May 12, 2013 … Kingdom Purposes

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 132

 Passage of the Day: Psalm 144: 4 [In the context of verses 3-4 ] [NLT] … 3 O LORD, what are mortals that You should notice us, mere humans that You should care for us? 4 For we are like a breath of air; our days are like a passing shadow.
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Contextual Study for today’s passage: Psalm, Chapter 144 [NLT] … Go to this link … 
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Reference Passage #1: 1st Corinthians 15: 58 : [Making life have meaning for eternity!} … [NLT] …  
58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. 

Reference Passage #2: Luke 4: 18-19 : [If it’s good enough for Messiah, it’s good enough for God and way good enough for mankind, … a restatement of the prophesy of Messiah’s earthly mission from Is. 61: 1-2] … [NLT] …  
17 The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says:  
18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” 

My Journal for Today: Walk up to the edge of the ocean with a tea cup in your hand. And if your life were all you can fit into that cup when compared with the expanse of the ocean’s volume in terms of eternal value, what value would your life be, … fitting into that little cup?

Well, if that life where dedicated to the mission of God’s kingdom, no matter how small it was compared with God’s eternal kingdom, it would not have been in vain (see 1st Cor. 15: 58 copied above). And we can know that our life has as much eternal value as possible in this life by seeing if our life fits somewhere in the mission statement of our Messiah, which was prophesied for Him over 700 years before He was born on earth and restated by Jesus Himself to God’s people when He announced that He was Messiah and that He had come to earth to fulfill Messiah’s mission.

Go back and read what Jesus declared was His mission by reading and mediating on Luke 4: 18-19 which Yeshua, HaMashiach, read from God’s word that day, reading in the Synagogue from Isaiah 61: 1-2, and declaring that on that day the people had heard and seen the fulfillment of those words. It was a mere tea-cup of a moment; but in the reading of those words of promise from God, if the people were to match their lives to what Jesus read to them; and if they were to see their lives somewhere fitting into that mission statement, they would be able to say that their tea-cup of a life would have kingdom value.

 So, what about our lives as we try to take a tea-cup’s volume to the ocean? When you read Luke 4: 18-19, do you find what we do day-after-day-after day fitting into Jesus’ mission statement? Are we preaching the “Good News” to the poor of heart? … Are we helping to release those captive to their own sin to walk free in Christ? … Are we living to help the spiritually blind to see God’s path in life? … Or … are we helping the downtrodden to walk free from the oppression of their spiritual enemies?

Because, if we are doing nothing to fit into those kingdom purposes, our lives, which fit into that tea-cup of volume, have little meaning. However, … if we find ourselves, and what our lives are all about, fitting somehow into the mission statement Jesus stated for Himself as Messiah, then whatever we do has great value for God’s kingdom; and we need to keep on keeping on, no matter how small the tea-cup of our life appears to be in comparison with the vastness of God’s ocean of eternity.

My Prayer for Today … Lord, You fill my cup everyday with Your purpose. … Amen