Exodus chapter 2
Today we are walking in: The Nature Of Purpose
Job 33:17
That he may withdraw man from his purpose H6213, and hide pride from man.
purpose
Today we look to the word-PURPOSE- H6213 ’asah--to do, work, make, produce; to act, act with effect, effect
The Torah testifies...............
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The prophets proclaim..................
Isaiah 14:26
This is the purpose H6213 that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
The writings bear witness...........................
Ecclesiates 3:1
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose H6213 under the heaven:
The Nature of Purpose
Plans may change, but purpose is constant.
When a child opens a package and finds a new toy that is not familiar to her, she will either sit and look at it for a while, trying to figure it out, or she will take it to her mommy or daddy and ask, “What it this? How does it work?” In both cases she is trying to determine the nature of the toy—what makes it fun to play with. This desire to understand the nature of something is an important part of learning.
The nature of a thing, by definition, is the “particular combination of qualities belonging to a person, animal, thing or class by birth, origin or constitution” or “the instincts or inherent tendencies that direct its conduct.” Thus, a study of the nature of purpose will reveal both the qualities that belong to purpose and the inherent tendencies that affect its behavior. Understanding the nature of purpose is an important prelude to discovering Yah’s purpose for our lives.
Purpose Is Inherent
When a manufacturer creates a new product, he lets the product’s intended use govern the design, function and nature of the product so that the fulfillment of its purpose is inseparably built into it. Purpose predicts the nature of something, and nature is that which a product inherently is. Nature is always given for the express purpose of executing the manufacturer’s reason for creating the product.
Say, for example, that a manufacturer wants to make something that will move products from one place to another. Before the machine can fulfill its purpose, the manufacturer must decide how it will move things. Then he must design that ability into the machine. The purpose of the machine thus becomes an insep arable part of its existence, because its ability to move things is built into the belts and the rollers of the design, which permits it to fulfill its intended use.
When Yah creates men and women, He designs them to fulfill their function and gives them certain qualities and characteristics that enable them to perform His intended purpose. These abilities are yours before birth. They do not come to you when you receive Yahusha and are reborn.
Thus, your natural inclinations to socialize with people or to seek solitude, to think with your mind or to do things with your hands, to communicate with words or to express yourself through the various art forms, to come up with the ideas or to put them into action, to lead or to follow, to inspire or to manage, to calculate or to demonstrate are part of your makeup and your personality from the time Yah chose to make you and designed you in a particular way. They relate to your purpose, which is a natural, innate, intimate part of who you are. You are designed for your purpose. You are perfect for your purpose.
Your purpose, your abilities and your outlook on life cannot be separated, because your purpose determines how you will function, which establishes how you are designed, which is related to your potential, which is connected to your natural abilities. To remove your purpose would be to significantly change who you are, because your purpose both informs and reveals your nature and your responsibilities. Everything you naturally have and inherently are is necessary for you to fulfill your purpose. Your height, race, skin color, language, physical features and intellectual capacity are all designed for your purpose.
If, for example, I decided that my hair dryer didn’t need any air vents on the side, I would destroy its ability to dry my hair. Because the hair dryer’s purpose of drying hair requires that it function by blowing out warm or hot air, which dictates its design, my closing the vents would prevent the dryer from doing its thing. With no way to draw in air to be heated and blown back out, the dryer’s existence would be meaningless. The hair dryer’s purpose would be the same, but its ability to fulfill that purpose would have changed.
This is why it is very important and essential that you never try to become like someone else. You can and should learn from others, but you must never become them. You can never fulfill your purpose without being yourself. Who and what you are is important and essential to why you are. Purpose is why.
In new birth, Yah reclaims what is rightfully His. He redirects the natural skills and abilities that satan perverted and employs them for the completion of His plans and purposes. Taking away what is destroying you, He encourages you to rediscover all those things that you like to do. As He restores His anointing on your life, the power to perform with excellence reinstates the beauty and the perfection of your innate abilities. Then He says, “Go ahead. Do all you like to do for My glory and the advancement of My Kingdom.”
