Exodus chapter 4
Today we are walking in: The Priority 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 Priority of Purpose
Purpose precedes creation.
Every child is delighted by a tour through a car factory or a book printer. With wide-eyed wonder they look at the finished product then go back to the beginning to see all the steps that went into the making of that car or book. As they walk through the factory and listen to the guide describe the various processes, they often ask questions like, “What does this do?” “Why is she doing that?” Their questions hint at the truth that the why is more important than the what. Knowing what the various parts of a product are is useless unless you understand why they were designed that way and how they are supposed to fit together.
Purpose Determines Function, Which Necessitates Design
If I went to a contractor and asked him to construct a building for me, his first question would be, “What is your purpose for this building?” That would be the underlying concern for the whole project: Why do I want this building to exist and what do I want it to accomplish? Thus, establishing the p urp ose for the building is the first priority.
After that is settled, the contractor would probably say to me: “Let me see your plans. I need to see how your architect designed the building.” As he looked over the plans, the contractor would consider whether they revealed a design that would allow the building to function in a manner that would meet the determined purpose.
Let’s say, for example, that I wanted the contractor to erect a building that could be used for providing medical care. The building must, therefore, meet the needs of doctors, nurses, X-ray and lab technicians, patients, and so on, and the design must facilitate that performance. Thus, the purpose for the building determines its function, and the function necessitates design. If the building is to function as a doctor’s office, its design will be quite different than that of a hospital.
Let’s consider another example. If my wife wants to sew a dress (purpose), she will design the dress to meet her needs for either summer or winter wear (function). She might make a dress for winter out of heavy material and style it with a snug fit, a high neck, long sleeves and fur trim. A summer dress, on the other hand, might be cut from a lightweight material and fashioned with a loose fit, a low neckline, short sleeves, and lace or net trim. The winter dress, whose function is to keep her warm, would reveal that in its design. Likewise, the summer dress would be styled to keep her cool and comfortable during hot weather. In essence, what you are and how you are was predetermined by why you are. Your design is perfect for your purpose.
Purpose Produces Design, and Design Predicts Potential
If I’m going to create something that will fly, I must first decide that the object’s purpose is to fly. Then I have to determine what function and design will allow the object to accomplish that expectation. In other words, I will put into the kite, the helicopter or the airplane the ability to do what I am asking it to do. My design will include whatever is needed for the object to fly. Because I intended for the object to fly and I built into it the ability to fly, the object can fly. Therefore, purpose produces design and design predicts potential. From looking at an object’s design you can predict what it is capable of doing.
To back up a step, purpose is also an indication of potential. If you know the intended purpose for an object, you also know what it can do. The minute you know that the kite was created to fly, you know that it can fly. Therefore, whatever you were born to do—whatever Yah purposed for your life—you are equipped with all the ability, talents, gifts, capacities and potential you need to fulfill it. You can do all things (purpose) through Hamachiach, who supplies the ability.
Purpose Determines Nature
When someone creates something, they create it in such a way as to fulfill its purpose. They build into it the essence of what makes the thing unique, because what they do to create it becomes its nature. In essence, the purpose of a thing determines its nature.
The word nature, as defined by Webster, means “the particular combination of qualities belonging to a person, animal, thing or class by birth, origin or construction.” It is that of which something is naturally composed. I want to emphasize “naturally.”
When Yah creates something, He puts into it the ability to fulfill its function. Birds were created to fly, so their wings and the shape of their bodies make the air their natural environment. Oh, they may sit on the ground or in trees, and they may love your cages, bird houses and bird baths, but they don’t really prefer to be there. Birds are happiest when they are flying. Just watch a hawk soaring above the trees or a barn swallow diving after insects. They love to fly because Yah created them to fly. That is both their purpose and their nature. Nature is inherent in purpose.
Or consider fish. Their bodies are constructed to glide through the sea and to withstand water pressure that would harm other creatures. If man wants to build a ship, he must learn from the design offish what will and will not withstand the pounding of the ocean. He must also consider the nature of ducks that allows them to glide on the top of the water. Thus, a boat must naturally include the abilities to float and to withstand water pressure.
