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Finding Out God's PurposeThis is my testimony, my own account of my experiences that I open to you. For me, life was always just the time I spent between waking and sleeping in the pursuit of my own interests, hobbies, and enjoyment. I wanted to have money to buy things, I wanted to have a nice car, I wanted a good job. I was not searching for the meaning of life or anything like that. However, what I discovered was something so enormous, so wonderful, and to me quite frankly, so logical. How did I, with so little thought of God, learn of His purpose? How did I see that my past had been so empty, and my future is so abundant? The church is how and why. The church, made up of all believers everywhere, is not what I knew it to be. In the past, I knew the church as the building where my parents went every Sunday, sat on wooden benches, read prayers from a book, and listened as the leader of the church spoke about the Bible. And in downtown Washington D.C. there was another huge church, the National Cathedral. A friend of mine went to another church just down the street from our church, except they had guitars and cool little statues that they could put in their cars. Another friend of mine was Jewish and he also went to a different church. I came to know the church as something totally different. The church is not the building or any organization. The church is people, the church is living, the church is organic (2 Peter 2:5; Ephesians 2:19-22). The people are the church, and Jesus Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 1:22-23). Every member of the church is a living member of Jesus Christ. The church is a single body of many members. Jesus Christ is God incarnated, God become man. God became a man for a specific purpose. The reason why God became a man was to recover man to Him. Man had fallen at Satan's hand and was corrupt. Man is sinful. God is totally sinless and He cannot be in any part of sin. So, God needed a sacrifice for all of man's sin so that man could be redeemed and recovered by God. Jesus Christ was this sacrifice for man in order that God might recover man back to fellowship with Himself. God as the man, Jesus Christ, lived a life of low social status, poor, and mocked by God's own chosen people, the Jews. He was beaten, slapped, and crucified. What a sacrifice God made as a man in Jesus Christ. Jesus was totally without sin, but was put on the cross to pay for all of our sin. He died for our sins on the cross. He rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven, thus becoming the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45b). Now He as the Spirit was imparted into me when I believed and was baptized. I became one with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:12). The Spirit was mingled with my human spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). This is God's ultimate purpose, for man to be one with Him. When I put my natural fallen life to death in baptism, I enjoyed the Spirit in my human spirit and being one with God. And now I am being knit together in spirit (Ephesians 4:16) with all the believers who have been brought back to God that we as members of His Body, the church, might express Him in our localities here on earth. Praise Him! Bill Corey | Back to List |
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