THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PURPOSE AND DESTINY

pur·pose   [/noun

1.the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc.

2.an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal.

des·ti·ny  / Pronunciation Key–noun

1.something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune.

2.the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

At different points in our lives, we all become curious about what our futures hold.  We wonder who we will be, where we will go, and what we will do in the future.  Will we make a difference to the world?  Will we be remembered?  Will we be missed once we’re gone?  But what we want to know most usually is related to our fate.  Is there something that we are meant to do?  If so, how can we know what it is?  And is that future a thing that is immutable and set in stone?  Or can we control it– or even change it – by our actions in the present?

PURPOSE VERSUS DESTINY

People often fail to recognize the difference between purpose and destiny.  They use the term “destiny” when they should be using “purpose”, or vice-versa.  Or they use the two terms interchangeably, as if they were identical or equivalent concepts.  But the two concepts are different, though they are related.

Let’s take a minute to examine some of the more important aspects of the relationship between these two concepts.

Destiny should drive purpose, while purpose drives action. 

Purpose provides short-term focus, while destiny provides long-term perspective and direction.

Purpose-Destiny mismatches are possible. 

WHAT DIES IT ALL MEAN (From A Personal Perspective)?

An action must have purpose.  A lack of purpose can result in our wasting time and energy doing things inefficiently, or incorrectly, or both.  There should be a reason (an intent) for every action that we take.  Every action should have an expected outcome—a desired end state that we are trying to achieve. 

A life must have purpose.  A life without purpose is a series of pointless, disconnected actions.  The person without purpose wanders aimlessly from one disappointment to another disappointment because he has no standards to guide him towards success. 

Human destiny comes in two “flavors”.  The first is what I will call “true destiny”, which is that destiny that a person is meant to achieve—what he is meant to do or be.  The second is what I call “consequential destiny”, which is the destiny that a person is relegated to, based on a lack of purpose, lack of action, or lack of vision.  Many refer to consequential destiny by using the term “fate”. 

True destiny doesn’t just happen, it must be sought.  Achieving one’s true destiny requires action.  Though destiny does not depend on what one thinks or does, achieving ones destiny is very much dependent on these things.  Achieving destiny must become the guiding purpose of all other purposes.  In this way, every individual success and achievement becomes a step on the journey towards destiny.

While it is possible to achieve purpose without achieving destiny, it is impossible to achieve destiny without purpose.  This means that it is possible to be working hard towards achieving personal goals and objectives that do not contribute to, and can even be in direct conflict with, your destiny.  As a result, you can go through life achieving things that provide some transitory level of satisfaction and in the end come to realize that nothing that you have achieved truly makes you happy or satisfied. 

When purpose and destiny are at odds with each other, it is destiny that should take precedence.  You should never ransom your tomorrows for today.  History usually remembers where we end up, not how we got there.  This does not mean that a good end justifies any means employed to achieve it, but it does mean that when there is more than one way to achieve a particular purpose, then you should choose the one that contributes most to achieving your destiny.  You may, at times, have to forego possible immediate gains or pleasure, but the future rewards of focusing on destiny more than outweigh any short term negative consequences.

 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.(Romans 8:28 (KJV))

Knowledge Versus Wisdom

The average adult believes that the level of human knowledge has increased many times over, just within the last hundred years or so.  We think that the human race is much smarter today than it has ever been – we know more information about more things than we have ever known.  This is what we believe, but is it true?  We probably can prove that we, as a race, have accumulated more facts than the ancients were able to discover.   And we can say with some level of confidence that due to easy access to books and magazines, electronic information transmission media such as television, and especially the internet, any one modern individual has at his or her fingertips more raw information than anyone would have thought possible prior to this modern age.

Yet important questions remain.  Are we really smarter today than we’ve ever been?  What is “smart”, anyway, and how does it relate to knowledge?  Are they the same thing?  And what about “intelligence” – how is it associated?  And where does “wisdom” fit in?

 Knowledge, intelligence and wisdom.  In common usage these three terms often are used interchangeably.  Though they are clearly related, they are different.  Knowledge is about how much you know – about the accumulation of individual facts.  Intelligence is about how much you can know – about your capacity to acquire and store new facts.  Wisdom, on the other hand, is about how you apply what you know – about the utilization, application, and extension of what you know in new ways and to new situations.  Put another way, knowledge and intelligence are quantitative concepts.  If you were to think of your brain as a child’s sand pail, and facts as the grains of sand, then intelligence could be thought of as the size of the pail and knowledge as the amount of sand that is in it.  Conversely, wisdom is qualitative.  Using the previous analogy, it (wisdom) would equate to your skill in using the sand in the bucket to, for instance, fill sandbags, build sand castles, or make glass.  This skill is independent of the size of the bucket or the amount of sand in it, just as wisdom is independent of the type or amount of knowledge that one possesses.