The nature of something is a powerful clue to its purpose and potential. Take a bulldozer. One day as I sat and watched a bulldozer working close to our house, the thought came to me that I could tell its purpose just by looking at its nature. The shovel on a bulldozer is not used to scoop out ice cream nor was it intended to move furniture around your house. The design tells you that very quickly. The size of the scoop is far too big for any ice cream container and the teeth that dig into the earth would quickly ruin furniture.
When Yah created you, He built into you all the natural necessities for performing and fulfilling your purposed assignment. Everyone possesses natural inherent traits that are required for their purpose. In essence, you are the way you are because of why you are.
Purpose Coincides with Natural Talents and Abilities
The purpose of a thing, which is revealed in its design and nature, is always accomp anied by certain innate abilities. They are there naturally. Owls naturally have the ability to see in the dark because Yah created them to gather their food at night and to sleep during the day. Spiders have the ability to spin webs because that’s how they snare their food. Woodpeckers have strong, sharply pointed bills for digging into tree trunks and branches for wood-boring insects. Purpose never requires something that natural abilities do not provide for.
When I was thirteen years old, I submitted my life to Yah and made a conscious, quality decision to discover personal peace. I was so happy to be a Hebrew and I experienced great excitement. One day my teacher said to me, “Great, praise the Lord. That’s a good thing to do. But don’t stop there. You have to find Yah’s will for your life.” So I went on this long search looking for Yah’s will. Well, after one year passed without my finding that will, and then a second year as well, I became discouraged. In fact, I was so discouraged that I just stopped looking. Part of the problem was that I feared Yah’s will would be the opposite of what I liked to do or wanted to be. So there I was praying, “Oh, Yah, show me Your will. I hope it’s what I want to do, Lord, but show it to me anyhow.”
There’s a problem with that prayer because it assumes something that isn’t true. Just as a manufacturer does not demand or expect anything from his product that he did not design it to do, Yah never requires anything of His creations that He didn’t already build into them. What they naturally are is what He asks. He requires butterflies to fly because that’s their nature. He demands that caterpillars crawl because He designed them to crawl. Apple trees are obligated to produce apples because He placed the seeds within them to do just that.
Consider Yah’s creation of Lucifer. His purpose for creating this being was that he should be responsible for worship in Heaven. The Scriptures teach that he was created as beautiful as the morning star, wise and elegant. But most importantly, his very being was created with organ pipes built into it because of his purpose. This principle is true for all created things and manufactured products.
Perhaps you have a friend who is really into music. Everything in his life in some way reveals his love for music. There’s an organ in the living room, a piano in the dining room, a harpsichord in the family room, a CD player in the kitchen and a huge stereo in the bedroom. Every room in the house in some way reflects his love for music because his whole life is music. Can you imagine Yah calling that man to be a butcher or a factory worker? That would be a prescription for frustration.
Yah puts into everything the potential and the nature for its purpose. Purpose, therefore, is accompanied by natural abilities. You are naturally like what you are supposed to do. If He didn’t build it into you, He won’t ask you to do it, because purpose is always accompanied by the innate qualities and characteristics it requires. You have what you need to be who you are. What you love and desire to do naturally is usually what you were born to do. Purpose allows you to be yourself. The discovery of purpose is the discovery of you.
Purpose Determines Demand, and Demand Dictates Potential
You can make a demand on something if you know the purpose for its existence. Let’s use the example of a tape recorder. If you purchase a stereo component that contains a piece of equipment that the instruction booklet calls a cassette tape player, you can put a tape in the indicated slot, push the play button and expect the stereo to produce music. When you press “play,” you are making a demand on the equipment because the manufacturer told you that the equipment will replay a prerecorded tape. In other words, the purpose predicted the demand you could make on the product.
Consider also the difference in expectation you would have of an 18-wheeler tractor trailer and a 2-door sports car. Because their purposes differ, your expectations and demands on them would also be different.
If Yah tells you why you were born, He is also telling you what’s inside you. If Yah says, “I gave you birth to produce beautiful music to express the beauty and harmony of My nature and so win scores of people to Me before you die,” I’m telling you, friend, there is enough music in you to reach a million people. When Yah told Moses to free His people, He was also telling him, “The ability to perform what I’ve required of you is inside you. Go do it, because you can.” Moses had a problem with that and he started arguing with Yah.
Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he [Moses] replied.
The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand (Exodus 4:2-4).
