"What is my purpose?", we ask ourselves as we go through each stage of life. Many in today's world constantly struggle with this question and look toward many avenues in order to answer this question. They will search little snippets of various religions (Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism), pop-evangelical literature (Purpose driven life), and most often their emotions to determine their purpose. The hope is that by researching and practicing these ideals, one will by their own will be able to discern the reason one is here on earth. However, this research ends up forgetting one, unalterable fact: the sinful flesh.
No matter how hard one works, studies, or meditates, they will never be able to fit the bill. They have a cancerous disease that permanently separates them from their God and eliminates the chance of perfection, or even a chance for moving up the ladder. Due to original sin, each human being has no good identity, but SINNER!
As individuals search for their purpose, they do so with an identity of SINNER and that identity does not do much as one stands before their Lord every morning. However, the Scriptures, point us to an identity that gives each person a purpose that goes beyond all other forms of pop-culture and doesn't even require us to do anything. And that identity is as God's Child that is proclaimed to us every day, not because of our decision or our work, but through a a few simple words, and a little water that came up on our head, which we call, HOLY BAPTISM.
Each day we start not as one's who are sinners, but as one's claimed as His Own and called to fulfill our vocation at each stage of life. This leads us to the question of the Christian life, not necessarily what is my purpose, but what does it mean to be a baptized child of God every day?
This will be the foundation of every blog posted, what does my Baptism mean every day and what does it mean from a confessional Lutheran point of view. As we continue on this journey, we will dig into God's Word, the Lutheran Confessions, and viewpoints from other religious views. May God Bless our time together as His Children under the cross of Christ!
3 comments:
It is a blessing indeed to be able to drown the inner brat by returning to baptism. This affords the ability to go forth in peace with our Father for whatever struggles the day presents.
Thanks be to God. †
Thanks David. Christ's Blessings to you and your vocation. Hope to continue in dialogue in the future.
The LLL gave my husband a business card that say, " When you wash your face remember your Baptism. " Martin Luther I'm not sure he actually reads it everyday but it is on his mirror were he shaves. I moved it out of the bathroom into our computer room after he got home from the hospital. He's in a wheel chair now and not at all happy about it. It's only been 9 months so I guess it's a little too early for him to see how on earth God could turn this for his good. At this point he's still angry with himself and with God for letting the devil still kill and distroy the joy he hoped for in his retirement years. He's not an easy person to live around 24/ 7 so I guess the purpose might be that the more hell on earth we experiance the greater blessing death seems to be and Heaven starts looking pretty good at this point. I know we've surely broken down and done our share of begging to God, just asking Him to let us die so we can get free of all this.
Remember when St. Peter tryed to walk on water and went down ? Remember when our Lord reached out to save him and put him back in the boat, that's our hope too, that God will save us too and come put us back in the boat we were in before.
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