It's Good to Remember God's Ultimate Purpose: The Salvation of Our Souls

If we don't understand that or think on it often, we will assume that when our daily problems are not solved promptly, that God does not care or that he has abandoned us.

This is simply not true.

However, if our expectations are too small of God, we will misinterpret our life and the difficult situations we face as evidence he doesn't consider us often.

The crowd that followed Jesus throughout his ministry and the crowd that cheered for him during his entry into Jerusalem that last time on a donkey were unclear on God's ultimate purpose.

They assumed Jesus simply came to do away with the Romans. They assumed Jesus might make their tax burden better or that he might secure them more rights for trade and commerce and religious practice. They thought Jesus might be a new Solomon and establish a new era of Isrealite domination in the region and abundant living.

But Jesus didn't come to do any of that. Not because he didn't care. Not because he didn't love them. But exactly because he did love them so much more than they could understand then.

Jesus came to save them from much bigger things. He came to attack the root of the problem and fix things at a much deeper level.

Jesus went to Jerusalem to be arrested, to suffer and to die so that he could take our punishment for sin, pay for everyone through his death, and the rise again three days later. In this way, he accomplished God's ultimate purpose for them and for us: the salvation of our souls.

We may get frustrated that God doesn't fix our many daily problems. We may feel that God doesn't care because he allows certain suffering and pain to remain for a time in our life. However, when we zoom out and remember God's greater purpose is to get us safely to his side forever, for us to trust and believe in Jesus alone, then perhaps we can grasp, even in a small way, that God is drawing us to himself for the long haul through smaller challenges and greater victories.

He wants us to stay with him through the night in the garden, even throughout the trials, and yes, even for the cross, so that we can rise with him and leave our grave empty forever.

Have greater expectations. Don't give up hope. If he did that for us, he will do even more. Trust the ultimate purpose in the process.

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Grave and peace, friends.

- Titus Buelow

Pastor at St. Peter's Helenville & Founder of Underground