09.13.09

Purpose-Driven?

Posted in formation, mission, pilgrimage at 5:30 am by len

I have good news for you – God loves you and doesn’t have a wonderful plan for your life. At least, not in the way you expected.

Moreover, he isn’t waiting for you to discover your true self by virtue of following a purpose driven framework.

No, he is looking for something much more substantial – the death of you and the birth of your self in Christ.

Out of that death something wonderful and unimaginable will be born in a partnership between you and the Holy Spirit. As one ancient writer put it,

“Religion may be defined by the name of life, because it is an inward, free, and self-moving principle. Those who have made progress in it are not actuated by external movites, driven by threatenings or bribed by promises or constrained by laws.. It may be called a divine life… having God for its author, and being wrought in the soul by the power of his Holy Spirit; but also in regard to its nature, being a resemblance of the divine perfections, the image of the Almighty shining in the soul..”  Henri Scougal

And how does all this relate to mission – because of course, the work of the Trinity is at the heart of everything in creation and redemption. Seng-Kong Tan put it like this,

“God creates and missionizes from his overflowing fullness, freedom and love… It is only in our relation to Christ, the God-man that, by Christ we become what we were created to be, viz. truly human. Moreover, we are also recreated to be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), i.e. to participate in God’s divine light, communicable holiness, and relational life through the energies of the Spirit. As holistic self-relation and relation with others proceed from our relation with God, so genuine human missions must arise from true contemplation. Prayer and missions are not in competition. “On the contrary”, according to Jean Daniélou, “mission appears as the self-unfolding of contemplation.”

“A Trinitarian Ontology of Missions.” International Review of Missions, April, 2004.

4 Comments

  1. Naomi Craig Johnson said,

    September 13, 2009 at 6:59 am

    ““mission appears as the self-unfolding of contemplation.”…
    “God creates and missionizes from his overflowing fullness, freedom and love…”

    Exciting, huh? who would have thought that HE could birth & born things from out of the death of The 3rd Way… (or rather, to think that WE could birth & born, from any other soil?)

    I was drawn back to your site today Len, after a few year hyatus (both in the inferno/furnace & in
    The 3rd Way:~)
    Good to visit again. I”ve peeked around a bit, gained lots of riches… Thnkx for your great work here.

    “No, he is looking for something much more substantial – the death of you and the birth of your self in Christ.”…

    I think we have to remember, along with this, that ‘each one receives only what is given from above’, including the grace of death.

    “In Father’s House are many dwelling places,” all constructed with various degrees & styles of building materials (wood, straw, hay, stubble, along with silver, precious stones, gold, etc). To each one, grace is given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

    I’m discovering the importance of that word — given.

    :~) Blessings!
    of the Matt 5 type,
    naomi/toronto

  2. len said,

    September 13, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    He fathers forth whose beauty is past change– praise Him!

  3. bloggers on the Congress said,

    November 26, 2009 at 9:39 am

    [...] And this life and work for justice has real value — God genuinely loves and cares for this fallen world, and will love and care for the world in spite of its response. If nothing else, Matthew 25 should instruct us that God’s care for the poor has no conditions attached. God in Godself overflows with self-sacrificing love, pours himself out for this world knowing it might reject him. Ultimately we embody the love of God in our communities not because we know that love will transform the world, but because this is the nature of God. Ultimately mission appears as the self-unfolding of contemplation. [...]

  4. » the end of Christendom? ::: Fresh & Re:Fresh said,

    December 6, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    [...] And this life and work for justice has real value — God genuinely loves and cares for this fallen world, and will love and care for the world in spite of its response. If nothing else, Matthew 25 should instruct us that God’s care for the poor has no conditions attached. God in Godself overflows with self-sacrificing love, pours himself out for this world knowing it might reject him. Ultimately we embody the love of God in our communities not because we know that love will transform the world, but because this is the nature of God. Ultimately mission appears as the self-unfolding of contemplation. [...]