Summer 1990

Purpose and Design for Living
John Wright Follette

It is important for us to have an objective towards which to focus our thinking and living. Having the right objective will help us to adjust ourselves to our life in the flesh. More important, it will teach us how to make adjustments to live our real life in the Spirit.

We are, at all times, living in two very different worlds. Not only are we living in a physical realm, but we have been born into a vast spiritual realm. In this realm of the Spirit, we are to make discoveries so that through the truth we find there, we can make our adjustments in preparation for the ages to come.

We are not to confuse the idea of our Purpose, or of our Design. They are not synonymous, but absolutely different. These are hard to define, but can be by showing the differences. A "destiny" is an appointed, destined experience or point toward which all of us gravitate or move. We do not have any control over it; it is a destined thing. It cannot be earned, it cannot be avoided or put away; it is fixed.

For example, trial or trouble in life is something we are all very familiar with. It is something to which we are destined. "Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward" Job 5:7. How do sparks fly upward? By a law. We cannot avoid trouble, therefore we must learn how to interpret trouble and receive from it the benefits that the Lord desires us to have.

It is appointed unto man that he die. It is a destined thing. Every man will stand before either the great white throne judgment, or the judgment seat of Christ. We cannot change these things, nor can we avoid them. We are to accept the things that are destined and live in a right perspective to them.

Our "objective" is the goal that is set before us, which will require from us effort, faith, and an intensity of spirit in order to reach it. It clear demands everything there is of us to obtain it. A "destiny" is not obtained, but an "objective" is. Our objective is that which will call forth from us the thing which God is expecting us to surrender to, to give ourselves to, to center our focus of life towards.

Crowns are never given as souvenirs, but they are won. We will carry into eternity only that which God has wrought within us, here. Jesus said to watch and pray that we might be worthy (have the spiritual vigor) to escape the things which are to come. We do not get this in a week, but if we will become subject to His discipline and what He is trying to do in us, we will have it. If not, we may have a beautiful salvation, but no vigor or strength to go through the storms of life. Spiritual vigor is very costly. Jesus said "watch and pray" that you might have it.

Heaven is not an objective, it is a destiny. The religious works that presently occupy our attention are not to be our objective. It is the thing which holds our interest while the Holy Spirit, through these works, may operate upon us.

All of our ministry, all our efforts, are purely reactionary. It is not what we do, but rather, it is our intended purposes that the Lord looks upon. The apostle John was called "The son of thunder," and the Lord used it for awhile. Then the Lord took that lovely spirit that he was and isolated him, detached him, and put him on the Isle of Patmos. The Lord put him there until all of the thunder was gone from within him. Then the Lord came and revealed to him the marvelous Book of Revelation. There is plenty of thunder there, but it is not John who is thundering.

God called John as a son of thunder, not because He wanted him to thunder at all; rather He chose him for the "love and devotion" that he had within him. He wanted him to surrender that capacity to Him until it went through a process of death. We are blessed today by the thunder of God through John, far more than we could have been blessed otherwise. Thus, it was not a question of thunder, but rather that of our love and devotion. When he was reduced we hear him say, "Little children, love one another, for God is love."

God has never changed the objective for which He has made man. He made Adam from the very beginning and placed before him the objective that he might glorify God. Man is made, not to serve and work, but to glorify God and to give Him praise.

Note the following Scriptures: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" I Cor 10:31. And, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" I Peter 4:11.

Thus, our objective is to glorify God. How? We can only glorify God by doing His will; wherever the will of God is manifest, God is glorified. The Scripture says that the heavens declare the glory of God. Why? Because they were made to glorify God. Then He says to us, "I have made you, that if you will let Me get hold of your life, you too will glorify Me." It is the will of God for every one of us to glorify Him.

How will we do this? In the realm of the Spirit, where you and I are called to live, there is no distinction between secular and holy. Everything in any life that is dedicated to God is holy, not secular. So we offer our little life to Him, and if we will, we can take whatever we are doing and glorify God.

The will of God is the medium through which and by which we will glorify Him. It will be as different as we are different. The will of God for one is never the exact will of God for another. He will never ask you to give account for the things I must account for. He only deals individually and specifically.

God knows us; He knows before we are born what His will be for each one of us individually. We may defeat the purpose of God, or we may embrace it. We can defeat it through self will. If I surrender to Him, He will take me in His hand and cause my life to glorify Him and transform me into His image and likeness. "God has made us what we are, creating us in Christ Jesus for the good deeds which are prepared beforehand by God as our sphere of action" Eph2:10, Moffatt.

This gives my orientation. I am to glorify my God. How? "I have a design for your life. You may not like it; it will make no appeal to the creature that you are, for this old creature lives in the flesh realm and would seek another pattern, but My pattern will do two things: if you will embrace it and walk with Me, you will glorify God, and attain to my objective for you through all that I put into your pattern. All this will be reactionary, it will shape you into the image and likeness of My Son."

You may love the will of God, but you cannot always enjoy everything that is in the will of God. Jesus suffered "things" for the joy that was set before Him. There will be difficult things for the correcting and building of us. Sometimes He lets all heaven loose. Sometimes He lets the devil at us and we would think he would chew the life out of us. Another time we are in the seventh heaven with a lovely revelation only to come down and find ourselves in the wilderness.

But in all we are to glorify Him. As we learn to do this, His will for our lives will bring us through to full maturity and identification with Him.