The biblical character of Moses is a good example of the inherent nature of purpose. Moses was a man with a deliverance instinct. He was born to be a deliverer. Even before he met Yah, he wanted to set people free. One day he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. When no one was looking, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
The next day he saw two Hebrews fighting. When he asked one of them, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:13-14)
When Moses heard this, he became afraid and fled to a nearby country where he shepherded his father-in-law’s sheep (Exodus 2:1-3:1). Years later, Yah reclaimed for His own purposes the deliverance and leadership skills that He had given to Moses. He sent Moses to the Pharaoh of Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery (Exodus 3:10).
Yah didn’t throw away the skills and the talents that had been with Moses from birth, He simply renewed them and redirected them to their intended use. The purpose of Moses’ life didn’t change; the use of the gifts that fulfilled his purpose were simply redirected toward the purpose for which they had been given. Those same gifts Yah had given Moses at birth—basic components of his makeup— brought freedom to the Israelites and glory to Yah. In essence, Moses was equipped for his purpose, and so are you.
Purpose Is Individual
The individual nature of purpose is best seen in the various parts of a product. Each has a unique function and design that enables it to meet the manufacturer’s reason for including it in the product. This uniqueness doesn’t make the various parts unequal, just different. In other words, you are the way you are because of why you are.
When an electronics manufacturer, for example, creates a system, he may include Alexa, Apple Music and Spotify to fulfill different purposes that are not interchangeable. Alexa cannot play what’s only exclusive to Apple Music, neither can Apple Music produce music only exclusive to Spotify. Their purposes are individual and separate, though they are similar and related.
This same principle applies to men and women. Yah needs you because your purpose is unique. He’s designed you specifically to meet His requirements. No one has your fingerprint, your personality or your particular combination of natural skills and talents. Oh, they may look like you, but they aren’t you, because there’s a part of Yah only you can express. In essence, there is something you came to this planet to do that the world needs in this generation. Your birth is evidence that your purpose is necessary.
Your birth is evidence that your purpose is necessary.
No one can take your place or purpose, and for you there is no substitute.
Purpose Is Often Multiple
Just as purpose is specific to a particular individual or product, even so that purpose may be varied and numerous. As we have seen, Yah gave the lights He placed in the sky a variety of purposes. The sun, for example, was created to 1) separate the day from the night, 2) mark the seasons, days and years, 3) govern the day, 4) separate light from darkness, and 5) give light to the earth (Genesis 1:14-18).
This multiple purpose is visible throughout creation. Trees give us oxygen, shade and fruit; animals provide food and clothing; flowers beautify the earth, satisfy the bees’ need for nectar and supply pollen for the production of fruit; and men and women assume the varied roles of spouse, parent, worker and friend.
This variety of purpose is again evident in the life of Moses. Moses was a spokesman for Yah to the Pharaoh of Egypt (Exodus 3-13), the warrior of Yah, who by his uplifted hands brought victory over the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-13), the p riest of Yah, who mediated between Yah and His people (Exodus 19-31), the servant of Yah, who interceded for an idolatrous people (Exodus 32:1-14), and the lawgiver of Yah, who authored the first five books of the Bible.
With the multiplication of purpose always comes different scopes of vision, which require varied actions and responses. Moses was both confidant and judge, suiting his actions and responses to meet the purpose he was fulfilling. Knowing and understanding the variety of purposes that had claims on his life influenced how well he fulfilled his overall purpose as the leader of Yah’s people. In some respects, his ability to meet the demands of this multiplicity of purpose was made possible by the interdependent nature of purpose. He needed Joshua, Jethro and others to help him carry out his Yah-given purpose.
You were born with and for a purpose. However, that purpose may incorp orate many minor facets whose purposes or intents are to fulfill the greater, overall purpose for your life.
