For all human beings, the failure to comprehend and embrace a sense of purpose and value is not merely debilitating, it can be deadly. Think about it. How many times have you read about people who seemingly “had it all,” yet made the tragic decision to end their life. Perhaps you yourself have faced such debilitating disillusionment with life. Maybe you’re dealing with this very issue now. Believe me, God cares. There is hope. The symptoms, causes, and cures for this malady appear in multiple places throughout the Bible, but . Acts 1:8 offers the antidote to the poison of insecurity, hopelessness, and despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God created every human being for relationship WITH him, not merely \u201chead knowledge\u201d OF him. He wants to pour his love and kindness and forgiveness and mercy not merely ON us, but INTO us\u2014so that we might be channels of his love and kindness and forgiveness and mercy to the other humans around us. Jesus reminded his first followers (those who had relational knowledge of him) of their purpose and value, namely, they were to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). They were to show Jesus to the world\u2014not merely by telling<\/strong> people ABOUT Jesus but by wearing<\/strong> Jesus before them. THIS is every human being’s primary calling and purpose in life: \u201cTo know Him by the Spirit, and by the Spirit to make Him known.\u201d Our success in life (and the satisfaction and peace of mind that ensues from it) depends entirely on the extent to which we embrace and live out this calling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The beauty of God’s plan for our lives is this: He has given us the POWER to do it. That \u201cpower\u201d (that is, the \u201cenablement\u201d to be like Jesus, not a \u201cforce\u201d to control others) comes from God\u2019s Holy Spirit. But we must “take” what he is giving to us. It will not be ours until we receive it. And we \u201creceive\u201d it by faith in the One Who promised it (namely, Jesus) and by obedient responses that demonstrate the genuineness of that faith. The early followers of Jesus received it on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4). God has made it available to all subsequent followers of Jesus. The question is: \u201cHow about you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For all human beings, the failure to comprehend and embrace a sense of purpose and value is not merely debilitating, it can be deadly. Think about it. How many times have you read about people who seemingly “had it all,” yet made the tragic decision to end their life. Perhaps you yourself have faced such…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biblical-themes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robstarner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}