God's Purpose - Your Purpose

Scripture — Genesis 1:1-2; Psalm 19:1

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

Devotion

This is the first devotion in a series I’m calling God’s Purpose – Your Purpose. The point of this series is to help you, through regular biblical reflection and prayer, know your life’s purpose in light of God’s purpose for all things, including you.

God’s purpose is revealed to us throughout the Bible, though certain passages are particularly relevant. Genesis 1 is one of those passages. It doesn’t say explicitly “This is God’s purpose,” but it does reveal God’s actions at the beginning of time. And these actions, especially when interpreted by the biblical writer, show us a great deal about God’s purpose, including God’s purpose for humankind.

Genesis begins by proclaiming that God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). The first chapter goes on to describe how God created all things and what God intended by creating them in this way. For example, Genesis 1 emphasizes how God made the world so that it might be fruitful: “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind that bear fruit with seed in it’” (1:11). It seems clear that part of God’s purpose in creating the world was that it could become fruitful. Fruitfulness is central to God’s purpose.

God also made the world a place of order, grandeur, and beauty. This can tell us more about God’s purpose in creation. For millennia, the people of God have reflected on what this reveals to us. The writer of Psalm 19, for example, writes, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:1). Creation itself announces God’s glory to humankind, yes, and to everything that exists.

This insight has led theologians to affirm that part of God’s core purpose in creating all things is to reveal and celebrate God’s own glory. Sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin, for example, spoke of creation as a “most beautiful theater” composed of “the clear and manifest works of God” (Calvin, Institutes 1.44.20, Beveridge translation). “Therefore,” according to Calvin, while it becomes human beings seriously to employ our eyes in considering the works of God, since a place has been assigned to us in this most glorious theatre that we may be spectators of them, our special duty is to give ear to the Word, that we may the better profit” (1.6.2, Beveridge alt.). Creation is a “most glorious theatre” in which we observe and celebrate God’s glory. God created all things for the sake of God’s glory.

When I was younger, I wasn’t comfortable with that idea. I had been raised to believe that it was wrong to seek my personal glory. I still believe this. If you discovered that my main purpose in writing this devotion was to enhance my glory, you would be rightly concerned about my motivations. But I am not God. (I expect you didn’t need me to say that!) When it comes to seeking glory, God plays by altogether different rules. Given the unique and magnificent glory of God, it is utterly appropriate for God to demonstrate divine glory. (This is not only for God’s benefit, by the way. As we’ll see later in this series, knowing and celebrating God’s glory helps us to flourish as we fulfill our purpose in life.)

So, we might rightly conclude based on God’s creation that one of God’s central purposes is to reveal God’s own glory. In a profound sense, creation is a “glorious theatre” in which we see and marvel at the creative majesty and wisdom of God. Yet, developing the theater analogy a bit more, our role in the theater isn’t only to sit and marvel. We are not just God’s audience. Rather, we are also actors on God’s stage. We have a crucial part to play in what happens in the God-glorifying theater. Genesis 1 will help us understand this part, which I will examine in tomorrow’s devotion.

For now, let me encourage you to consider the glory of the created world and how this reveals God’s own glory and therefore God’s purpose. Yes, this world has been marred by sin. We see this in multiple ways. But the fundamental order, grandeur, and beauty of creation haven’t been obscured completely. It is still true as the psalmist once wrote, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” Thus the heavens help us to discern the purpose of God.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: God Brings the Material World into Being (Genesis 1:2).