What potential pitfalls might result from a failure to understand or appreciate the difference between these three concepts? 

 If we confuse intelligence with knowledge, then we confuse potential with possession.  This can lead to the mistaken belief that the mere capability to get knowledge is as important as the actual getting.  And this, in turn, can lead us to minimize the value that is ascribed to those who have, or are perceived to have, less potential to learn, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.  Such beliefs have been used in the past to deny education to Black slaves and other minority groups, to justify providing sub-standard educations to newly freed Blacks, to institutionalize the physically handicapped, and to limit the mentally handicapped to “special education” programs geared to their limited abilities.  This type of confusion also can lead us to accept educational institutions that don’t educate, teachers who don’t teach, and students who don’t learn.  We become satisfied with providing the potential to learn, and forget about presenting a real education.  This happens when we expend great effort and spend massive amounts of money to guarantee that every child has access to free public education, but do little or nothing to guarantee the quality of that education.

If we confuse intelligence with wisdom, then we confuse the capacity to get information with the capacity to use information.  A potential consequence of this is that we may believe wrongly that someone who performs well in training or an educational environment should perform as well in real-life situations.  Conversely, we can assume that someone who does poorly in school will do poorly in life.  Yet seldom is the capacity to absorb individual facts directly related to the ability to use those facts.  The ability to memorize hundreds of recipes does not make one a gourmet chef.  The ability to memorize the components and operating parameters of an internal combustion engine also does not make one an expert driver.  And the fact that Albert Einstein was a poor student whose math teacher said he would never amount to anything did not prevent him from becoming one of the most influential physicists of all time.

If we confuse knowledge with wisdom, then we confuse facts with ability.  This can lead to the mistaken belief that someone who has gathered information on a subject automatically knows how to apply that information.  If this were true, then reading a book about economics would be enough to make one an expert economist.  This is clearly absurd.  Yet we can still find ourselves assuming that someone who has taken a course or undergone training should be, if not an expert, then at least a skillful practitioner of the discipline addressed by the course or training.  A related false assumption is that greater education automatically translates to greater skill—someone at the doctoral level is assumed to be more skillful than someone with only a bachelor’s level education.

Want to read more...

Check out my eBook available at http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/there-is-a-difference-between-knowledge-intelligence-wisdom/11206935

In His Image...One God, One Image

This is the third, and final, installment in my series on Man's creation in the Image of God. Up to this point, I have focused primarily on reviewing how the creation story shows that Man was created to resemble God (i.e., in God’s likeness) in seven specific characteristics. Now I will spend a bit of time examining the other side of the coin—being created in the image of God.

As was stated earlier, being created in the image of God means that Man reflects Him and represents Him. While being created in the likeness of God can be considered a great honor and blessing, being created in His image is just as great a responsibility. If we are supposed to reflect God to the world, then when they see us they should see the attributes of God in us. If we are to represent God to the world, then our every word and action should be consistent with the intentions, instructions and nature of God. For those who don’t know God, if the image that we present to them of God is flawed, then their perception and understanding of God will be flawed as well.

To present a true image of God requires that we first have a personal understanding of the attributes of God. Then we have to make the conscious decision to live our lives in a way that reflects those attributes. We have to choose to exercise sovereignty (dominion), self-sufficiency, creativity, intelligence, and power.

The First Contract

The verses beginning at Gen 1:26 can be considered to be the very first contract or covenant ever entered into in history. The verses demonstrate all the elements of a typical contract:

• Agreement between two or more parties. In Gen 1:26, God says, “Let us make Man…” The “us” mentioned here is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was necessary for God to enter into this contract with Himself because there was no one else for Him to agree with.

• Proposal and Acceptance. The proposal (or offer) was to make Man in God’s own image and likeness. The acceptance can be implied from the fact that there was no dissention or counter offer, and that the three members of the Godhead set out in the very next verse to perform the very act that was proposed.

