God’s Purpose In Christ

(Ephesians 1:9-12)

Purpose is an important thing. We need a purpose to get us motivated; to get us out of bed in the morning. Purpose drives us forward, and God designed a purpose for man in Christ Jesus.

I have written in other places about hope, and hope is also about purpose. So we shall look a little at hope in this post as well.

Once we understand God’s purpose in Christ, and add this to the need for hope, we can begin to get an insight into our purpose in Jesus Christ. We are not following Him randomly. There is a definite purpose to our faith, just as there is a definite purpose in the will of God for man through His purpose in Christ.

God’s Purpose In Christ

God created man in the beginning to rule the whole earth. But man failed through the deception of the devil and the self-indulgence of sin. Man was deemed unworthy of a place beside God and so man was cast out and away from His presence.

However, God is forgiving and He did not reject man completely. Throughout the early history of mankind, God did find rare individuals who were worthy of His help and consideration. He found Enoch, Noah, Abraham, David and many others.

So God defined and developed a process by which man could return to God. God wanted man to be reconciled to Him and this was what He sought to achieve for the sake of those who sought Him out.

God accomplished this reconciliation through Jesus Christ. This was God’s purpose in Christ.

The scriptures today teach us Little about God’s purpose in Christ as we see here.

9 For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:9-12)

God’s purpose in Christ began at the beginning of time and will not be completed until all has been accomplished that He has set forth to take place. He has planned it so, that in the fullness of time, His purpose will succeed.

We see in these verses that it was God’s intent to unite all things in both heaven and earth through Jesus Christ. This is why we on earth are able in Christ Jesus to be born again, not of man, but of the Spirit. We cease to be physical beings in the eyes of God when we enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we become spiritual beings in His eyes.

We do not see this yet, but we are indeed sealed as members of the spiritual realm through Jesus Christ, according to God’s purpose in Christ.

Prophecies were given to the prophets of old who spoke of the coming of the Christ who would redeem all mankind. The work of redemption is the great work of God in Jesus Christ and was God’s purpose in Christ.

The process of redemption was to take away the sin of all mankind IF they would come to Christ to be redeemed through His sacrifice. God established the means by which our sin could be removed, not just forgiven, but taken away completely.

When Christ died as the perfect and sinless sacrifice, His death was offered to all mankind to take as their own by faith, and so die to sin and the condemnation that exists under the law. By removing sin and the law, God set man free in Jesus Christ to reconcile man to Himself.

This is God’s purpose in Christ for mankind: that we should believe in the one whom He sent and so receive salvation. That we should believe in Jesus Christ and receive life.

Hope

But this salvation and redemption is not something that we can see. We cannot touch it, take hold of it or feel it. We must believe and know that when Crista returns, we will be with Him. We must have faith NOW that we will receive His blessings.

This requires us to hope in Him.

We hope in Christ Jesus that all the promises of God for man will be delivered in accordance with His word. And as we hold fast our hope we discover purpose.

Hope and purpose are inextricably linked.

We do not hope for something that we already have, because…well…we already have it! Likewise a purpose in life is not about something that we have already received or achieved, but is about things yet to be received, done or achieved.

Both hope and purpose are future oriented. They are not about the past or the present but the future.

Those who have purpose have hope, and conversely those who have hope have purpose. In both cases people with hope or a purpose can see what WILL BE rather than WHAT IS. They see beyond the here and now and can look towards something yet to be realised.

As Christians we understand that we hold onto our hopes in Jesus Christ through faith. It is faith that enables us to hold fast to our hopes. And the third element in this process is understanding the love of God that enables us to enter into His grace and so receive the promises of the Lord.

Our Purpose in Christ

And so we see that in all of these things, there is firstly God’s purpose in Christ, and that our means to achieve this is via hope. Thus, through hope we find our purpose in Christ as well.

Our purpose is to believe and have faith in Jesus Christ. This is the first step.

The second is to learn all that Jesus gave and still gives for us to learn so that we can grow into the image of Jesus Christ.

The third purpose is to learn how to be like Him in ALL our ways. This is the aim for all Christians: to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, as we are told in Matthew 5:48.

But this will not happen overnight. It is a long process to attain perfection in the eyes of God. But that is the purpose He has set before all of us, and we can only do that by learning all the Jesus teaches us in His bible. We cannot live with God into eternity unless we are perfect as He is perfect, and He set forth the process in and through Jesus Christ.

God’s purpose in Christ was our redemption, and to be fully redeemed is to eventually come into the perfection of God Himself.

The long journey to achieve that place may span beyond our physical lifetimes, but it will be a path that we must all tread and find eventually if we are to come into the presence of God the Father.

That is why we need hope. That is why we must hold fast to our faith. And that is why we must remember that the same God who defined and established this process for each of us personally is the same God who offers unlimited love and grace to ensure we achieve His purpose in Christ for us. This is His will for us; to be redeemed and He established this as God’s purpose in Christ.

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