As Moses continued to argue with Yah, Yah first made Moses’ hand leprous, then He restored it. Finally, when Moses complained that he was not eloquent of speech, Yah asked him:
Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say (Exodus 4:11-12).
In other words, Yah is saying, “Who made this product, and who designed this equipment?” How can the pot say to the potter, “Why did you make me thus?”
After Yah, in anger, finally agreed to send Aaron with him as his spokesman, Moses stopped resisting the assignment. He asked his father-in-law Jethro for permission to return to Egypt. Throughout his encounter with the Pharoah of Egypt, Moses learned what Yah had built into him before his birth. As he discovered the purpose for his existence, he also found out that Yah provided both the potential and the provisions to meet every assignment.
The same is true in your life. Your purpose determines your potential, which determines the demands made on you by the One who made you. Knowing your purpose is the key to using your potential, because once you discover your purpose in life you can also learn how much potential Yah stored inside you to meet the demands He would make on you. If you don’t know your purpose, you will probably live below your potential. Potential is equal to purpose.
Provisions Go With the Assignment
A manufacturer not only creates something for a purpose, he also provides the potential to fulfill that purpose. Purpose has in it the potential to fulfill itself. In essence, if you make a lawn mower, you will put into the mower the potential to cut grass.
It’s important to know the purpose for your life because your assignment and your provisions are related to that purpose. Whenever Yah gives you an assignment, He also is responsible for the provisions for that assignment. What Yah calls for He provides for. He will never call you to do anything without providing the resources to accomplish that task. This does not mean that Yah will provide for every plan you undertake, because He is not obligated to pay for something He didn’t buy. If your plans are not in tune with His purpose, you may encounter problems completing everything you’ve undertaken.
Many folks are doing work for Yah that Yah didn’t ask them to do, and they are asking Him to pay the bill. Yah doesn’t work that way. He provides for His purposes, not our plans. The Church, in particular, is guilty of this error. Remember, many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the Lord’s purpose prevails.
Yahusha told His disciples after Peter announced that He was the Hamachiach:
Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades [or hell] will not overcome it (Matthew 16:17-18).
Ecclesia, the Greek word for church, means “called out ones.” This definition says nothing about buildings or bells or steeples or benches or pews or organs. Ecclessia is people. Thus, this verse means: Upon this rock I will build My people—My called out ones—and they will be so powerful that hell itself will not control them.
Wow! That’s power. But where is it? Too often the Church is everything but powerful because we are asking Yah to bless plans that He didn’t make. Yah’s intention for the Church was not to have church services and children’s church and choirs and women’s meetings. Yah wants us to be His “called out ones” to reveal His “manifold wisdom” (Ephesians 3:10). The Greek word popupoikilos is used here to describe Yah’s wisdom. It literally means “many- colored.” What a description for Yah’s wisdom. It can take whatever form it needs to take to meet the challenges that face His Church.
Too often the Church is so busy with her own plans that she fails to expose Yah’s wisdom in sending Yahusha Hamachiach into the world. Many people are so busy building their ministries, their buildings, their programs and their projects, that they are not fulfilling their purpose. Through Hamachiach, sin and death and evil are defeated forever.
If the devil is winning in our lives, our communities or our countries, it is because the Church is not doing her job. She is not fulfilling her purpose. When we expose Yah, He provides the resources to continue our efforts. It is as though He says to us, “Come on, Church, show them something else. Show them what I am really like.”
Excellence is looking like Yah. It is showing the qualities and the essence of the epitome of Yah. It is not doing a mediocre job with half-hearted enthusiasm. Yah asks the Church to be holy because He is holy, and His sons and daughters came out of Him. He requires those who carry His name to love their enemies because He is love, and He put that love in them when He made them. He demands that His children turn the other cheek when someone misuses them because His Son, Yahusha, who faithfully exposed the Father’s nature, turned the other cheek to purchase our salvation, and we are heirs of Yah with Hamachiach. Until the Church takes seriously her calling to expose the totality of Yah’s love, grace and power, she will continue to struggle, because she is asking Yah to provide for plans that are not His.
Yah will not ask His “called out ones” to do something that He has not provided for. The demands He places on His people reveal the potential He placed within them before their birth. With each and every demand always come the provisions to accomplish the task. He is not in agreement with the Church when she tells Him what she cannot do. Yah’s sons and daughters are covered so long as they discover His purpose and walk in it.