• Consideration. This term refers to the concept that all parties to a contract must “bring something to the table”. There must be an exchange of something from each party to the other(s). Otherwise, if only one party provides or offers to provide something of value and the other party(ies) are only receivers, then what exists is simply a gift or promise of a gift. In the creation of Man, consideration is satisfied by the fact that all three members of the Godhead contributed to the act of creation. The Father provided the plan and blueprint for what man was to be. The Son was the actual agent of creation (see John 1:1). The Holy Spirit imparted spiritual power.

• Intention to be Bound Legally by the Agreement. Probably the most important part of what makes a contract a contract, and not simply a promise or mere friendly agreement is the intention of both parties to be bound by the conditions of the agreement, and to submit to legal sanctions should any conditions be violated. All of scripture from Gen 1:27 forward provides evidence of God’s intention to be bound by His agreement with Himself. This becomes even more evident after the Fall of Man and his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. At this point a heavenly plan of action was set in motion to return the fallen Man, who still displayed the likeness of God but no longer presented the image of God, back to his original, pre-Fall state of perfection. Two of the most important and significant elements of that master plan are the Son’s death on the cross as the payment for sin and resurrection on the third day as the promise of eternal life, as well as the in-filling of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. These and other acts throughout the Bible are evidence that God has bound Himself to do what is necessary to ensure the perfection of His image and likeness in Man.

Epilogue: Two Wounds and Two Brides

Within the story of the creation of Man is the story of the creation of the Woman from one of his ribs. This story has interesting parallels to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Adam was the first created son of God, and had no earthly mother. Jesus was the firstborn Son of God, and had no earthly father. In order to create a bride for Adam, God caused him to fall asleep and then opened a wound in his side from which He took a rib that was used to form the Woman, Eve. While Jesus hung on the cross, a wound was opened in his side to speed His falling asleep (i.e., His death). His resurrection on the third day (His awakening from sleep) marked the birth of His bride, the Church.

Second Epilogue: “Like” or “As”

Students of English may be familiar with the controversy over the proper usage of the words “like” and “as”. In common usage, the words are often interchangeable, but in the most formal usage there is a subtle difference in their meanings. “Like”, in this formal usage, indicates a similarity in character or quality, where “As” indicates equality. This distinction has applicability to an understanding of the story of creation. In Gen 1:26 God decides to make Man in His image and after His likeness. In other words, He decides to make Man like (or similar to) Him. But in Gen 3:5 Lucifer, through the serpent, deceives the Woman by telling her that if she eats of the forbidden fruit “…you will be as gods, knowing good and evil…” So the Woman was convinced partly because she believed that the fruit would make her equal in wisdom to God. This desire to be “as” God, and not just “like” Him was, in fact, the very sin that caused Lucifer to rebel against God and be expelled from heaven.

In His Image: Seven Likenesses of Man to God

• Sovereignty (Exercising dominion and power)

• Self-Sufficiency (No need unmet)
• Creative (Productive)
• Omnipotent (All powerful)
• Omnipresent (Everywhere)
• Omniscient (All knowing, exceedingly int3elligent)
• Triune (Three in One)

This list identifies seven characteristics of God. Clearly, these are not all the characteristics of God—they do not fully define or describe who God is. So why, you may ask, are they the only ones listed here? The reason is that these are the seven characteristics (attributes) of God that are described directly or indirectly in Genesis chapters 1 through 3. More importantly for this commentary, they are the seven characteristics of which likenesses can be seen to have been placed in Man at the creation.

The Likeness of God’s Sovereignty

…and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:28)

God is the ruler of all creation. No king, Caesar, emperor, or other earthly ruler has ever ruled a city, nation, or empire as surely or as well as God rules. His sovereignty is complete, and His rule absolute. His dominion extends to all that was, is, and ever will be.

As God is sovereign over all, Man was given sovereignty over all the earth. Man’s sovereignty, however, differs from the sovereignty exercised by God in both extent and in type. Whereas God rules over everything, Man was given rule over only the earth. Whereas God’s sovereignty is inherent, Man’s is assigned. God’s position of rulership derives from the fact that He is God, and that He is the creator of that which He rules. Man’s rule derives, however, from the simple fact that God gave it to him. In the same way that a business owner may hire someone to manage his business for him while still retaining ownership and ultimate control over the business, God made Man the manager of the earth, but God, Himself, is still the owner. But despite this limitation, Gen 1:28 shows that after God, Himself, Man was made the ultimate source of authority in the earth. Returning to the previous analogy, as a manager is given great leeway in how he or she manages a business so long as that management does not come into conflict with any general or specific guidelines established by the owner, so is man give great liberty to manage the earth as he wishes so long as that management is consistent with the instructions, attributes, and nature of God. Essentially, while God established the laws that circumscribe the limits of what Man can do and how he should do it, within the boundaries of those laws Man is free to do on the earth whatever he desires, however he desires to do it. In fact, God will not even prevent Man from acting outside of the boundaries that He has established, but He metes out just punishments for every violation. The bottom line, then, is that God created Man to rule and established Man’s sovereignty over the whole earth.

