger? Have we fallen below the standard that God set? Yes, I think we have. So there is no hope for any of us right? We are all failures! Does God love the failures?

What's more God even knows we are failures (Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"). Would God love someone who He KNOWS is a failure? God is Creator and we as His creation are failures. God knows we are failures, and through anact of selfless love made a plan of redemption through the person of Jesus Christ, who was fully man and fully God, sent to Earth to die.

Jesus came to Earth and lived a life that was perfect. He lived up to the standard and was actually not a Failure. He was the only person who actually deserved to live forever; instead He died. God's word puts it better then I ever could :

( 1 Peter 2 - He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.)

Jesus lived a perfect life but yet He suffered on a Cross a gruesome death, dying for the sins that we commit today. We are all failures and have fallen short of the standard of living a perfect life. None of us are perfect, but Jesus came and made a way for us to have a perfect life that gives us life that lasts long after the life on this Earth.

Eternal life that sounds tempting and almost a little ridiculous at the same time right? I mean it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie or almost to much of a stretch right? Really, who would believe this nonsense? I admit when compared with the truth of the world it sounds like a stretch and really simple - but if you take a step back and think about it, where did we come from? Is there a higher power or God? There has to be! There has to be something greater than we just appeared here or earth or chance. When you see how a baby is born, or when you see a sunset, or when you see spring flowers, this is not by chance; there has to be more.

Obviously at some point or time we have all felt like a failure - we all realize that there must be a standard of what is right and wrong or otherwise to one person murder would be fine and to another it would be wrong. There must be a standard. So if there is a God and We are Fallen and there is redemption How do we receive life that lasts forever?

This is the hard part, we must surrender everything and follow Him. We are a slave in life on earth: We are either slaves to sin and a life that never brings true pleasure but leads to hurt; or we are slaves to Christ in which we put aside everything that we think might bring us pleasure and we seek to live a life that Honors God. We're still failures, we still fail, but when we live a life of "following God" where we Love God and Others above ourselves; we have eternal life. We are forgiven of our sins by fully surrendering to live a life of following Christ.

Does God love failures? Absolutely. God loves failures so much that He has given His Creation Redemption from our failures.

If this post is confusing or you want to know more feel free to comment or email me with any questions you have.

Jonathan