07 March 2023
I ran into it again recently. There was a discussion about God's purpose in our lives and someone made an argument based on the assumption that we are supposed to make this world a better place, as if that was a major purpose. Well, if this world is all there is, that's a reasonable assumption. But the Bible says flatly that this world is transitory, that it is slated for destruction. Further, that destruction will wipe away everything mankind has done, so that nothing will be remembered in Eternity.
If you can absorb that, it should trigger a new orientation, a chain of thoughts that leads in a totally different direction. If human accomplishment is wholly futile, then we need a totally different reason for why we do things. If the outcomes don't matter, then the purpose for living has to stand on something else.
What do you tell the engineer, whose whole orientation on life is making things better? What's the point of being an engineer, such that someone following Christ can keep on working? It's the excellence of serving the Lord. "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it to please the Lord." Let your doing be a celebration of His ultimate divine purpose in your life. You are redeemed; you belong. The rest of your days are His, and your only interest in anything is to please Him. Walk within the Covenant boundaries; it's a high privilege. That's how we glorify Him.
Yes, there is a strong consideration here for how our manifested joy is part of His glory. We don't do anything for the sake of accomplishment. Our flesh is really very unhappy if we don't have something at the end that it can admire, that brings the flesh glory, but your spirit knows that it's the matter of excellence itself. It's in the doing, not in the end of doing. It's all about the process, not the product.
For the engineer, it's all about living in His joy. As much as is in your hands, you do it for Him. He's the one who must be pleased ultimately. Sure, that may well mean pleasing some humans in the process. That's just the parameters, not the real issue. The real issue is stomping down your flesh at every turn so that you manifest a contempt for this human existence, in favor of your love for Eternity. So in your daily, hour-by-hour work in the human realm, you aren't shaken when everything is trashed. It was trash in the first place. Your mission is to endure the trashing with joy and peace. It doesn't matter if any human was happy with it, you need to ensure you stand in God's pleasure. He doesn't care about the outcomes.
There will come a point when you'll just walk away from it and not look back. When the Lord says He's ready for you to move on, you must be ready, too. You must disentangle for yourself from the cares of this world so you can exit gracefully and keep the focus of attention on Him. Don't get tied up in fleshly accomplishments that serve only to keep you from looking up at His glory.
The sorrows of this life are just circumstances, the parameters within which the Lord wants to see you glorify His name. The inherent flaws of this realm of existence cannot be corrected. Stop trying to change it. The only good thing you can do for another human is to portray that truth. The only hope for humanity is to stop being human, to strive toward a far higher existence. It's a process that begins where you are and moves you back toward Eden. Do you understand that Eden exists as a place in Creation, but not a place in this world? Eden is the name for our condition as eternal beings in the Created space. Start progressing toward that eternal existence.
Yes, this world is going to Hell. As you look around you, in every way, it's all coming apart. There is too much killing for all the wrong reasons, and it's only going to increase. There is too much misery for no justification at all, and it's getting worse. People are sold into slavery to evil. It's because they belong to evil in the first place. The one thing we must grasp and incorporate into our entire orientation is that the human default is to belong to Satan wholly. Human existence itself is his turf.
Thus, there is nothing about this existence that is worthy of preservation and protection. It's on the way to Hell and you cannot change that. Yes, there are times when it doesn't seem so bad, but that's a deception; it's not real. It's not the truth of what this life is worth. Don't struggle to save this life. Struggle to shine the light of truth that this life isn't worth that kind of struggle. The only thing in this life worth striving is divine glory. Keep pointing outside this world.
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