The Same God

*THE SCRIPTURE USED TODAY  Isaiah 493 He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.” 4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;   I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,    and my reward is with my God.” 5 And now the Lord says—   he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him   and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord  and my God has been my strength —6 he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.I will also make you a light   for the Gentiles,(non-Jewish) that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

*MY INTERPRETATION: (A conversation between the Lord and Isaiah) “You are my servant, my personal attendant. I will show others you are not ordinary by no means.”. Isaiah replied, “I have struggled for no reason; I have depleted everything within me for nothing. Up until this moment, you’ve held on to all I deserve and You are the only one that even knows it.” The Lord responds, “ the one who created me inside my mother to be His personal assistant, to gather and bring Israel back to Him, He has honored and strengthened me. Him, that One, is the One who asks you, ‘ ‘is it beneath you to assist me in reinstating Israel’s (those who I have protected) back to their previous right, to their homeland?’ (I am telling you that) You will also help the non-Jewish people understand they too can be delivered from sin & it’s consequences up until the point that the earth is no more.

*MY RESEARCH & REFLECTIONS OF THE PASSAGE APPLIED TO MY LIFE

I am called to assist God personally and to stand out from others. At times, I will feel as if my struggles to stand out or be different or not conform to my surroundings, have been for nothing and quiet frankly, not worth the effort. But I KNOW, it is through those moments that you will validate me because you know the struggles I have faced.

You will remind me that the same God who created Jesus to assist him in bringing Israel back to Him, the One who honored and strengthen Jesus, is the same God asking me if I think I am above helping in the same request? Is it beneath me to remind Jews, their promise land is waiting for them? Can I not take the time to tell the non-Jews they can avoid the consequences of sin by accepting my deliverance? Surely God is not asking too much of me, if he made the same request to His Son.  

*DEFINITIONS REVIEWED: servant a person who performs duties for others, esp. a person employed in a house on domestic duties or as a personal attendant.. display make a prominent exhibition of (something) in a place where it can be easily seen.: exhibit, show; splendor magnificent and splendid appearance; grandeur; impressiveness, luxury, fineness, glory, beauty, elegance (not ordinary,simple or modest) labored done with great effort and difficulty.strained, difficult, forced ,laborious, slave away, struggle, strive, work like a dog; vain spent having been used and unable to be used again, consumed, exhausted, depleted; strength state of being strong Yet up until the present or a specified or implied time; by now or then.; due a person's right; what is owed to someone. rightful treatment, fair treatment, just punishment in  that is or appears to be enclosed or surrounded by something else. inside, within, in the middle of; reward a thing given in recognition of one's service, effort, or achievement, prize, award, bonus, gift payment light understanding of a problem or mystery; (enlightenment- .give (someone) greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation, inform, tell, make aware, open someone’s eyes, notify)salvation deliverance from sin and its consequences, reach stretch out, hold out, extend, outstretch,ends  a final part of something,conclusion, termination, ending, finish, close

Understand Our Purposes

UNDERSTANDING OUR PURPOSES

(Proverbs 20:5) The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters but a man of understanding draws them (his purposes) out. (Emphasis throughout this article has been placed on the plural of purpose, so keep in mind, we have more than one purpose in this life.)

(The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters): What are purposes? Purposes are the goals or deepest desires a man intends to accomplish. What are deep waters, well, that may take a little more than one sentence to explain?

Deep waters according to www.windows2universe.org  are found in oceans where depths can reach up to 32k feet. The water continuously cycles through different zones between the surface water and deep water. This cycle is called the conveyor belt cycle and the zones consist of the sunlight zone and the trenches. The sunlight zone is where the most sunlight touches. The trenches have water less than zero degrees and yet life still exist there. The deep ocean waters make up 90% of the ocean’s volume. As the surface water becomes colder and the salt density increases the surface will then sink into the trenches. The temperature of the surface water has a greater effect than salinity on determining when the water sinks into the trenches.  

                How can this relate to our lives? While we are in our sunlight zone we see possibilities and our destinations. We have visions and things we want to accomplish. Sometimes we lose our focus; we get cold and stop sharing the gospel with others. This in turn allows the ‘salt’ that we are supposed to be to the world to build up within ourselves. Once our hearts become colder and the salt density increases in our lives, we begin to sink into the trenches.

While we are in the trenches we lose our focus, forget the real purposes we were created for, and no longer resolve to accomplish the deepest desires of our soul. This is a continuous cycle that we repeat. There are times we in the sun light zone and could never imagine being in the trenches and there are times we are in the trenches and feel we will never see the sunlight zone again. But just as life still exist in the trenches, so does our purposes.  

Our purposes are lodged deep within your spirit. These desires propel us to live a life that matters, to fight to get back in the sunlight zone. Living a life that matters occurs when we are passionate about our purposes. The passions we are given are there to meet a need in today’s world. What are your passions? When is the last time you thought about them or spent time developing them?

(but) I once heard a speaker at a conference state that once a person uses the word ‘but’ in a statement, everything before it is irrelevant. The definitions I found for the word ‘but’ are: contrary to expectation, except that or for; in spite of or despite of. So this says to me that in spite of the fact that our purposes are not always easy to reach, because they are so deep within us, we have the capacity to grab a hold of them.

(a man of understanding) To have an understanding is to have the ability to learn, judge and make decisions. We must discern our purposes by taking the time to gain self-knowledge and come to a realization that our purposes were given to meet today’s needs in some way. Comprehending and mastering the skills necessary to achieve the desires we are passionate about must be intentional. It will not simply stumble upon us.

 (draws them out) To draw out our purposes requires a deliberate effort. We must first formulate the purposes by gathering data or evidence about ourselves in order to gain insight into those ambitions.  We must pull out, take or extract thoughts and desires we have hidden deep in our souls for fear of letting others see them or fear of failing at achieving them and mentally create what they would look like if we actually did them. Once we accept the purposes we were created to achieve and begin to act on them accordingly then we will also begin to draw to us ideas that will help us accomplish those desires.

While researching this topic, I came across Think Simple Now by Tina Su and she provides an article titled 15-questions-to-discover-your-personal-mission. It is a step to help get you started if you want to discover your purpose. (I have not reviewed her entire website, but I think these questions are relevant to my discussion.) 

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