We asked student ministry workers in South Africa to share the importance of Purpose in ministry. In this episode Ryan van der Avoort and Cameron Shabangu share on the created purpose of man and the freedom found in relying on God.
Click here to listen to Part 1 with David Cloete and Poacher Hliso Sinethemba
What is Our Purpose?
“It’s that often used illustration of the goldfish or the train. So, the goldfish cries, “I want to be free, I want to be free”. Jumps out of the bowl and dies within a couple of minutes, because it’s out of where it was created. Instead, pop the goldfish back into the goldfish bowl and let it swim around because that is what it was created for. It’s the same thing with the train. The train is looking at all these other things going off on the sides and says, “I want to be free if I could just be free”. Pops off the rail and promptly, perishes as the train. But, if it is put back onto the rails, then it can now run with the freedom that is in line with what it was created to do and to be.
we almost gotta do a bit of shifting and stop seeing as restrictive something that is actually immensely good.
True Freedom and Purpose
And so, we’ve got to keep asking if some of these offers, out of the fishbowl or off the train tracks, are they actually things that are good for how we were created? And that will show us to be in a relationship with the God who created us. He is the God who knows us and loves us and knows how we fit together. And it is a healthy relationship of trust that goes, “okay, you’re God, you’ve got an idea of how this fits together. I’m going to trust you and stay on these tracks.” But it is in those tracks that the true freedom is found for the train. And it is the same for us. So we almost gotta do a bit of a shift and stop seeing as restrictive something that is actually immensely good.
confinement and freedom within the place where you were created for, that is essentially good.
Who is Actually Free?
I mean even that whole ideology of actual freedom is doing whatever you want, whenever you want it. I mean, it leads to anarchy. Because you will obviously infringe on another person’s right to be free or they will be infringing on your right to be free. So who’s actually free? And so, you have to understand exactly what you are saying, that actually, confinement and freedom within the place where you were created for, that is essentially good. And we advocate for that. I think the whole gospel is advocating for that. That you are not mastered by anything or enslaved by anything, you just instead understand who God is. And you are a ‘slave’ to him.
What to Do with Your Freedom?
So I think what you said, is absolutely true.
A lot of that sounds like, what’s the passage, is it Romans 6? Kinda you’ve got a choice: slave to wickedness or a slave to righteousness (Rom 6:20). That old, you gotta serve somebody. It can be the devil or it can be the Lord. That’s our choice, and it’s kinda working out which one you’re going to do. Well, I’m going to trust the Lord over the devil and the lies of the world!