Purpose Is Interdependent
Everything has a particular purpose that is linked to a greater purpose. Or to say it another way, everything has a purpose larger than its specific end so that every individual purpose is fulfilled only when the personal task is pursued within the scope of the greater purpose and for its fulfillment. Nothing exists for itself; everything is related to something else.
The moon provides a good examp le of the interdependent nature of purpose. When Yah created lights and placed them in the sky, He made a greater light, the sun, and a lesser light, the moon. The sun was given the task of ruling the day and the moon was designed to govern the night.
The moon is not created to shine—it has no light of its own—but to reflect light like a large mirror. Thus, the moon catches the light of the sun and sends it back to the side of the earth that is away from the sun, providing light in the night. That’s why the moon rotates in a certain position all year. Although it appears differently to us on any given night of the month, the moon’s position does not change. To fulfill its purpose, the moon must always remain in a position to catch the sun’s light and reflect it to the earth.
It also follows that the sun and the earth must remain in position for the moon to fulfill its purpose. If the earth leaves its designated rotation around the sun or tilts on its axis farther than Yah’s design intended, the moon cannot do what it was created to do.
Or take a battery. The purpose of a battery is to store energy until it is needed. If the battery is never placed into a position that requires its stored energy, it cannot fulfill its purpose. The satisfaction of its purpose is related to its position in a product that has a larger purpose.
So a car battery cannot fulfill its purpose unless you turn the key in the ignition and allow the battery to send power to the engine, which starts the engine that powers the wheels that move the car. Without all the other parts, neither the battery, the engine, the wheels nor the car can fulfill their purposes. Everything needs something.
The world needs you and the purpose for which you were born. You also need the purposes of others in order to fulfill your purpose. Purpose cannot be fulfilled in isolation.
This same phenomenon of interdependent purpose is evident in the Hebrew Community. The apostle Paul uses the image of the body to describe this interrelatedness.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Hamachiach we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others (Romans 12:4-5).
... Yah has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Hamachiach, and each one of you is a part of it (1 Corinthians 12:24-27).
Thus, we see that the interrelatedness of the Hebrew Community is part of Yah’s purpose. He gives to each citizen a task that contributes to the Hebrew Community’s overall purpose, thereby allowing the Hebrew Community to grow and build “itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16). Nothing exists for itself. Everything is part of a larger purpose.
Can you imagine? Not even Yah could fulfill His purpose without the cooperation of His creation. Just suppose the tree on which Yahusha died had refused to become a tree or if Joseph of Arimathea had not purchased the tomb in which Yahusha was destined to lay. Your purpose is designed to affect history within and beyond your generation. You are a necessary part of the world’s population and a vital link in this generation. We need your purpose.
Purpose Is Permanent
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s
purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21).
Yah has also given purpose the quality of permanence. Once a manufacturer designs, produces and markets a product that fulfills a certain purpose, he doesn’t change that purpose because a consumer doesn’t like the way it works. He may change the design or the components or the materials used in the components, but he will not change the purpose, because the purpose behind the product is what gives it meaning. In other words, plans might change, but purpose is constant. What Yah wants is established, but how He gets it may vary.
This quality of purpose combats the many plans and schemes that we come up with to meet our Yah-intended reason for life. The Book of Genesis describes both Yah’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son, and Sarah’s frantic efforts to help Yah achieve that purpose when the years rolled by and she had not yet given birth to a son. Giving her maid Hagar to Abraham, she hoped to have a son through her.
When Hagar conceived and bore a son, whom Abraham named Ishmael, Abraham tried to make him the promised son. But Yah did not accede to his wishes. Yah had promised Abraham a son through his wife Sarah, and that remained Yah’s promise, because His purpose as revealed in His covenant with Abraham was that Sarah would be the mother of the promised son (Genesis 17:17-22).
