Purpose Driven Life Point to Ponder: Living on purpose is the path to peace.
EHBC Prayer Guide Note: PRAY for God to revive and unite His people as one family before Him.
What I think I heard from God today:
(1) [via PDL] I have had competing drives. Guilt, resentment and anger, need for approval, and God's purposes have each been the driving force at different times in my forty-almost-two years. . .ok, even in the last year, maybe even in the last month! I have two great hopes for this PDL experience. The first is that I'll learn how to minimize the first three and maximize the fourth. The second is that I'll learn how to judge wisely my opportunities. This school thing, for instance. It definitely takes time away from my "church" job. . .but I'm not sure whether it takes time away from my "kingdom" mission. I mean, I can tell myself that in this position I'll be able to plant evangelistic seeds and nurture the faith of Christian students. . .but will I really? So far there's not been a whole lot of time for spiritual conversations. . .
(2) [via Galatians 5] The Christian walk is so NOT about rules to follow. Walking by the Spirit leads to the kind of life we would want to create with rules, but never could. Of course, what exactly "walking by the Spirit" entails is for me yet a rather nebulous issue. . .
Acts 9:31 So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, and it increased in numbers.
Romans 8:3-4 What the law could not do since it was limited[3] by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain,[4] and as a sin offering,[5] 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not •walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Galatians 5:16 I say then, • walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
(3) This--this every day searching the Scriptures and/or listening to them taught, spider-senses on edge, waiting for that moment when God's voice comes through with life-changing significance, meditating on what He has said, and sharing it with others--this is supposed to be all my life, not just a 40-day project. Why do I so often settle for such a lesser life?
(4) [via the Narnia movie] Edmund was destined to be a king. It was his right, his proper place. And yet the witch lured him to darkness with promises that he could be king. She FALSELY offered him WHAT WAS ALREADY HIS!!! In order to fall to her temptation, he had to turn away from kingship in truth to a lie--with her, he never would be king! It seems to me that the promises of Satan are always thus. Whatever pleasures, freedoms and powers he offers (and which will be fleeting, hollow, or simply not really there at all), we who name the name of Christ ALREADY HAVE pleasures, freedoms and powers far superior AND WHICH WILL NEVER END!!! Yet so often we, like Edmund, do not know or fully comprehend what has been provided for us, and we sell our birthright for porridge.
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