Radical Purpose: God has created, called, and gifted all people for radical purpose.
We don’t take pleasure away from God by destroying His original masterpiece and his specific purpose in our lives—so be yourself. We aren’t looking for any perfect people! We want broken people to connect to their purpose and we want to equip them to lead from imperfection and humility—ordinary people doing extraordinary things for God. He created, called, and gifted us for radical purpose. It’s our mission to expose and equip people to live for that God given purpose.
On a trip to Tanzania, the Africans were curious about how my life in the States compared with their life in Tanzania. I described how I could be involved in activities or events every night of the week, while their lifestyle was simple and unhurried. I longed for their lifestyle. Then, it was brought to my attention, the Tanzanian’s concern was not managing calendars, arranging carpools, and juggling activities but making sure their family had food for their next meal. This experience opened my eyes to see the flurry of activities I called living, were blinding me to life’s essentials and purpose.
Someone once said, “If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”
We make our way through life, continually adding one more event to our myriad of activities and call it living. Though many events are good, soon we lose sight of what we are doing or why we’re doing it. We are like a bottle at sea, driven by the next wave of events or stage of life. We lack meaning. We lack purpose. Unfortunately, Christians are not immune to this malady. We are thankful for our salvation. We are busy with our “Christian” activities, yet in living life we miss the purpose of life. But, God has created us for MORE!
Psalms 139:13-18 gives us four essentials to guide us in living the life God has created us to live and shows how to live with Radical Purpose.
➔Living a life of Radical Purpose is my acceptance of how God created me.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)
The Prophet Isaiah uses the potter molding his clay to shape our understanding of how meticulously God creates each of us. “And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8). The God, Who made the universe and everything in it, carefully forms each one of us with His own hands. God’s majestic creation of each of us is so far beyond our comprehension that we doubt it. Even though God takes special care in our creation, we might not like how He has configured us. To begin living with Radical Purpose, it is vital to accept God’s well thought out creation of each of us. Resist the temptation to look at others and think I’m better or I’m not as good. God does not compare you with others. He only thinks of His purpose for you. Pray with Jesus for the acceptance of how He created you. This acceptance will bring the freedom to be the you God so carefully created.
At Real Life, we genuinely want you to be yourself. The poet Oscar Wilde said it best, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” Come with warts, smelly feet, addictions, differing ideas about God. We accept you just as you are because that’s what Jesus did for each of us at the cross. “Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory” (Romans 15:7). You might feel broken, inferior, or out of step, but those are the individuals God uses most because He receives the greatest joy in seeing people far from Him come very close to Jesus. Join us as we go on the extreme ride of Radical Purpose and discover how God plans to use our lives for His kingdom right here at Real Life!
➔Living a life of Radical Purpose is my expression of worship for God’s greatness.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. (Psalms 139:14)
The creation always reflects the creator. God created us in His image, which means we represent Him and we reflect Him. When the potter makes a clay bowl it shows evidence of the creator and the creator’s fingerprints cover the creation. God’s fingerprints are all over us–They cannot be separated. This verse focuses on the greatness of the Creator, not the creation. Our problem is we come to the conclusion, we are the greatest thing since the invention of the Internet, the Xbox, or flip flops. We are so ingrained to believe and live as though the story being told is all about us. A great story is being told but it is the story of Jesus Christ. We have the unique privilege of being created as God wants in order to have a unique role in Jesus’ story. A role that only we can fill. Jesus’ story is significant, immeasurable, and eternal. When we understand God’s Radical Purpose is to abandon any other pursuit, then we live with direction, we reflect Jesus, and we worship the Creator with our lives.
Join us each Sunday at Real Life because it is a focused time to worship the Creator’s greatness. But the Gathering is more than that. It is intended to be a Launchpad of worship to rocket us to a lifestyle of Radical Purpose for Jesus in our homes, schools, places of work, and community. At Real Life, we will not limit God. We want you to grasp how the Creator made you with an intense love, placed His fingerprints on you, and gave you a Radical Purpose to tell His story. We will be there to assist you, encourage you, and cheer you on to live a life that expresses the greatness of the Creator.
➔Living a life of Radical Purpose is my understanding of God’s unique mission for me.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (Psalms 139:15-16)
God knew you before you were born. God knew the day your life would begin. God knows the day your life will end. God knows His purpose for you between birth and death, because His Radical Purpose is no accident.
Like a piping hot cup of Radical Purpose on a bitter, cold day of meaninglessness, Paul asks us to slowly sip these words, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10). Not only does God weave us together as He desires but when we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, God makes us a new creation in Jesus. The word used here for “masterpiece” means “poem”. As we accomplish the purpose God wants, we become His poem for our life to be read as an expression of Jesus.
What would the poem of our life be, if we allowed Jesus to write it? This is our life mission to let Jesus write His poem in us and then to speak it into the lives of our family, our co-workers, our neighbors, our community, our church. Will you place the pen of your life in the nail-scarred hands and let Jesus continue to write His poem through your life?
➔Living a life of Radical Purpose is my response to God’s love for me.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me! (Psalms 139:17-18)
The description of God’s love for us is so stunning, King David says it seems like a dream. He awakens to find it is not a dream or “fake news” or an exaggeration, but the reality of God’s love for each of us. God’s thoughts toward us are priceless and incalculable. Our God is sooooooo much bigger than we can fathom and we must continually allow our minds to be sponges that soak in the love of God. I would venture to say each of us have questioned God’s personal love for us. These doubts causes us to stumble in our pursuit of Radical Purpose. We may feel we have blown it, Jesus could never love or use us, or we are not worthy of His love. However, with incredible assurance Jesus clearly tell us, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.” (Romans 8:31). Some of us may be tempted to think that I’m not as bad as others, and I generally do the right thing. The good things we do will not cause Jesus to love us more and the bad things we do will not cause Jesus to love us less. At this very moment, with all the good, bad, and ugly in our lives, we have all the love of God we will ever have or need!
The time is now. The setting is here. The community is Real Life and the people are you and me. On center stage is the uncreated Creator who continually proclaims His magnificent, never-ending story. Alongside, the Creator is His creation continually trying to tell their tiny, temporal stories apart from Him. Jesus Christ has created us exactly the way He wants so that He can write His poem in us to boldly proclaim His precious story. That’s Radical and that’s Purpose!
Unless otherwise noted, all verses from: Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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