Our ‘Why’ unlocks everything

Why is a ‘Why’ important?

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is one who keeps the Law. Proverbs 29: 18

I always remembered this verse as ‘without vision, people die’, but I think that this is worse. People are unrestrained, ungovernable… everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes without a vision, without God’s vision.

I need a why, but I’m not just an individual; as a Christian I’m part of a body and just as the thumb has its own why, that why fits into the the bigger picture of the body’s why.

I love olives, and they’re often found in tightly sealed jars. In my desire to eat olives I could, at any point, want to open a jar of olives, so I need my thumb to grip in order to open them. If I just tell my thumb that it needs to stay strong and be prepared to be used without explaining why… I could end up as a de-motivated thumb. And seriously – who wants a de-motivated thumb?! But if that thumb comes into a realisation of the joy I will experience on the other side of opening the jar of olives… well then heck; it’s going to be inspired and invigorated.

So let’s explore the body’s why, then Jesus’ why, then your why.

The body’s why is the same as it has always been: to be in relationship with God and to manifest God’s goodness on the earth as we steward it. This took place in Eden; it was man’s mandate in Genesis and it still is. We just couldn’t walk in that mandate because we were out of relationship with God due to the fall. Israel was supposed to walk in the mandate, but the works-based rules that governed their long distance, damaged, relationship with God proliferated as they had to strive to connect with God. This just led to death (Romans 8). Jesus’ death and resurrection reconciled us back to God so that mankind can live in right relationship with Him again.

What was Jesus’s why? I’ll give you two pointers from Luke:

He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.” Luke 4: 43

“…the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19: 10

This translation (NASB) helped me; I used to read the NIV that translates Jesus’ mandate as to seek and save the lost, but it was actually a bigger why – to seek and save that which was lost. And He accomplished this ‘why’ (2 Cor 5: 18).

Our mandate as Christians is to walk as Jesus walked, not to fulfil His why. “It is finished!” was the triumphant cry of one who has accomplished his mission. He saved that which was lost – the intimate relationship between God and mankind. Mankind was reconciled to God, so that through confessing our sinfulness and accepting Jesus’s penal substitutionary atonement, we can now walk as he walked. This seems like a small difference, but it’s massive. Jesus’ mission wasn’t to just die on a cross and be resurrected; it was to model what a reconciled life should look like, and His death and resurrection enabled us to do this.

I don’t have the same why as Jesus, but I have the opportunity, now, to walk with God in relationship in the way that Jesus did as the Holy Spirit leads me into my why.

Some of us have a why that is to seek the lost, and bring them to a desire to accept Jesus as their personal saviour, but this isn’t every Christian’s why. Jesus told the disciples what their mandate was, to see God’s kingdom come, and His will done, on earth as it is in Heaven. You have to press into God to find out what that looks like as a ‘why’ for you. When we press into our ‘why’ we live in a way that brings heaven to earth, people around us are baptised into an experience of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (More about this in another post.) We do this by loving God and loving everyone else around us – family, friends and enemies. As we do this, they see God, they experience Him, they eat the fruit that we bear (love/ joy/ peace/ patience etc…) and they run to Mount Zion crying “show us your ways, teach us your precepts”. People come to the Lord as they experience Eden. Us walking with God in the coolness of the day. Just as Jesus did.

Photo by Caleb Oquendo; Pexels