Dear Beloved Series

That was 2000 years ago; but what about now and what about you? What is your purpose? What does God have for you to do? Do you really want to know? Some people may not WANT to know what their divine purpose is because if they don’t know what God wants for them or from them, what God expects of them…then maybe they won’t have to do anything. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. And I think that, deep down, we yearn to know our divine purpose.

Well, discernment isn’t my strongest spiritual gift, but if you really want to know what God’s plan for you is, what your purpose in life is, I can tell you---at least in general terms. Your purpose is the same as the very first disciples, the same as God’s purpose for the Believers in Philadelphia—to share the love of God, to tell the story of God’s love and what Jesus did on the cross. Your primary purpose as a Christian is the same as every other follower of Jesus Christ, and that is to be a signpost to the Savior and the fragrance of God’s grace in the world. To point people to the One who can save them and give them life. How you go about that is often a matter of choice. But if you simply look around, God will show you an “Open Door” like He showed the Philadelphian Christians. After all, God is a good Father, and the last thing He would want is for His children to go about stumbling around in the dark or going the wrong way because He failed to point you in the right direction. Listen, God is gonna place an OPEN DOOR in your life to lead you in the way He wants you to go so that you can fulfill your divine purpose. The trouble, of course, for many of us anyway, is that we get impatient. If we don’t see an open door RIGHT NOW, then we head out on our own way and wind up in the weeds.

What do I do when I am powerless? What is my divine purpose in life? Why am I here? These were pretty significant questions for the Church in Philadelphia and they’re pretty important questions for us too.

How do I deal with the trials and disappointments in my life? Everybody has trials and disappointments…even Jesus. The Christian community at Philadelphia had apparently had their share of difficulties too—their share of trials and, even though they had little power of their own, they had weathered the storms and had emerged victorious. But not because they were so tough or so strong. Remember, they had very little power…they were almost powerless. But they remained faithful. Twice, the Lamb of God says to them, “You have kept my word”. They had held onto God’s promises and to His word and they had patiently waited for Him to come through. They held onto Jesus even in the face of tremendous trials and disappointments. In spite of all they had gone through, their faith in God was unshaken. Their faithfulness and tenacious hope reminds me of the suffering of the Jews during the holocaust of WWII. At the height of the Jewish persecution in Poland, these words were courageously scrawled on the wall of a building in the Warsaw ghetto as the Jews patiently waited for God to deliver them: