David:

[0:00] It was July 1969, and Cora sat in the cool room of the doctor's office waiting for him to come in. This was her seventh pregnancy, and the last one was precarious. The doctor talked with Cora, kind of surprised that she was having another baby. He talked about the prolapsed uterus that she had during her last pregnancy that had put her at risk, and questioned and said, what could happen this time? You know, it was a different age medically than it is today, and the doctors didn't know as much or we didn't have the care as we do for today as we did back then. And so he was very concerned for the safety of Cora and he basically recommended an abortion. He recommended to terminate the pregnancy. He said, there's a great risk in having another baby. You're 36 years old and things did not go well last time.

David:

[0:51] There was a hesitancy with Cora And then the doctor said it. He said, a live mother with six children is better than a dead mother with seven children. Trying to convince her. Wow, this is situation ethics at its finest. What was Cora going to do? Keep the baby and save her life? Have the baby and risk her own life? What is she going to do? Well, being Christians, her and her husband, and not knowing what we do today, the parents did not know what to do. Ending the pregnancy did not seem the right thing to do, but that is what the doctor was ordering. So they got an arrangement to have a second opinion.

David:

[1:33] Now, Cora was an avid follower of Jesus Christ, and she read her Bible and had devotions every single day. But on this particular morning of her appointment to get the second opinion, she had been a little bit rushed in her morning routine with the other six children that she had, and had missed her morning devotions. So she decided to read her Bible while she was waiting in the waiting room.

David:

[1:55] And she happened to be reading John chapter 1, and came to verses 12 and 13, which said, As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. God used these verses to speak to Cora, and he said, this child was being born. This child is not being born of blood. The parents did not want another child, and yet here's another child. The child is not being born by the will of the flesh. The parents did not want another child. This child is not being born by the will of man. The doctor did not want another child. This child is here because of God, because of the will of God. And this was God speaking to Korah, and he basically said, this child is from me. We want to keep this child. This was God's will that this child be born. And she did not know why this child was so important to be born, but she's like, this was her answer. This made up her mind, and she chose right then and there. She's not going to abort this baby. And she did not even need to go follow up on the second opinion. Because her mind had already been made up. She went ahead and kept the appointment, but we're keeping this baby, and that's the end of it. God had spoken to her.

David:

[3:25] Friends, in life, there is a purpose. There is a purpose to why you were born. Around the year 1446 BC, Moses stood before Pharaoh asking for permission to let the children of Israel go just for a three-day journey out into the wilderness to worship their God. And the initial talk didn't go very well. And Pharaoh refused. Moses went back and complained to God, said, why did you send me? Things aren't going as planned. Pharaoh's not letting them go. And God said, now you will see what I will do unto Pharaoh. For with a strong hand, he will let them go. And with a strong hand, he will lead them. He will force them and get them out of his land. And as if you know the story god started bringing plagues upon pharaoh first the water being turned to blood then the frogs then the lice then the flies then the cattle dies then the boils and then it's interesting in chapter 9 of exodus while he's talking about the next plague, moses talking to pharaoh said i will bring all these plagues upon you that i that you may know that there's none like me in all the earth. He's talking about the Lord. And then he said to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I, the Lord, have raised you up for to show my power in you that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

David:

[4:54] This stubborn, obstinate opposition and opponent of God and God's people, God said, I raised you up. I put you here in this world to oppose me so I can show my great power upon you. In life, there is a purpose. There is a purpose to why you were born, to why I was born. Around 800 years later, there lived a prophet named Jeremiah. And Jeremiah lived during the time of the last few kings in Judah. He was around during the time when King Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem, took Jerusalem. And God had chosen Jeremiah to be a prophet during that time. But what's very interesting is in chapter 1, verse 4 and 5, it says this, Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. Before thou came forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and ordained thee to be a prophet to the nations.

David:

[6:01] God basically told Jeremiah, Before you were even born, I have my eye on you, and I chose you, and I'm going to raise you up, and you're going to be my prophet to me before all these nations. It wasn't Jeremiah's idea to be a prophet. It was God's idea for him to be a prophet. Life, there's purpose in life, and there's a purpose why you were born in this life. Fast forward to today. Do you know you have a purpose in life as well?

David:

[6:34] Ephesians 2, verse 1, 5 and 10. Verse 1, it says that you are dead in your trespasses and sins. Verse 5 says he's made you alive because you are dead in your trespasses and sins. But verse 10 is what I want to focus on, which says, You are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. You are God's workmanship. You are his craftsmanship. He's made you a special chosen vessel to do His work, to do good works. He says, I prepare good works for you to do. You just need to walk in them. See, there is a purpose for us. There's a purpose for you in this world. There's a purpose for me in this world. And God has created us to fulfill those. And so your job, one of your major purposes and jobs and goals in this world should be to pursue God and say, what did you make me for? What purpose, what good work is it that you have made me for? And it may not be just one work. It may be a lot of different things, but God has made us for good works.

David:

[7:52] There is a purpose in life, and there's a purpose why you were born. But the thing I want you to remember is that your purpose is bigger than you. Your purpose is bigger than you. As you look at your business, there are many entrepreneurs and investors today who talk about wealth, and their goal is to have the wealth of time, have the wealth of health, have the wealth of money, relationships of impact. They want to be able to do whatever they want to do and have the money to do it. They want to have great relationships who are fulfilling that need there. They want to have a healthy body so that they can go and vacation and work or

David:

[8:35] do whatever they want to do. And they want to have an impact and be able to help other people and do that on a grand scale, that wealth. But there again the world's way not that all those are bad necessarily but when that is your focus, think about how selfish that is that's selfish because it's thinking only of yourself your time your health wealth money relationships god has other plans in in mind for you when it talks about time in the bible it says we are to redeem our time that we may apply our hearts to wisdom, Redeem the time because the days are evil. It says, redeem the time and get all this time so you can do whatever you want. It's for a purpose. Health, it's kind of interesting. God told Adam and Eve, by the sweat of your brow, you are going to have to make a living. He says, you're going to work for a living. And that's how you're going to live. And you and I know that when we go to the gym, we sweat, don't we? We work. And it used to be that we used to work physically with our bodies to make a living. That was our exercise. But because we've come so far away from that, well, we have to do extra things in our life to make up for that manual labor that we no longer have. Money. Paul says...

