“His Purpose, Our Purpose”

God’s governing purpose
involves the preeminence and centrality of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11).

Conversely, humanity’s governing purpose involves any and everything but the exaltation of Christ.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).

When we trust in the Lord Jesus, our Heavenly Father establishes His purpose as our purpose. He initiates a work in us whereby the preeminence of Christ becomes the default position, as it were, of our newly enlivened spiritual being. We become a new and different person within, “created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). The Spirit of Christ dwells within us, and works in us “both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). The Savior matters to us, and deep within our redeemed being, our Heavenly Father’s Christ-centered intention becomes the guiding purpose of our own existence. “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Romans 7:22).

Alas, however, the default position of our flesh remains inclined toward “gone astray” and “everyone to his own way.” “The flesh lusteth against the spirit” (Galatians 5:17). God allows our imperfect faculties and members, as inherited from fallen Adam, to remain with us. Thus, we remain strongly susceptible to forgetting, ignoring, and even rejecting the centrality of the Lord Jesus. We can live as if life is about us rather than Him. In such times, we swim against the tide of our redeemed and Christ-inhabited being, experiencing the consequences of our unbelief in joylessness, lack of peace, and the sense of being untethered from the central hub of our life and being. “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop” (Psalm 102:7).

This is written as a simple reminder of God’s purpose, and our purpose. The glory and revelation of the Lord Jesus guides His intentions and doings. To the degree this same purpose guides us also will be directly proportional to our sense of rightness, peace, and joy. We will not be perfect as is our Heavenly Father, but we can seek to grow in remembrance that “to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). May the Lord grant much grace in keeping, as a good friend often says, “the main thing, the main thing, and the first thing, the first thing” (Thanks, Larry!). The preeminence of Christ in all things – this is God’s intention, and His gift of sublime grace to our hearts makes it ours as well.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

“God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:1-3)