The Likeness of God’s Self-Sufficiency

"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you” (Gen 1:29)

God requires nothing outside of Himself to exist or to survive. He is dependent on nothing, but all things are dependent on Him for their substance and sustenance. God is complete in Himself. He has no needs. And if, for whatever improbable reason, God ever did have a need for anything, He is fully capable of meeting that need Himself. It’s a part of who God is and what makes Him God, for if He had to depend on anything or anyone else, He would not be God.

As God is self-sufficient, and has no needs that He cannot meet for Himself, Man was created without any needs that were not already met by what God had already created and given to him. Man needed a place to live, but God had already created the earth and placed Man on it. Man needed air to breathe, but God had already created an atmosphere around the earth with just the right elements for Man’s lungs to breathe. Man needed water to drink, but God had already made three rivers to flow through the Garden of Eden. Man needed food to eat, but God had already made the plants, and had given them to Man for food (Gen 1:29). Man needed instruction, so God taught him what he needed to know. Man needed companionship, so God walked and talked with him in the Garden in the cool of the day. There was no need that Man had for which God had not already made provision. While this may not be the same level of self-sufficiency as is displayed by God, it is, nonetheless, a human definition of self-sufficiency, i.e., not having to depend on any other person or institution for your life or livelihood.

The Likeness of God’s Creativity

"Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen 1:28)

God’s creative nature is illustrated better nowhere than it is in the first three chapters of Genesis. In these chapters we see how God created everything that exists in a period of six days. After those six days were completed, all “true” creation ceased. There literally has been no new creation in the entire history of the universe. All subsequent creation has amounted to nothing more than the manipulation of the raw materials that God originally created.

Though Man cannot create something from nothing as God did, he was given the ability to shape, mold, combine, restructure, and reformulate the materials of God’s creation into things that never existed before. Man was even commanded to use the raw material of his own physical body to create copies of himself when God told him to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Each of these copies of the first man would also be copies made in the image and likeness of God, and each would also have the ability to create copies of itself.

The Likeness of God’s Omnipresence

“…fill the earth…” (Gen 1:28)

The essence of God permeates the entire universe. God is all and in all. When He determined to create the world, He had no raw materials from which to create it—no wood, no stone, no brick, no metal. So He created all that is out of Himself. Hebrews 11:3 says, “…the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” And Colossians 1:17 says, “…He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” The Psalmist sums it up this way:

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, ^[a] you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Psalms 139:7-12 (NIV)

Obviously, Man is not present everywhere in the universe. In fact, at this present moment we are confined to the vicinity of this tiny blue ball that we call Earth. Yet in obedience to God’s command to “…fill the earth…”, we have done just that! Men are spread out over every region of the earth in a way that almost no other creature (except for those that we carry with us) is spread. We live in the mountains and the valleys, the forests and the deserts, the jungles and the plains, and the cities that we have made for ourselves. People live in all climates and conditions from the freezing cold of the Arctic circle to the blistering heat of the Sahara desert. There are even men who live permanently in boats upon the rivers and seas. Man is everywhere in the earth! [NOTE: Though mankind currently is confined to the earth, we have already set foot on and sent our machines to other worlds. Many believe that if God delays Christ’s return long enough, Man will move out into the universe and colonize other worlds beyond the earth.]

The Likeness of God’s Omniscience

“…God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” (Gen 2:19)

Omniscience refers to God’s all-knowing nature. There are two distinct components to this characteristic. The first component is knowledge—God knows all things. Just as the writer of a book knows his or her book and the baker of a cake knows what he or she did and used to make the cake, God, as the creator of the entire universe, knows everything there is to know about everything in all of creation. The second component is awareness—God is aware of everything. This follows from the preceding discussion on God’s omnipresence. Because God is in all places and all things, He is aware of the existence and actions of all things. Nothing exists without His awareness that it is. And nothing occurs without God’s awareness that it is happening. In a way, God’s awareness of everything is Self-awareness.