Purpose Is Resilient
Related to the quality of permanence is the characteristic of resiliency in purpose. When a manufacturer sets a purpose for a product and develops a plan to achieve that purpose, no amount of problems with the manufacturing process will change the product’s purpose. No matter how bad things become, the manufacturer will not say, “We’re having trouble getting this product to do what we want it to do, so let’s have it do this instead.”
Each difficulty that seeks to hinder progress toward the completion of a product that fulfills the manufacturer’s original intent is used to learn more about the product and the way it must naturally function to carry out its purpose. The journey may include bumps and detours, but eventually it will come to the desired end. In other words, no matter how bad the process becomes, the manufacturer uses the problems for good as he incorporates the insight gained from the challenges to build a superior product that does all it’s supposed to do.
If you have made decisions that have interfered with Yah’s plan and purpose for your life, He has arranged a reformation program to redeem the detours. He uses the experiences to refine you as a purposeful part of the whole. Purpose transforms mistakes into miracles and disappointments into testimonies.
This resiliency of purpose is evident in the lives of many people who have missed their purpose. They had great talent, but they didn’t know what they were supposed to do with it. I think of the apostle Paul. He intrigues me. Paul, or Saul as he was known before he met Hamachiach on the road to Damascus, was a very talented person.
First, Paul was a great organizer. He both organized the systematic persecution of the Hebrew Community in Jerusalem and received letters of introduction from the high priest that permitted him to persecute the followers of Yahusha in Damascus (Acts 8:3; 9:1). Secondly, he was a leader, as was evident in his role in the stoning of Stephen:
When the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him (Acts 22:20; see also Acts 7:58; 8:1).
Third, Paul was a skilled tentmaker who liked to work with his hands (Acts 18:3). Fourth, Paul was a communicator. By speaking and by writing, Paul declared what he believed. (Much of the New Testament is the result of his communication skills.)
Although Paul’s natural talents and skills were initially used in opposition to his Yah-given task of carrying the Good News of Yahusha to the Gentiles, his purpose did not change. Yah changed his name but not his purpose. Purpose remains true no matter what path a person or a thing takes to achieve its intended goal.
Yah’s purpose is not hindered by your past. He turned a coward (Gideon) into a mighty leader (Judges 6-8), and a murderer (Moses) into a deliverer (Exodus 3). He also turned a prostitute (the Samaritan woman Yahusha met at the well of Jacob) into a preacher (John 4:1-42). Imagine what He could make of you. You are not too old to resume your purpose. Nothing you have done can cancel your purpose. The world is waiting for you to produce your purpose.
Purpose Is Universal
No manufacturer goes to the trouble to design, produce and market a product for which he has no purpose. Who would want a useless thing? Thus, everything has a purpose. Or, to say it another way, the gift of purpose is universal. Nothing is created without a purpose behind the making. This principle is evident in nature.
Every human being, every living thing, indeed everything that exists, has been chosen by Yah to fulfill His purposes. We all have part of this universal purpose. When Yah chose the sun, He chose it for a purpose. Then He created it with the ability to complete its purpose. Yah also chose the mosquito and designed into it everything it needs to fulfill its reason for being. The oceans, too, were created by Yah to perform the tasks He dictated for them before they were completed. Nothing is outside Yah’s universal purpose. Whenever this commonness of purpose is not recognized, death occurs.
The Dead Sea is a good example of the inevitable death that occurs when purpose is not fulfilled. The Dead Sea lies to the south of the Lake (or Sea) of Galilee, with the Jordan River connecting the two. It catches the water coming south, but it doesn’t let it out. Like all bodies of water that cease to have a current running through them—both giving and receiving—the Dead Sea is well described by its name. It is just dead water.
