- Duke Jeyaraj
In the 2012 movie, English Vinglish, the lead is played by Sri Devi. The Ripple Effects WordPress account has some superb details about this movie which I present to you: Sri Devi is a lively, capable woman, a cook who runs her own catering business, her specialty the ladoos, sweet golden balls of dainty delights’. “She’s born to make ladoos,” her husband’s intended praise of her cooking skills only reflects the confining social reality in which she finds herself.
If Sri Devi’s husband in the movie English Vinglish thought that she was born to make ladoos, what do you think you were born for? I recall a popular song in which the boy tells the girl he loves that he was born before her so that he could be present to receive her and cuddle her from the moment she (the girl he loved) came out of her mother’s womb! Well, well, well! What are we born into the planet called earth? What is the purpose of our existence? The Bible teaches that each one of us was born to have a relationship with the living God, Yahweh. God would walk in the garden of Eden where he created and placed man and woman in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8). That Scripture text gives a clear indication of God’s desire to have living relationship with every member of the human race. David Pawson says, “God had one son. He enjoyed that son – God in flesh, Jesus - whom he had rich fellowship very much. He wanted to have more sons and daughters to the same rich fellowship with. That’s why he created the human race.” Pawson comes to this conclusion after having read Hebrews 2:10 in his Bible which goes this way: “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Paul agrees with this truth presented by the writer to the Hebrews in Romans 8:29
Sin comes between us and God and spoils sport in our relationship with him (see Isa. 59:2 in the Bible). The transgressions we commit drives a wedge between us and our Maker. But through faith on the finished work of the Jesus done for us upon the cross of Calvary, we can once again fulfill the purposes for which God originally created us. These God-given purposes include living a holy life empowered by the Holy Spirit with the example of Jesus before us (1 Thes 4:3). These God-given purposes for humans also include a call for involvement in the task of winning souls for it is God’s will that none should perish (2 Pet 3:9). So, God’s purpose for our lives is not about ladoo-making but about lust-defying (being holy!) and living in close fellowship with him. So, God’s purpose for our lives is not all about sweet-making but about soul-winning whereby we bring other, just-like-we-once-were, lost people back to a warm fellowship with him!
In summary, God created us to be his “workmanship…prepared beforehand …predestined” to do good works like Christ did so that we will be ultimately conformed to the image of Christ, our perfect elder brother, the Bible records (Eph 2:10; Rom 8:29).
