Purpose and Pursuit!

Purpose and Pursuit! 

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Philippians 2:13 NIV

As I read today's extract, something strikes me as very important, and it is the last part of the verse under consideration: his good purpose. That statement controls the entire verse under consideration. Long before I was even thought of by my parents, and even before they came together, God already had a plan for me. I was not an afterthought, with direction, impact and destination all sorted out after I had been born. No, the bible says that all the days appointed for me were written down in God's book even before any of them came to pass. That is how powerful God is, and as a consequence, how powerful his purpose is. My greatest discovery then is to know what this good purpose of God is. I will not find it by accident, but I will also not find it by human wisdom and strength.

It is called 'good' because it comes from a good God. It gets interesting when you consider all that is happening in the world and you ask if God can indeed be good if there is so much evil in the world. I think of this: the fact that God gave man the power to choose between good and evil is itself a powerful thing. He could have made us all robots and compelled our obedience, but because he wants us to love him of our freewill, he gives us the grace to choose him by ourselves. That is power, as well as responsibility, which I must be careful how I exercise. It is called 'good' also because it is all that God has to offer. You cannot give what you don't have, and you cannot expect the world to give you God's version of good since it does not have it. Only God does, and that is why God is good. It is all he has and can give. 

The temporal and the earthly are not the standards of measure for what is 'good' from God's perspective. As I live in this sinful world, things will happen that may not look good, but because I am limited in power and understanding, I will not see the full picture on this side of eternity. I cannot arrive at a conclusion about my present experiences until I fully understand the eternal reality behind those experiences. Men have given up and turned back from following Jesus simply because they could not wait to see the end results of their experiences. God's good purpose is such that nothing of earth can stop or hinder it, because it is defined, set up and worked out by God himself. I am yet to see anything sorted out by God fail to achieve its purpose. It might fail in one person's life due to that person's disobedience, but God purpose will not fail due to his inability to bring to pass that which he has already defined. 

In that light, the other parts of the verse above make sense. Since God has already defined his purpose for me, he is best positioned to know all the materials required to bring that purpose to pass. He knows the right mix of trials, tests, troubles and triumphs that will bring me to the place of the fulfilment of his good purpose. And that work is first internal, before it is ever external. The world defines its impact by the things it can see, feel, hear, taste or touch, but we know how deceptive the physical senses can be. God works in me, but the effect of that work cannot be hidden or ignored. That is why God's inner work is manifest in my being willing and being able to live in line with God's good purpose. 

God will not force me to align with his purpose, but he makes a compelling case for me to listen to him. He is not asking me to just follow him blindly, but He has laid out very clearly what I stand to gain from him. He supplies the inner strength and the outer power to align with God's good purpose. His work in me does not have an expiration date, as I can see from today's extract that the working is in the continuous tense. He does not do part-time jobs, and he does not have partially completed projects. If he is able to start it, he can complete it. He makes me willing to obey, and he supplies grace for me to obey him completely. As I cooperate with him this way, I am fulfilling God's good purpose. My pursuits will line up with his purpose. I am not distracted by other people's 'success' because as long as I am in the centre of God's will, I am eternally secure. Nothing the world offers can beat that. God's time of favour is here.