When I visited the Dead Sea, our guides instructed us to be very careful that we did not allow a drop of the water to get into our eyes because the water is so salty, it will literally burn a hole into your cornea and you will become blind. When I went into the water, I found that I could not sit down. It was impossible to sink. The salt content gives the water a buoyancy that is unnatural. Also, unlike other bodies of water, the Dead Sea contains no plant or marine life. There are no fish, neither are there algae or other kinds of sea plants. No great creatures of the sea live in its depths, neither do the many living creatures of the sea teem in its water. The water is just too salty to sustain life. Sharing the universality of purpose but failing to live up to that purpose, the sea has died. The lake’s purpose hasn’t changed, but its ability to perform what Yah intended has been replaced by death.
In many ways, the tragedy of the Dead Sea is indicative of our lives. Yah has a universal purpose for mankind that goes beyond our abilities to perform it. Before creation, He predestined us and chose us to be conformed into the image of His Son. He set Hamachiach as our destination, then backed us up and started us on the journey toward that desired end.
Most of humanity has lost sight of our universal purpose. Like the Dead Sea, we are not fulfilling all that Yah purposed for our lives. That failure to live out all that Yah put us here to do has not changed Yah’s purpose. His desire to see all men and women know life as He intended it is so strong that He has tried again and again throughout the history of man to redirect us into His predestined path. The life, death and resurrection of Yahusha Hamachiach is His final attempt. Through Him we can move from death to life. Through Him we can rediscover our Yah-given universal purpose.
Not one person on this planet is outside that will of Yah, for He has chosen each of us to share in His glory. Thus, no matter how your life started or how bad it has been, you are not a mistake. Yah intended for you to live, both physically and spiritually. He would not have allowed you to be born if you were not included in His universal purposes. You are necessary. You are essential.
The universality of purpose is something we can cling to when life becomes meaningless and without value. Together with the intrinsic, individual, multiple, interdependent, permanent and resilient qualities of purpose, it gives us an assurance that we are not mistakes. Yah had a purpose for us when He planted us in our mothers’ wombs. That purpose has not changed. The challenge that lies before us is to understand the basic principles that underlie purpose so we can recognize purpose at work in our lives and allow it to guide and redirect our paths.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart ...
Jeremiah 1:5
PRINCIPLES
1. Yah’s intentions for your life govern your design, function and nature.
2. Everything you naturally have and inherently are is necessary for you to fulfill your purpose.
3. Yah designed you to meet the unique requirements of your purpose.
4. Your purpose may incorporate many smaller facets that contribute to Yah’s overall purpose for your life.
5. Your individual purpose is linked to a greater purpose.
6. The world needs you and the purpose for which you were born.
7. Purpose combats the many plans and schemes we come up with to help Yah meet His intended reasons for our lives.
8. Purpose remains true no matter what path we take to achieve our intended goal.
Exodus 2
AND there went a man of the house of Leviy, and took to be his woman a daughter of Leviy. And the woman conceived, and bore a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the reeds by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Phar'oh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Ivriym children. Then said his sister to Phar'oh's daughter, Shall I go and call to you a nurse of the Ivriyth women, that she may nurse the child for you? And Phar'oh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Phar'oh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Phar'oh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Mosheh: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. And it came to pass in those days, when Mosheh was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied a Mitsriy smiting an Ivriy, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Mitsriy, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Ivriym strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smite you your fellow? And he said, Who made you a prince and a judge over us? intend you to kill me, as you killed the Mitsriy? And Mosheh feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Phar'oh heard this thing, he sought to slay Mosheh. But Mosheh fled from the face of Phar'oh, and dwelt in the land of Midyan: and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midyan had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Mosheh stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Re'u'el their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon today? And they said, A Mitsriy delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. And Mosheh was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Mosheh Tsipporah his daughter. And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershem: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Mitsrayim died: and the children of Yashar'el sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto Elohiym by reason of the bondage. And Elohiym heard their groaning, and Elohiym remembered his covenant with Avraham, with Yitschaq, and with Ya`aqov. And Elohiym looked upon the children of Yashar'el, and Elohiym had respect unto them. SHEMOTH (EXODUS) את CEPHER
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