Why Do we Exist?

David Perkins talked about our purpose and Life and how to find it..
We many times want to know "Who am I going to marry? What am I going to do when I grow up? Where should I go to college? What is my career going to be?" And all these questions can be linked back to the very mind boggling and confusing question of..

Why do I exist?

So in our culture many times we are told .. "our purpose in life is to be happy."
Now us Christians here this and are like.. psh no.. its for me to serve God! (which is correct) but do we really mean that?
It is our purpose to serve God if we are feeling good about it. Deep down we want to be happy; however, being happy is not our calling. It is to serve the Lord. (and through serving the Lord we will recieve Joy and then.. eventually happiness.)

-We exist to know God.
-There have been people in the past and who are alive today that KNOW God. Will you be one of them?
(There were people in the bible who knew Jesus Christ and God. They encountered the Holy Spirit. It isn't some crazy idea that we can know God intimately. It is real and possible, it is just up to us to pursue him.)

-There will be times in your life when you don't feel "happy" seeking the Lord. Blah blah.. our little fleshly selfs may not be enjoying the hardship we face as Christians. The obedience to the word is a struggle! It isn't supposed to be easy. But YOU have the decision to press past that pain.. or inconvenience for our fleshly selves and seek the LORD.

This is very interesting.
-There is a war going on. It is the war of the Ages. It is not a war on wealth or land. There are wars happening because of that.. there are wars for resources and worldly things... but the war that is being spoken of is a War of the affection of the Human Heart.

-What does the heart desire? Wealth? Power? Comfort? you name it.. humans desire all kinds of things.. but the most important thing to focus on is what is the Hearts desire. Because out of the heart desire comes all of the evil.. (the wealth, power or whatever else greed and longings cause)

-Where your treasure is so is your heart? Yeah sound familiar. Its because it is true. Our heart dictates our actions.

(This is why faith without actions is dead.. you can "know" all the scripture you want and be getting in the word.. but if you are living in sin it really just doesnt matter at all.. it doesn't count. They cancel each other out.. so don't lie to yourself.)

Basically YOU decide who will possess the affections of your heart. You do. NO one else.. say your name.
(your name here) will decide who wins the affections of (your name here's) heart.

-You decide if you want the Worthy Lamb to have the affections of your heart or this worldly crap. (aka satan)

The war we face is a serious one. The bible has evidence to prove it.. it is a battle and a war is being waged for our souls.

John 10:10 the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
Luke 22: Satan has asked to sift us like wheat.
The enemy wants to CRUSH you. This isn't some little game. We don't get a second chance. You decide who holds your heart.
The enemy wants to steal eternal life and ruin us. So lets wake up and start fixing our eyes on the Lord putting aside our earthly desires, for we were created for a much greater purpose than our own. Let us not get caught up in the petty things of this world but keep our eyes set on the Lord, and desire to have a relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jesus is looking for ALL of your heart. All of it .. not looking for the part of our heart that our sin is held in.. Jesus does not deserve for us to only turn to him for salvation and to pardon us from our sin. NO he deserves the Love, the Joy, the fruits of the spirit we bear. If not it is like we are just dumping our GARBAGE on Jesus. If we only look to Jesus to save us that is a complete slap in the face. wow. That we would have the nerve to think that the only reason Jesus came to this earth to humble himself and take up death on a cross was just for us to have eternal life? No. It is so we can ENJOY the Lord. To KNOW Jesus. He didn't come just to pick up and take away from us all of our sin and junk in our lives while we find our joy and happiness in things of this world! Like sports or t.v. or friends.

THE JOY that we receive in this life should belong to CHRIST ALONE.

What a joke.. to lie to yourself and think that Jesus came only to die for our sins and to not have a relationship with us. I would be pretty upset if I was Jesus..

Anyway besides that little tangent.
We are called to have a Magnificent obsession with Jesus.
To seek him daily, to want to understand the vast and full spectrum of his unending love!

-How do we stay facinated with the Lamb? (For years to come.. like a burning passion not just this ehh I was seeking God really hard for a while and I am kinda over it. NO like obsessed still and to be like ah what can I do for the kingdom! There is so much to be done! I need to keep working on myself! I will never be satisfied with knowing Gods love!!)