Both of these components—knowledge and awareness—are present in Man, and both are clearly illustrated in the creation story from Genesis. It has been said that Adam, the first man, was the most intelligent man ever to live (and I tend to agree). This assertion is borne out by the fact that when God brought all of the animals that He had created to the Man, Adam intuitively knew what to name them. This implies that he also knew what distinguished one from another. Otherwise he might have erroneously given the same name to two different but similar creatures such as the horse and the zebra. This shows that Man was given incredible knowledge and wisdom. The other component (awareness, and especially self-awareness) can be seen in the Man’s reaction to God’s creation of the woman. Gen 2:23 says, “…this is now bone of my bones…”. The use of the personal pronoun “my” illustrates an awareness of self that exists in Man, but in no other creature on earth.

The Likeness of God’s Omnipotence

“… fill the earth, and subdue it…” (Gen 1:28)

Psalms 147:5 says, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power…” His power is demonstrated many times and in many ways throughout scripture. He sent a flood that covered the face of the earth, but saved Noah and his family in the Ark. He rained down fire and brimstone and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. A blast from his nostrils parted the Red Sea and allowed the children of Israel to walk through on dry land. When Elijah stood against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the grove, His power fell as a fire that consumed all His enemies. When Lucifer, in his pride, attempted to usurp power, he was cast down from his previous estate. God’s power extends across all of creation. It is what keeps the stars in the sky, the planets in their orbits, and the earth spinning on its axis once every twenty-four hours. In fact, without God’s power to uphold it, everything would cease to be.

Man’s power extends from God’s power. When we exercise power, we literally act as a conduit that taps into the power of God. The authority (a form of power) by which Man exercise power derives from the command given in Gen 1:28 to “subdue” the earth. The word subdue means

1.	to conquer and bring into subjection: Rome subdued Gaul.

2.	to overpower by superior force; overcome.

3.	to bring under mental or emotional control, as by persuasion or intimidation; render submissive.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

But the authority to do this is nothing without the power necessary to carry it out. It would be unjust of God to command Man to bring the earth under submission to his control and not give him the requisite power to obey that command. So God created Man with the power to dominate and subdue the earth just as He dominates creation.

The Likeness of God’s Triune Nature

“…male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27)

God is one, but He is manifested in three unique personages—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each has a different role to play in the Godhead. The Father is the sovereign Ruler of all. The Son (Jesus, the Word) is the creator and sustainer of all. Through His birth as a man, death on the cross, and resurrection, He reconciled all Mankind back to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic, power bestowing part of the Godhead. To those who have been born again through acceptance of the Son, the Holy Spirit imparts the Fruit of the Spirit to empower them to live their individual lives in a way that is pleasing to the Father and fulfilling to each of them as individuals. The Spirit also imparts the Gifts of the Spirit to members of the Body of Christ (i.e., the Church) for the mutual benefit of the Body. These three parts of the Godhead are, and always have been, integral parts of who God is. Neither of them is an accident, an afterthought, or an unintended response to circumstances. The Son, Jesus, wasn’t created as a contingent solution after the Fall of Man—He always was. This is clearly shown in John 1:1. In the same way, the Holy Spirit was not created on the Day of Pentecost to give power to the Apostles after the ascension of Jesus. We already see Him on the scene in Gen 1:2 (“…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (NIV)).

We often say that the human equivalent to the Triune nature of God is our triple nature of the mind, body, and soul (or spirit). For the sake of this commentary, that assertion will be taken as a truth requiring no further proof. But the creation story in Genesis gives us another likeness to God’s Triune nature. When God created Man, He created him with two distinct natures—male and female—in one body. This was not an afterthought, nor was it a response to God realizing that he had made a mistake in not giving Man a suitable helper (Gen 2:20). The male-female duality of the original Man was a part of God’s original plan (Gen 1:27). God knew that just as it took the fullness of the Godhead to consummate the act of creation, it would take both the male and female aspects of Man to fulfill the creative command to be fruitful and multiply. [NOTE: It is also interesting to me to note that just as God had to take out of Himself the raw materials to create the universe, but in doing so He was not diminished, in the same way He took out of the Man the raw materials to create the Woman, but the original Man was not diminished by it—only separated into two complementary halves that, when taken together, still equaled the original creation.]