Purpose Study Guide

Purpose Study Guide

The Purpose of Life

Study Guide

by

Urstoff Love

The Purpose of Life

Study Guide

by

Urstoff Love

Good Place Publishing 2018

The Purpose of Life Study Guide

One way to state the purpose of life: Seek and allow God’s continuing creation in our hearts and, through our lives, in the world.

Seek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Allow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Continuing Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 In Our Hearts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Through Our Lives in theWorld . . . 12 How GraceWorks I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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Seek

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 4:29

And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. I Chronicles 28:9 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7: 7-8 In our hearts we choose what we seek . The Bible tells us over and over again, that we can find God if we seek him. God wants to continue creating good things in our hearts and through our lives. If we seek this from God, we will find it. Seeking God this way is the reason we are created. Seeking God this way gives us better lives than any other thing we can seek. Choose to seek God’s life in your life.

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

1. What would it mean to you to seek something?

2. How have you ever sought God?

3. What reasons would you have for seeking God?

4. What would it mean to you to have God’s life in your life?

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Allow

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the one to be born will be called the Son of God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her. Luke 1: 35 & 38

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Matthew 23: 37

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Matthew 26: 36-38 After we seek God’s creation in our lives, we next need to allow God to work in our lives. We allow God to work, which is different than doing the work ourselves. In a way, we would feel better if we did the work ourselves, but that is not how God does it. God wants to do good things for us. If we choose not to let God work in our lives, he won’t. Our work is to seek God’s grace. Then we allow God to work in our lives. God then creates something in our lives that we never could have done on our own.

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

1. When have you noticed God doing something in your life?

2. What part - if any - do you feel that you played in allowing God to work in or through your life?

3. What might God want to do in your life now?

4. What can you do to allow God to work that way in your life?

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Continuing Creation

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people. Luke 2: 49-52 This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernal in the head. As soon as it is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come. Mark 4: 26-29

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen . ii Peter 3: 18

Everything living thing God created grows. We are created to grow and develop.

People are unique among everything God created because we can choose to participate with God in our continuing creation. We are not given the ability to create ourselves to any great extent. We are given the ability to seek and allow God’s continuing creation in our hearts and, through our lives, in the world. When we seek God’s continuing creation he does all sorts of really great things in our lives that we never could have done for ourselves. That is how we grow. Definition: The theological term for God’s continuing creation is Grace

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

1. When do you feel like you are in this all on your own?

2. When have you realized that good things have come into your life apart from your own effort?

3. Where in your life do you feel that you are growing and developing?

4. What desires for growth and development do you have?

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Review

One way to state the purpose of life: Seek and allow God’s continuing creation in our hearts and, through our lives, in the world.

Seek

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 4:29 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7: 7-8 We are created with desires, both simple and profound. God fills the world with things that fulfill our desires. Give us this day our daily bread. They are all meant to lead us to God, who alone satisfies all our desires, from the simplest to the deepest. God tells us that when we seek him in any of these ways we will find him. finding God we find the peace and the love, the excitement and the adventure, the daily support for our living, that we all desire.

Allow

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her. Luke 1: 38

“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Matthew 26:38

By seeking God we admit that we don’t have in ourselves, that we can’t get for ourselves, what we neely need and deeply desire. Ultimately we are seeking God’s life in our lifevs. this is what we are created for. Nothing else feels quite right. God often responds to our seeking in ways that we didn’t anticipate and maybe even don’t really want. God’s ways are always best for us, whether we realize it in the moment or not.

