a young reformed blog designed to edify

A life without divine purpose is dull. You can always tell if the life you are living, that you would diagnose as purposeful, has a divine source or not. Persecution, trials and the sort test what kind of purpose you have. Do not assume you have divine purpose by the mere schedule you partake in. Your calendar can say, “Sunday: Church, Monday: Bible Study, Thursday: Community Outreach, Everyday: Devotional”. Divine purpose always outflows from a tender heart towards God. Is your heart in that state? Is it indifferent towards tenderness? Ignorant of what a tender heart towards God is? Angry at the thought of tenderness towards God?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, I plead with you to read Deuteronomy 8. Here are verses 11-20:

11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions mand thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

In the passage, you will see a grace calling out to all people to honor God and the blessing that comes with that. In it you will also see the curse that comes with not honoring God. Romans 1:21 comes to mind:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Here, God is laying out two paths for man. One leads to a tender heart, the other towards a a hard heart. There is no indifferent heart as a third path. No middle of the road heart. An indifferent heart is a hard heart. It is insensitive to “the things of the Spirit”. So how does this tie in with having divine purpose instead of a worldly purpose?

Remember, the life of worldly purpose can have the same exact schedule as the life of divine purpose. Check your heart within the activities, habits, patterns and relationships of your life. If your heart is indifferent towards God and hardened towards Him, you will eventually get exhausted and there will be no energy outside of your schedule to love on people. You know how we can only have a spiritual energy in planned spiritual activities, but no overflowing joy that comes from Christ alone, whatsoever, when we are outside of our church bubble? That’s a possible litmus test as well.

May God be honored by our tender hearts and sweet affections for the crucified Christ Jesus.