Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, excruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging his claim to be God.
Next, as Jesus took all of mankind’s sin and guilt on himself, God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in total desperation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus could have saved himself—but then he could not have saved you.
Words cannot describe the darkness of that moment. Why did God allow and endure such ghastly, evil mistreatment? Why? So you could be spared from eternity in hell, and so you could share in his glory forever! The Bible says, “Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.”23
Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything. He died so you could live forever. That alone is worthy of your continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for.
DAY FOURTEEN
THINKING ABOUT MY PURPOSE
Point to Ponder: God is real, no matter how I feel.
Verse to Remember: “For God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.’”
Hebrews 13:5 (TEV)
Question to Consider: How can I stay focused on God’s presence, especially when he feels distant?
PURPOSE #2
YOU WERE FORMED FOR GOD’S FAMILY
I am the vine, and you are the branches.
John 15:5 (CEV)
Christ makes us one body…connected to each other.
Romans 12:5 (GWT)
15
Formed for God’s Family
God is the One who made all things, and all things are for his glory. He wanted to have many children share his glory.
Hebrews 2:10a (NCV)
See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children, and we really are!
1 John 3:1 (NLT)
You were formed for God’s family.
God wants a family, and he created you to be a part of it. This is God’s second purpose for your life, which he planned before you were born. The entire Bible is the story of God building a family who will love him, honor him, and reign with him forever. It says, “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.”1
Because God is love, he treasures relationships. His very nature is relational, and he identifies himself in family terms: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Trinity is God’s relationship to himself. It’s the perfect pattern for relational harmony, and we should study its implications.
God has always existed in loving relationship to himself, so he has never been lonely. He didn’t need a family—he desired one, so he devised a plan to create us, bring us into his family, and share with us all he has. This gives God great pleasure. The Bible says, “It was a happy day for him when he gave us our new lives, through the truth of his Word, and we became, as it were, the first children in his new family.”2
When we place our faith in Christ, God becomes our Father, we become his children, other believers become our brothers and sisters, and the church becomes our spiritual family. The family of God includes all believers in the past, the present, and the future.
Every human being was created by God, but not everyone is a child of God. The only way to get into God’s family is by being born again into it. You became part of the human family by your first birth, but you become a member of God’s family by your second birth. God “has given us the privilege of being born again, so that we are now members of God’s own family.”3
The invitation to be part of God’s family is universal,4 but there is one condition: faith in Jesus. The Bible says, “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”5
Your spiritual family is even more important than your physical family because it will last forever. Our families on earth are wonderful gifts from God, but they are temporary and fragile, often broken by divorce, distance, growing old, and inevitably, death. On the other hand, our spiritual family—our relationship to other believers—will continue throughout eternity. It is a much stronger union , a more permanent bond, than blood relationships. Whenever Paul would stop to consider God’s eternal purpose for us together, he would break out into praise: “When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth.”6