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The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren—A Synopsis (continued).

 

Chapter 2—You Are Not an Accident (pages 22-26)

 

Summary

 

Each person, his make-up (every distinguishing feature), and his abilities were no accident of nature.  All of these and more were planned by God before time.  Each person is alive because God wanted him to exist and to live according to God’s purpose.  He planned every detail about every human being’s life in advance.  Nothing about any person is an accident, his form or his days of life.

 

Just as God planned each individual, He also planned his parents and created through them the correct DNA for each person’s birth and development.  Even though many children are not “planned” by their parents, every child is planned by God.  God’s purpose took into account both human error and sinful behavior.

 

God never does anything accidentally.  He never makes mistakes.  He has a reason for everything.  Everything, both inanimate and animate in His creation, has a purpose within His master plan.

 

God’s motive for creating an individual was His love for him.  God in fact created this world especially for mankind, the focus of His love.  A detailed study of the universe will make obvious just how uniquely suited and custom-made it is for mankind.  The universe, this world and every person on it were planned and created with great precision.

 

God did all of this so that He could demonstrate His love for mankind, each individual person.  This is a fundamental truth on which every person is to build his life.  God is love; not that He has love.  Love is the essence of His character.  God’s purpose of creating mankind was so that He could express His love toward every single person.  Because of this each person may know that he is no accident, that he is created for a reason and that his life has profound meaning.  But, one can only discover that meaning and purpose when he makes God the reference point of his life.

 

Quotes

 

“You are not an accident.”  (pg. 22)

 

“While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.” (pg. 23)

 

“We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives.” (pg. 25)

 

Scriptures

 

The LORD will perfect that which concerns me.  (Psalm 138:8a)

 

My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.  (Psalm 139:15, 16)

 

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” (Acts 17:24-28)  [Note—the book only quotes verse 26]

 

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4a)

 

Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. (James 1:18)

 

For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:18)

 

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8)

 

Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb:  even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. (Isaiah 46:3, 4)

 

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

 

Conclusion/Comments

 

Absolutely everything of God is not accidental.  The universe, the world and every person was planned in detail before time.  God’s plan is being carried out exactly as He has intended for it to be dispensed.  This includes the creation of everything living and non-living; and of every single human being.  Every person has been planned in detail in advance, and God intends every person to understand and live out the purpose God has provided for each person’s life.

 

God has done all of this because He is the embodiment of true love, and in and to His creation He expresses His love.  This is the basis of each person’s being, and each person should understand that he has been created specifically so that he may be the recipient of God’s love in Jesus Christ.  If this is understood, and it can only be understood when God is the reference point of one’s life, then the person will know how special he is to God and how meaningful his life upon earth can be.