40 Days of Purpose Wrap-Up
Landing Safely After a Spirtual High!
We've examined the question "What on Earth Am I Here For?" during our 40 Days of Purpose journey. To learn more about your life purpose, please read The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren, visit www.purposedriven.com or contact New Life Christian Ministries.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
My Prayer Today
Heavenly Father, Thank You for the 40 Days of Purpose! You’re activity among us during this special season of spiritual growth and renewal has been nothing short of amazing! Now, as we continue to follow You and do Your will, we ask that Your Holy Spirit continues to fill and empower us to be people who worship, fellowship, grow to be more like Jesus, minister and share the Good News of Jesus with the same passion and zeal as new believers! We pray that the way we live daily may be as those whose love and passion for you are fresh and new—make our love and passion for you fresh and new each morning for the rest of our lives! In that way, use us as light and salt in our world so that many, many others may become part of Your heavenly kingdom in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
An Illustration from Mount Everest
How we start on the next leg of our spiritual journey, especially if we have been on a spiritual high such as many of us have been during the 40 Days of Purpose? Let me ask you a question – what’s the highest point on earth? It’s Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet. Did you know that 1,300-1,600 people have summited Mount Everest? They’ve made it all the way to the top. People have been attempting to climb Mount Everest since 1921. During that time, 160 plus people have died, trying to summit Mount Everest. That means 1 in 8 who try to climb it die. And for that privilege, they pay about $60,000. It takes 90 days and 1 in 8 don’t make it back. What do you think that is about? Certainly it’s the attraction; it’s saying I am in a small group of people who did something unique. But there’s something about getting to the highest place that’s compelling. Let me ask you another question – is it more dangerous to climb Mount Everest, or to descend the slope of Mount Everest? The way I asked that question, you know the answer, right? More people have died descending than have died while trying to summit. And there’s a spiritual application to that. You have to be extra careful coming off of a high place.
An Illustration from the Weather
Let me ask you another question—in weather patterns, would you rather have a high-pressure system or a low-pressure system? You’d rather have a high pressure system. That’s where the stable air is. It is the low-pressure systems that bring the unstable stormy kind of weather. If we’re not ready for the inevitable lows of life, spiritually and emotionally, we’re going to be in trouble. But isn’t that true of life? Life is a series of ups and downs. Life is a series of highs and lows. In life we find both good and bad. Did you hear about the guy who was talking to his buddy and he said, “Hey, did you hear that John fell out of an airplane? His buddy said, “Oh, that’s bad.” The first guy said, “”No, he had a parachute.” The other guy said, “Oh, that’s good.” The first guy said, “Well, the parachute didn’t open.” The other guy said, “Oh, that’s bad.” The guy said, “No, there was a haystack.” The other guy said, “Oh, that’s good.” The first guy said, “No, there was a pitchfork in it.” The other guy said, “Oh, that’s bad.” The first guy said, “No, he missed the pitchfork.” The other guy said, “Oh, that’s good.” The first guy said, “No, he missed the haystack.” Now, that was bad. That was really, really bad!
Illustrations from the Bible
You know the highs are so good and the lows are so painful in life, that there’s something within us that just wants to hang onto the highs. We want to capture as much of heaven on earth as we possibly can. There’s a story in the Bible of Jesus on the mountain with his disciples and they had this unique, spiritual and I believe emotional experience. When Jesus was getting ready to descend the mountain, the disciples begged, “Could we just please stay here for a little longer?” We just want to hang on to the pieces of heaven on earth that we get, don’t we? There’s a story of a little boy, who had a pet turtle named Albert. One day Albert turned pale and fell on his back motionless. Here’s this little guy with tears streaming down his face and he carries the little turtle to his dad. His dad is the ultimate salesman and he knows in his mind, “I’ve got a sales job to do here on my broken hearted son.” So he takes the turtle, puts it in a shoebox and says, “Let me tell you son, this is the best thing that ever happened. This turtle is now walking around up in heaven. It is just so great. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’ll have a little funeral party and you invite all your friends. After we have the little funeral, we’ll have cake and ice cream and games for all your friends. It will be great.” This kid started to smile. So the dad knows—I need to really close the sale. He said, “Okay, so let’s go outside now, let’s have a little burial in the backyard, and then we’ll call your friends for the funeral party.” So they carried the shoebox out into the backyard. At just the last moment, the little boy opened the lid to take one last peek at Albert, and there’s Albert walking around like nothing had happened. With a little disappointed look on his face, the boy looks up at his dad and asks, “Dad, can we kill him?”
There is a spiritual point to that story. I’d better hurry and get to it. We want spiritual highs at any price. We do. We want to stay spiritually high, but let me ask you? Is it possible to stay on a constant spiritual high? No. No, it’s not. If your read the Bible, what you’ll find is that the Bible is a parade of highs and lows, one right after another. Just take some example—you know the story of Daniel. Daniel was very, very faithful to God—that’s a high. But because of his faithfulness to God, he was thrown into a den of hungry lions—that’s a low. But the lions didn’t eat him—that a high. You see the pattern? There’s the story of Jonah. He runs away from God—that’s a low. He is swallowed by a great fish—that is a low. But the fish vomits him up on dry ground—it that a high or a low? It’s a high…there are only two ways out of a fish. Go to the New Testament – you have Jesus and He’s at his baptism and His Father’s voice is heard from heaven –“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” That was a high. What happened immediately after that? He was sent into the desert for 40 Days of fasting and temptation, being assaulted by the Devil himself—that was a low. But what happened after that? He began His ministry of teaching about the Kingdom of God and transforming lives and performing miracles. That was a high. But then what happened? He was crucified. That was a low. But then what happened? He rose from the dead! And that was a definite high! Here’s what we know, because Jesus stayed faithful to God in the highs and the lows, it is in the highs and the lows that we will learn to become like Jesus.
How will we know if we’re on the right road? How do we get started on this journey. That’s what we’re going to look at tomorrow and throughout the coming week. We have invested 40 days in discovering our purpose in life, now we need to learn to apply those purposes: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and mission EVERY day. As we close today think about this:
Point to Ponder:
Spiritual highs and lows come to everyone!
Verse to Remember:
12Immediately the Holy Spirit compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness. 13He was there for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him. (Mark 1:13)
Action Point:
Think of a time in your life that seemed bad, but remember something good that God brought from it.
To view other preview studies from our 40 Days of Purpose Journey, click here.