Living with Purpose

The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. - I John 2:17

The fall colors are out in all their splendor this year. The bright yellow, red, and orange leaves are so beautiful. They are so vivid and really catch my eye as I drive through the neighborhood. As I look at the beauty, I try not to think of what is to come in the weeks that will follow. All of these brightly hewn leaves will soon turn brown and tumble to the ground. Once there, the work of cleaning them up begins. Mulching, raking, bagging, and hauling the leaves is a task that most do, but few look forward to. The leaves shine bright, but all to quickly come to an end.

This reminds me of I John 2:17, "The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." As we live in the culture and context of this world, many times the sins and temptations that are flaunted in front of us seem so attractive. They catch our eye and are alluring. From afar, there seems to be no consequence to living life for self, and to indulge in immediately gratifying behavior. There seems to be joy in frivolous living. Commercials show people with smiles, and social media shows only shadow of what is going on in someone's life. What we know, most likely from experience, and from Scripture, is that living in this way only leads to hurt, pain, and death. Not necessarily death like we might think--immediate loss of life, but death in a slow loss of hope and frantically searching for fleeting fulfillment. All the world can do is try to numb and mask hurts and chase a temporary and artificial high in life. Let us not be drawn to finely crafted, shallow, and empty lies of living for now, for all too soon the now is gone and is left wanting.

Let us instead seek to do the will of God. What an easy sentence to write, or a thought to think, but far harder to live out. To do the will of God in our life means putting our temporal desire on the side and to live for eternity. This is something that we cannot do in our own strength. Let us call out to the Lord for His strength. Let us ask Him to help us yield to the Holy Spirit that He has given to us and to live as new creations, remembering that the old is gone, and the new has come!