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,” declares the Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55: 8-9

By faith we believe that God knows better than we do, and we trust that God only ever always wants and works for what is good for us. So when we seek God, we trust and accept God’s thoughts and ways, allowing God to work in our lives. We are created at a level where we can participate with God in continuing creation - both in our hearts, building up hearts of love, and through our lives, building up peace, love, justice, and balance in the world. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people. Luke 2: 52 This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. Mark 4: 26-27 Some little bit of this we can do on our own. Although even that ability has been given to us - we didn’t create ourselves with those abilities, God did. God also created us with the ability to seek, receive, and allow God’s continuing creation in our hearts and through our lives in the world. That is our purpose in life. Living that life gives us the greatest joy and peace, bringing the most good into our own lives and into the world around us. Continuing Creation

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In Our Hearts

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4: 23

The heart is devious above all else, it is perverse - who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17: 9 nrsv

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51: 10

A heart of love leads to a life of love and shalom. In order to have a heart of love we allow the grace of God that seeks us out over our whole lives to build up a heart of love in us - which leads to a life of love and peace. Then we continually seek further grace, allowing it to continue building up hearts and lives of love. A heart of love - towards God, towards people - fulfills every law, every command.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love , I am only

a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love , I am nothing.

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love , I gain nothing. I Corinthians 13:1-3

Anything seen as success on its own, apart from love, is a failure. Speaking perfectly, understanding everything, a life of self- giving service. All of these wonderful things apparently can exist apart from a heart of love. None of them - apart from a heart of love - has any value. We seek grace, allowing God to work in our lives, to build up hearts of love that we otherwise won’t have.

1. Where have you noticed that “success” in some area - without love - has very little (if any) value?

2. When have you experienced love in an unexpected way that stood out and meant a lot to you?

3. How do you think God wants to continue building up your heart of love?

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Through Our Lives in the World

Praise the Lord . Praise the Lord , O my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, who cannot save.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them - the Lord , who remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord .

Psalm 146

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

Nobody - you, anyone you know, people with great power and abilities (“princes”) - can accomplish on our own the kind of good in the world that God can accomplish. Even if someone has great plans and works hard, when they die their plans pretty much die with them. God’s plans for the world, described in the second part of Psalm 146, include bringing good to all kinds of people. God’s plans never die. When we seek and allow God to continue creating through us, we become part of God’s eternal plan to help the oppressed, feed the hungry, to care for widows and orphans. God will work through us to build up good places wherever we live - to a much greater extent than we ever could do on our own. In so doing, we will join the work that began before we were born and will continue after we die. As we seek and allow God’s continuing creation in our lives, God continues this work in the world through us.

1. When have you felt that God was working through your life to build up shalom - as described in Psalm 146 - in the world?

2. How do you feel God calling you to be involved in building up shalom somehwere?

3. Ask for God’s guidance and grace to see and do what God has prepared for you.

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How Grace Works 1

Q. What does God’s grace produce? A. A heart of love, a life of shalom.

How does it produce these?

Grace is when God does something for us that we can’t do for ourselves. God creates us to be both recipients of grace that blesses us, and transmitters of grace that blesses others. God creates this world to be the Place where we receive and transmit grace, where we build up hearts of love that lead to lives of shalom that produce Good Places. God fills this world with things that God will use in our lives (tools, means of grace). God uses these things (tools, means of grace) to build up our hearts of love, lives of shalom, and Good Places.

That’s how God’s side works. On our side, it works when we

choose to participate in this,

when we choose to seek out and participate in God’s life of grace, when we choose to allow God to work in and through our lives. It’s a choice. It’s our choice. God sovereignly chooses to allow us to choose to do what God doesn’t want us to do.

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The Purpose of Life Study Guide

God doesn’t want us to choose things that aren’t good for us or for others; but God will let us make and live out those choices. God allow us to seek good. When we choose to seek good, God’s grace attends our way, and God will bring good to us and to others in ways we could not think up or cause to happen on our own.

1. When have you noticed God causing a greater good than you intended through one of your good choices?

2. When have you felt the negative consequences of poor choices?

Hear, O Lord , when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also on me, and answer me. When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, O Lord .” Don’t hide your face from me. Don’t put your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Don’t abandon me, neither forsake me, God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me your way, O Lord . Lead me in a straight path, because of my enemies.

Psalm 27: 7-11

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Copyright © 2019 by Scott Myers

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