God's Purpose = God's Will

In one sense, you are always living in God’s purpose. God is God and He works all things, including your life, according to his purposes. Nothing can happen without God ordaining it.

Psalm 57:2 says, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” This is key in understanding God’s purpose for your life. God has numbered your days and will fulfill every purpose He has for you.  SOURCE:  Cornerstone.edu

This is where it gets interesting because if we believe that NOTHING CAN HAPPEN WITHOUT GOD ORDAINING IT...  then, what is the point of having free will and/or choice?

For Example:

Did Judas willingly betray Jesus or did God ordain that Judas betray Jesus...  BECAUSE...  without the betrayal of Jesus, there would be no arrest, no trial, no conviction, no crucifixion, no resurrection...   NO CHRISTIANITY...

So, one might speculate that it is God's Will that there would be a Christian Faith...  and, that this Christian Faith is based upon the crucifixion and resurrection of JESUS...

Do you then think that the betrayal of Jesus by Juda was COINCIDENTAL?

Can you say for absolute certainty that GOD does not control MANKIND's behavior like HE controlled the behavior of Judas?

Of course, one must first believe that the behavior of Judas was being controlled by GOD...  which is why we started with the concept that nothing happens unless GOD ordains it.

SO...

if you are religious and believe in the basic tenants of Christianity, then you purpose is completely and totally predicated upon the God's Will and what HE wants to happen to you...  even though God has bestowed all of mankind with FREE WILL and CHOICE.

PURPOSE unfortunately has nothing to do with Free Will and Choice, if it is God's Will that gives us purpose or Individual Will that gives us purpose...

AND...

can you still be religious and believe in the tenants of Christianity is you also believe that your purpose is your own purpose and has not been ordained by God or by God's Will?

DID GOD...

simply make sure that Christianity was established here on earth and then back off with HIS OWN WILL for mankind?

FOR INSTANCE:  

If it was pre-determined that I personally end up where I am today regardless of me making any choices as to the direction of my career...  then, it would have been pointless to believe that the choices that I was making were my own...  and, I would be forced to think that I was being manipulated like Judas by God.

On the other side of the coin and because God is omnipresent both in the present and in the future, then God was simply aware of where I was going to end up before I got there and the choices that I made were, in fact, my own.

The Butterfly Effect

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the study of chaos—states of dynamical systems whose apparently random states of disorder and irregularities are often governed by deterministic laws that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

Using these two concepts (chaos theory and the butterfly effect) let me propose an idea to you that from the OUTSET will be completely CONTROVERSIAL...

If we have ever attended a Church Service, we have heard quite often that JUDAS betrayed JESUS CHRIST and therefore by default must be considered an evil person and condemned to HELL or worse...

BUT, without JUDAS, there would be no arrest of JESUS, no trial of JESUS, and no crucifixion of JESUS... and, without the crucifixion of JESUS there would be no burial and resurrection of JESUS... and, without the resurrection of JESUS there would be NO CHRISTIANITY that survived decade after decade after HIS death.

This is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of the BUTTERFLY EFFECT... one thing happens because something earlier happened first.

JUDAS had no choice but to betray JESUS... that was GOD'S WILL... and, had to happened so that other events were then set into motion and GOD'S WILL could be accomplished.

JUDAS caused CHRISTIANITY to take place... so, why should JUDAS be seen as EVIL?

Dividing My Life

I can divide my life into 5 unequal (in terms of years) segments:

First --  is my life before high school  (0-14)

Second --  is my life in high school (15-18)

Third --  is my life in college, the military, and back in college (19-25)

Fourth --  is my professional career (26-67)

Fifth --  is my ongoing retired life (68-current age)

Throughout my entire life (up to and including right now) my faith has been with me, not as some sort of flashing beacon illuminating the way, but as if it were a coin or good luck charm in my pocket.  For many reasons, I do not believe in institutionalized religion nor do I think that the various Christian Denominations ARE A GOOD THING, especially since if you do not believe like they do, then you ARE ABSOLUTELY WRONG.

This is not how faith was supposed to be experience...  at least this is my opinion.

A lot of people say that they live their faith but if you were to put a microscope to that statement, one would see that this is not true at all.

I live my faith but not in my witnessing and not in my going to Church and not in my Bible Readings and not in my prayers...   BUT, in my realization that,
first - my life is a gift from God
second - whoever or whatever that I am or have become is God's Will

In short, I acknowledge God as MY CREATOR and I accept that GOD'S WILL is being done here on earth regardless of whether or not we like the outcomes.

I don't pray for forgiveness
I don't pray for my good health or others
I don't pray for an end to violence
I don't pray that the US military win wars
I don't pray that I will be successful
I don't pray that I will be happy





WHAT I PRAY FOR AND ACKNOWLEDGE IS THAT GOD'S WILL BE DONE HERE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN...  wherever heaven might be....

I do this because in the Bible Jesus told us to use THE LORD'S PRAYER when praying to his father...   it is just that simple...  and, to me, very few people have followed that advice...   and, you would not believe how long some of the prayers I have listened to are...

I have no idea if I am correct in this analysis, but it is my analysis nonetheless.