God’s Divine Purpose for Life

“You are called into existence in order to reflect and display the glory of God. To render visible God to the world...”

— John Piper paraphrasing Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

There is great meaning for life within our mortal existence, but it can only be seen through the kaleidoscope of faith—and not simply of any faith, but of the redemptive faith of God in Jesus Christ.

Everything, literally everything, hangs on the fact that everything is for God’s glory.

The very moment we encapsulate that knowledge within our minds, absorbing it intentionally within our hearts, we begin to open ourselves to vision well beyond our mortality. This life is not simply about us.

This life and the life to come are all about God.

When we come to entertain this fact, to willingly surrender before it, God is able to show us there is purpose in pain, frustration, hopelessness, and despair. There is even a purpose in our sin. Everything we loathe about life has a Divine purpose and meaning, just as everything we love about life has a Divine purpose and meaning. Even our boredom has purpose.

Leading the Irresistible Life

Once we are on board with God’s Divine purpose for life things that once made no sense begin to make sense. Confusion gives way to curiosity. We assume wonder at the mysteries of God and we hold that in tension with our wonder about the parts of our lives we cannot accept.

In surrendering those parts of our lives we cannot accept, we receive grace, which comes formed as an acceptance beyond our understanding. Suddenly we have power to accept the unacceptable, and we have no explanation for this. It is a miracle.

Leading this irresistible life, which is a life solemnly surrendered for God’s glory, where we have learned to habitually give over those things that break us (or threaten to), we know new life. Actually, we have learned to live for the first time.

This is why this life is irresistible. Once we have a taste of living for God’s glory, accepting our purpose to live in Divine obedience as far as possible, and seeing the purpose in the bewildering, God affirms us, and we know this irresistible life is the only way.

This irresistible life climbs above all manner of tumult and tragedy and finds an incomprehensible meaning—the glory of God, which is a meaning we cannot even grasp—and the rights for hope for sustaining the day are given. We are blessed!

The grace of God in this way can be impossible to explain; just experienced, and experienced by faith.

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Our sole purpose for living this life is to exemplify, reveal, and magnify the glory of God. And such a God we have, that the more broken we are the more glory we can bring to our King.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.