Oh, there may be some roadblocks along the way, but Yah will always provide a window when the door slams shut. He needs some people who will be obedient long enough to see the provisions for the assignments He gives. Purpose doesn’t make those tasks easy, it makes them possible. In essence, every manufacturer provides genuine parts and services for his product. Yah does the same for you according to His purpose.
Promises Are Related to Purpose
The protection, security, credibility and true value of a product is not how much it cost you, but the stability and security of the manufacturer. The manufacturer’s warranty is only as good as the strength of the parent company. It doesn’t matter what the company promises when you buy the product, if the company is no longer around to make good that promise, the promise is null, void and useless. So, the most important thing is not the promise but the promiser.
Perhaps you bought a car that is no longer made. Not only has the company discontinued the car model, they have also stopped making parts. Now the only place you can find replacement parts for your car is the junk yard. Warranties mean nothing when the company can no longer keep its promises.
Promises, warranties and guarantees are made to maintain, sustain and produce the purpose of the product. When a company makes a warranty, they are not going to first check out your environment, your present conditions or what’s happening in your state. Their only concern is that you abide by the terms in the warranty. Any other conditions do not affect how the manufacturer determines the contents of the warranty and the conditions under which it will be applied.
Guarantees are made from the perspective of the manufacturer, not the consumer. If it’s raining or a hurricane is coming or the dog just got killed or you just lost your job, the warranty is still good as long as the terms specified within it are met. The manufacturer doesn’t care what else is happening in your life. If you meet the conditions of the warranty, he’ll send the part. Your environment is not part of his considerations.
Yah’s promises to us are the same way. Their value is based on the stability and credibility of Yah. Unlike many manufacturers, Yah will never go out of business. He will keep His promises forever because they are made to maintain, sustain and produce His purposes for our individual lives and for humanity in general. His promises cannot fail because His purposes always prevail.
Like the warranties of human manufacturers, Go d’s promises are not dependent on our environment. The conditions in our lives do not affect His ability to keep them. Yah is more concerned about our relationship with Him and our faithfulness in meeting His demands than the conditions around us that change our perspective on His promises. He wants us to trust His willingness and ability to keep His promises no matter what is going on in our lives. We do not need to help Yah meet His obligations.
As we mentioned in a previous chapter, Abraham and Sarah learned this when Sarah became impatient because twenty-five years had passed since Yah had promised them a son and she still was not a mother. Yah did not accept
Sarah’s attempt to assist Him by giving her maid Hagar to Abraham so they might have a son through her. When Hagar’s son Ishmael was born, Yah said that Ishmael was not the son of promise because that child was to be born through Sarah.
[Abraham’s] son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise (Galatians 4:23).
Your plans do not and cannot change Yah’s purposes any more than Sarah’s plans did. Yah will stick with His warranty even if you come up with a plan that looks nice. He’s stuck with His promise, and His promise is related to His purpose. Even though Sarah laughed and tried to substitute her plan for Yah’s, she still received the son of promise.
No matter how much you would like Yah to support you in your plans to help Him keep His promises, Yah will only support His purpose. Yah is totally obligated to support you if you are in His purposes, but if you are outside them, forget it. His promises are more powerful than your plans. Sarah’s plan was not part of Yah’s purpose, so He didn’t support it. His promises go with His purpose, because all warranties are related to the prior purpose of the manufacturer.
So we see that purpose always precedes and influences the function, design, potential, nature and innate abilities of a product. Purpose also predetermines the demands and the assignments the creator asks of a product and the provisions he supplies to meet those requirements. Finally, purpose is a priority to promises because promises are made to enable the product to fulfill the creator’s original intent.
What Yah calls for He provides for.
PRINCIPLES
1. What you are and how you are was predetermined by why you are.
2. Your ability to fulfill your purpose and your potential is built into your function and design.
3. Your design gives clues to your purpose and your potential.
4. You are equipped with everything you need to fulfill your purpose.
5. Yah’s assignments reveal your abilities and your capabilities.
6. Yah provides both the potential and the provisions to meet every assignment.
7. Knowing your purpose is the key to using your potential.
8. Provisions are made to maintain, sustain and produce Yah’s purpose for your life.C
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