"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Matthew 26:41
As presented on *The Lutheran Hour® by Dr. Oswald Hoffmann, March 20, 1960.
Tomorrow morning you will go back to work. Some of you will be off to factory or office. Others will begin their rounds, calling on customers. Still others of you will stay home to clean the house, care for the baby, or shop for food.
What keeps all of us so busy? What is the meaning of all this? If there is a purpose, where does it come from?
If life and history have a purpose, someone must have given them that purpose. The watch you carry in your pocket or wear on your wrist has an extremely complicated mechanism. Most of us do not understand it very well, yet we use our watches all the time. Why? Because they have a purpose—a purpose given by the man who made them and by us who use them. So our lives have a purpose, given by God who made us and shaped by the way we live.
How can we know God’s purpose? How can we become a part of it? Not by sleeping life away, nor by giving ourselves over to the mad pursuits with which people try to escape the reality of life. Life has purpose—purpose given by God. We become a part of that divine purpose only when we take God seriously.
You are invited to be Christ’s disciple by faith in Him. In this faith you will discover a new intimacy with God, a new steadfastness and purpose that only faith in Christ can bring.
Lord God, give us a sense of purpose in Christ. By the power of Your spirit, may we serve others in Your name. Amen.
Taken from A Message of Hope: Proclaiming the Cross (selections from messages broadcast on *The Lutheran Hour, celebrating 75 years of proclaiming the promise).
Copyright © 2006 by Lutheran Hour Ministries
*The Lutheran Hour is the longest-running Christian radio broadcast in the world. It is a production of Lutheran Hour Ministries. For more information, visit www.lutheranhour.org.
Today's Bible Readings: Numbers 5-6 Mark 13:1-20
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