No this is not a post about Rick Warren. I have nothing against him, and I recognize that God has used him. Nevertheless the purpose driven logo has become something of a standard among churches. If we are not careful we can become purpose driven about being purpose driven and all the while we miss our purpose.
Lately I have been reading the classing book Through Gates of Splendor by Elizabeth Elliot. It is the gripping story of five missionary martyrs in the jungle of Ecuador. After weeks of preparation the men were ready to set up a beachhead in order to contact the Auca Indians--a notoriously violent tribe that was un-reached.
Just before they left, Elizabeth "reminded Jim of what we both knew it might mean if he went. 'Well, if that's the way God wants it to be,' was his calm reply. 'I am ready to die for the salvation of the Aucas.'"
With that it was settled. But that did not mean Elizabeth and the other wives stopped considering the possibility. She writes:
The other wives and I talked together one night about the possibility of becoming widows. What would we do? God gave us peace of heart, and confidence that whatever might happen, His Word would hold. We knew that "when He putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them.' God's leading was unmistakable up to this point. Each of us knew when we married our husbands that there would never be any question about who came first--God and His work held first place in each life. It was the condition of true discipleship; it became devastatingly meaningful now (170).
Now that's purpose: a husband and wife ready to part on this earth for the salvation of savage peoples. Sometimes we would not cross the street for our neighbor's salvation. Yet purpose--true purpose--takes us wherever we must go and die if necessary for the salvation of human beings made in the image of God. When has the cost of discipleship been devastatingly meaningful to us?
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