Know your Pupose

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

KNOW YOUR PURPOSE

Acts 19:32-34

32 The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. 33 The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. 34 But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"

NIV

The key here is in the fact most of the people did not even know why they were there. The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Crowd mentality is brutal in some sense as it only requires a few people to control the rest. We saw this in the supposed trial of Jesus before Pilate when a few Jews controlled the whole crowd. It is amazing how people can get involved in something they know nothing about, or why they are actually involved, other than belonging to something that is going on. This still applies today, and it is sad that people join whatever just to belong to something, even when they do not know why they are there. Hopefully the church is not like that. Hopefully those who join in know why they are there. Hopefully most people who attend church know they are there to worship God. We have to make sure that we are well aware that is our sole purpose of being where we are. We should not be concerned about whether others see that we are there or not, so they think either well or not so well about us. We should not be as concerned as to how we appear, as far as having the right style clothing or whatever so others will think well of us. We should not be concerned about what the church looks like, what others look like, what kind of this or that, as our purpose for being there is to worship God. But if we are distracted by, or our focus is in all that stuff, then perhaps we are much like that crowd that did not even know why they were there. We should know why we are a member of the crowd that shows up on Sunday morning. We should know exactly why we are there, to worship God, to bring glory to him. This is why we are taught to not say to the well-dressed man, come sit up front, and to the beggar dressed man go sit in that back on the floor. If we are focused on the crowd and how it looks we have lost our focus on our purpose for being there, to worship God. We must always know why we are there, always know our purpose is to worship God.