-It's as easy as SPENDING TIME WITH GOD. That is the number one way to grow in passion.
-Develope a hunger to be with God. (We crave what we feast upon.)
-It is possible to decrease our desire for something.. we lose desire.. if we don't work at love then we lose it and it fades away.


THIS IS SO TRUE.
-You care about the things you know about.
Think about it.. I don't watch football.. I don't look at statistics.. so when people start talking about football I am like whatever. If you were to start talking about soccer tactics and like.. idk moves and formations and strategy then I am all in.

-Same thing with God. The more you learn about him, the more you know about him. Then you have stuff to contribute! ( haha I just remembered this.. When i was first saved I didn't know very much about the bible or really have that many experiences with my personal relationship with the Lord, and so when Blase would start talking theology to me I would just sit there and be like yeah yeah yeah that makes sense. But when I went to CCU I was really learning about the Lord and I started to talk back and have an actual conversation and then before you know it I can't shut up about Jesus!!!)

Another cool little side note I PROMISE you the more you talk about Jesus the more you are .. allowing yourself to see how he is moving in your life and others.. When we share our experiences about Jesus with one another it is inspiring and we can relate and then we connect dots that God has placed that we might have missed otherwise... And since we saw that it matches up it edifies our faith! where as is we didn't speak about Jesus and God with one another we would first of all not be cultivating a passion for him and then secondly .. we would MISS the chance to see how he is moving in our lives .. so we MISS the oportunity to strengthen our faith :( it is a very sad thing that we could change just by TALKING about Jesus..
Which is so fun anyway I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to!

HERE WE GO PEOPLE!!! (Brent Batson you will like this.)
Okay.. we need to become self feeders.
-Feed yourself and you won't ever be let down by a church.
-Churches will always "hurt our feelings" or "fall short of expectations" or "blah blah it smells funny and that person looks at me weird so I don't want to go." 
-The way to protect ourselves from being disappointed by the church is to rely on seeking God on our own.
-If people would take the time to seek Jesus FIRST and do that on their own.. (because after all our relationship with the Lord is personal it isn't based on the church community) then people will start to be less let down because they have their foundation personally with the Lord.

Church is like icing on the cake.. and you spending alone time with God is the cake. Don't confuse the icing with the cake people.

-When we fix our eyes on Jesus we don't need to worry about the church hurting our feelings or not satisfying our spiritual needs. It isn't the church or the pastors responsibiltiy.. (yes it is to encourage and give advice and to inspire others to grow deeper in the Lord and to share knowledge of the Lord) But it isn't their responsibility to Feed everyone. We need to feed ourselves.

So get out your bible and start eating it. Jeez Louise.

Here is another thing. If you are full of crap..
(yes crap.. like media, television, magizines, sin, bad friends, who knows you name it, anything that draws you away from the Lord.)
Then you won't have any room for what is important! If we are full then we won't be hungry.
When you begin to clean out your life and stop eating crap you will being to crave something... and then fill yourself up with the Word and the Lord and then you will be set and then you will still be hungry for somemore Jesus.

David Perkins used the example that his family was going to a Christmas breakfast or something (but at the time they weren't sure if there was going to be breakfast or not) so they stopped at McDonald's to get some food and they ate .. McMuffin's and whatever and when they got to the house there was a massive breakfast feast that the host family had been working on since 6 in the morning so when they got there they were full and could only play with their food.

So the point is.. are you eating some McDonalds when you could be EATING A FEAST THAT THE LORD ALMIGHTY HAS PREPARED YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!!!
you decide.

-Some of us have been eating vomit for so long that we don't even know it.. it tastes good to us and we are missing the feast in front of us. We are eating Vomit and we don't even know it is vomit.
(thats gross.)

Basically to sum it up.
-God wants to know you and already knows you.. its up to you to know him though.
-After the great commission is said and done.. us looking for some epic purpose in life.. it all depends on whether you knew him or not.

Know Jesus. Seek him, let him overwhelm you with his perfect love daily.
That's all.
-Mali