This Same Purpose

We often impose our cultural values onto the Kingdom of God and do damage as a result. Movement, revival-oriented Christianity often can only see God in the signs and wonders. We pray and beg for God to send his manifest presence to our churches and our cities, forgetting that he is already here. Forgetting that we have jobs to do—and by jobs, I’m referring to both our 9-5s and whatever other ministry assignment God has given us (but often those two categories are one and the same).

Sadly, many of us in the Western Church today have taken it upon ourselves to do impressive things for God, and it’s eating us alive. We’ve allowed the cultural values around us to infiltrate their lives and their communities by osmosis—and we don’t even realize what’s happened. We need to evaluate our priorities and redefine success based on biblical standards, not cultural ones.

In the story of the bronze serpent, the LORD doesn’t take the serpents away as the people ask. Rather, he allows the serpents to remain and gives the people a way to live, only through his provision and mercy. He allows them to live with the reality that they are dead already, that death is the only starting point they can create for themselves, and that the Lord is the source of life and everything else.

We will all have times when the Bible disturbs us. But we will also have times when we are already disturbed by life, and we will find unexplainable comfort in those same Scriptures…the question is, will we trust the Scriptures to discern the condition of our hearts better than we can, and will obey their instruction in response?

What do we, as people of faith, do with doubt? As much as we don’t like to admit it, everyone has it. Even seasoned followers of Jesus. How do we explain how the world works, our place in it, and what it all means? How do we answer, “Is God enough?”