4 September 2019 - on purpose

Today's Readings

(Audio)

"To the other towns also
I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God,
because for this purpose I have been sent."

Jesus is clear about his purpose. He does lay hands on each person sick with disease and cure them. But he won't just stay in that place treating the symptoms again and again. The Kingdom of God is something more important than these healings, something of which the healings themselves are only a sign.

Yet let us imagine if we ourselves had a ministry of healings. Or perhaps we do. The Spirit certainly gives such gifts even in our own day. We would delight to see the results of healings in the lives of others. Wouldn't it be challenging to move on as Jesus does? And Jesus is infinitely more compassionate than are we. It is not that he doesn't have great love for the people who want him to stay. But he knows his purpose. He will not prefer even very great lesser goods. What power it must be to know our purpose with such certainty.

for this purpose I have been sent.

Jesus wants to help each of us to know and understand our purpose in his Kingdom. One aspect of this purpose is the fruit we bear.

Of this you have already heard 
through the word of truth, the Gospel, that has come to you.
Just as in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing,
so also among you

We know the fruit of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (see Galatians 5:22-23). God's purpose in us is to maximize that fruit using the special gifts he gives for the special tasks he assigns. These are the "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (see Ephesians 2:10). These, then, are not any arbitrary good works. They are a special plan for us. He has chosen and called us just as he did Jeremiah.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations (see Jeremiah 1:5).

To really draw strength from our purpose we need to ask God to reveal it to us. Often that revelation does not include the whole grand design, but simply the next step, and perhaps the next. This is enough. Jesus needed only know that other towns also were his purpose. May the LORD give us the discernment to listen to his will for us.

I trust in the mercy of God for ever.