Day 35 ~ The Purpose Driven Life ~ God’s Power in Your Weakness

Christ’s Overriding Example

 

The greatest danger that Christianity presents to the individual lies in creating a self-serving religion. Egocentric grounded faith.  I wonder how many times our prayers replicate a shopping list. We approach the throne of the most almighty high God and quickly rattle off something along the lines, “Holy and most gracious Father…” without any real thought or worship only to get to our shopping list?

While preparing for today’s message which will follow this introduction, the overriding thought which came to me was, “What was the main feature, character that Christ displayed throughout his ministry?”. The all-encompassing image he left us with? It would be good, to stop for a moment and interacted with this, before reading further think about this?

What would you say, apart from all the doctrinal objectives that we are continually flooded with, what would you say was the one overriding feature or characteristic that flowed across the whole ministry of Christ from birth to death. Try to disregard all the “Wows!” and focus mainly on what His life message was excluding the main objective. Stop here and think about this for a moment.

Did you notice that everything he did, lived and died for was external to his own requirements; The glorification of the coming Messiah is proclaimed throughout the old Testament. His reward is given to him through the lips of the prophets in prophetic words uttered by God’s anointed prophets.

The record tells us that Jesus started his ministry with his first miracle when his mother asked him to help with the wine at the wedding ceremony. Then throughout his time on earth, he is mainly doing miracles at the request of those around him. Other than that he is proclaiming his deity, and there are many occasions when he slips off to spend time with Father. What he would do on this earth had been foreseen by God’s anointed prophets and encapsulated in the covenants which God had made with his people.

Jesus, indulges in almost nothing for himself during the whole of the record we have available. Jesus’s intercessory prayers and actions have to do with the people around him.  His only self-serving actions relate to his proclamation of deity and the fulfillment of the prophecies from the writings of the old Testament. And that can be argued was again for the benefit of his disciples and all of mankind.

I will make a very bold statement right now, “Jesus Christ from birth to death did nothing else than;
that which was the will of Father God;
served those in his immediate vicinity;
and ultimately for the whole of humanity itself.
There is nothing that he did or requested that was self-serving!”

Further, I would say, “Jesus Christ was sinless and perfectly in alignment with God the Father.”

My challenge to you is, “Prove me wrong?”  Remember this is a Blog, please indulge yourself?

The Silence of all the records on Jesus having sinned is Testimony of the Truth of his total sinless nature!

The complete silence of the records namely Jewish, Islamic, the Roman records, and any other records that the evil one may have wanted to introduce are a resounding continual witness to the fact “That a sinless, innocent man died on the cross at Golgotha. When total darkness fell on the earth that afternoon, the ground shook, the curtain in the temple tore from top to bottom, and a vicious Roman centurion soldier proclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

The message and example set by Jesus is having a totally selfless life in as far as God and man are concerned. That along with a continual relationship and conversation with God is what our lives should ultimately be.

Rick Warren in Chapter Day 35 of  “The Purpose Driven Life”, essentially concentrates of not being hindered or shackled by our inadequacies. This is the human condition.

It is probably true that the most limiting factor that hinders us is our inability to fully comprehend the limitlessness of our God. We tend to project our limited abilities onto God although we know and proclaim his omniscience.

The Bible in the old Testament, due mainly to the limitations of language and knowledge at the time of writing, still falls short of a full declaration. The truth of the matter is our limited comprehension of science proves this very fact.

Some 15 years ago science is now proclaiming that there is intelligent design. And Darwin’s evolution theory is nothing but a man-made theory. Wow, what did the Bible have to say about that?

Here is an interesting discussion that attacks the religion of  Darwinism. Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design | Jonathan Wells, PhD ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0BdziP3HBs&t=739s

Don’t get hung up on your weaknesses. Know your weaknesses, but remember that you are part of God’s kingdom, you are part of bringing heaven to earth, understand that you serve a limitless God, and not limitless as you understand it, limitless beyond your wildest dreams.

Changing what you are by living out Christ is often the greatest testimony that you can give.

God can work his best for you when you are in your worst situation.

Changing and delivering miracles is what God does best. When things seem impossible it is then that God can really work the greatest miracle for you.

We must never limit God. He may not give us what we planned in the way that we planned it.

Jesus although he commanded the Heavenly realms, he demonstrated all his power outward. He used his power to benefit everybody and everything around him. His display of power was never selfish. He took nothing for himself. His life was a display of endurance and steering the course. Focused on the glorification of the Father. His greatest aim was to reconcile man with God. Spoken of him as a servant of man, son of God. His focus was directed away from himself all the time. What Jesus did makes us look at Him. But he is pointing at God. He is doing for man what man is/was incapable of doing for Himself.

We are incapable of living without sin, We are incapable of living in perfect alignment with God. He comes and lives that perfect alignment in our place.

Throw yourself on Christ and you’re weakness will become a proclamation of victory for the glory of God.

Further study material ; http://www.purposedriven.com/day35/