David

[10:05] Exhort those who are rich in this world not to trust in uncertain riches, but in God who richly gives us all things to enjoy. That they do good to be rich in good works, ready to communicate, willing to distribute. Even if you have a lot of money, you cannot put, do not put your trust in riches. Riches can go. They can be wiped out in a moment. And I know a lot of people try to get the money, get the passive income, get it coming in, and then they try to build that moat around the castle that they have. But I'll tell you what, God opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble. And he is very much able to wipe out anybody if he so chose. There's plenty of examples of that in the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar is just one example. You can read about that in Daniel chapter 4. Relationships yes relationships are important but we can have that even if we don't have a million dollars coming in a year even if we don't have if we have to work more than 40 hours a week or 10 hours a week or whatever impact your impact that's an interesting thing because we want to have people these people want to have a wealth of impact.

David:

[11:26] God in his design, and it's not just spiritually, but it's also in business. It says one person is going to plant, another person is going to water. God causes the growth. It's true, not just with plants. When you plant a tomato seed and somebody waters the tomatoes and then you get tomatoes, how does those tomatoes come?

David:

[11:49] God makes it grow. Your business is the same. The impact that you have is the same. You can plant, you can water, but you cannot change people's minds. Cannot change people's minds. It is God who changes people's minds. So your impact comes from God. God is the one who brings the results. And that's why in the scriptures, when we look at business, they're never focused on productivity. They're not focused on results. They're focused on application and how you work. because what's important is your diligence and your application and you doing what you're supposed to be doing and the results, the impact is coming from the Lord.

David:

[12:33] Your purpose in life is bigger than you. Do not be blinded to the pursuit of you and the pursuit of your personal success. Your purpose in life that God has given to you is bigger than your wealth of your time, of your money, of your health, of your relationships, of your impact. Your purpose is so much bigger and grander than that. Why? Because there's a God in this world. Because there's a God who created this world, a God who rules this world, a God who both rewards and judges this world according to their obedience or disobedience. You see, we are not on a purposeless, tragic accident of chance and need to find our own way in this world, we have a God who has created us with purpose, who has given us his word, a letter to us to show us how to live life.

David:

[13:33] Let's go back and reflect on what we have covered. Today, as adults, you have seen that God has given us purpose because we are his workmanship, created for good works. If you look at Pharaoh, he is a powerful, powerful opponent of God's people, and yet God had a purpose for raising him up so that God's name, not Pharaoh's name, so that God's name would be glorified, that God's and who he is and his power may be shown so that all the world will know who he is.

David:

[14:10] Jeremiah, before he was born, he had a God-given purpose. His God-given purpose was that he be a prophet. He did not know it. His parents did not know it. But before he was born, God had given him a purpose. Life has purpose, and there is a purpose to why you were born. There's a purpose to why every baby on this planet is born, whether it be for any one of these things, good works, to show God's greatness, or to be used of God.

David:

[14:44] I want to go back to Cora, though, the story we started at the beginning of this podcast. You see, she had decided to keep the baby because she read God's Word. And that was a great choice. But that was not the end of her trials. Because during the rest of her pregnancy, she was filled with conflict. Did she make the right choice? What if something would happen to her? And that was a constant tension in her life as she carried this baby. They trusted God, but when something bad happened, that was always in the back of her mind. And then came the Christmas season. And in those days, their mass marketing went out via post mail from the Easter Seals to raise awareness of the thousands of children who were born every year with birth defects. And there are stories in these letters, and there are stamps you can put on the postcards.

David:

[15:41] Postcards and Christmas cards. And the goal was to raise money, to raise awareness of all these kids who had birth defects so they could send money, they can do something about it, and that kids would be better. But all Cora could think about was, wow, what is God trying to prepare me for a child with birth defects? I'm getting all these things. And she started having dreams. She started having nightmares of giving birth to a child that had no arms or no legs. And if you've ever known a woman in a third trimester of her pregnancy, suggesting ill towards a baby is not going to help her emotionally at all. I know my wife would go up and down, up and down every day of the last month or so emotionally because it was just, that's how it was. And so this was extremely hard for Cora as she had to deal with, I don't know what's inside me we're trusting God that God gives us a good baby A whole baby But we don't know.

David:

[16:45] However, the day finally arrived when the baby was born. And the first thing Cora did was to look. Hey, there's two arms. There's two legs. And she quickly counted. There's 10 fingers, 10 toes. And she leaned back and said, oh, thank you, Lord. She released this tension in her mind that she's been pent up and bearing for so long because she didn't know. But she finally realized that God had given her a whole child. And all that worry and anxiety was washed away.

David:

[17:18] You know, this child grew and matured and lived a normal life. Well, if there ever is such a thing as a normal life. And the child never knew the decision that had been made about saving his life. Actually, nobody knew because the parents didn't tell anybody. But the parents knew and the parents remembered. And for a long time, after almost every accomplishment this child made, every time this child won an award, every child time there was a victory, my dad would lean over to my mom and say, that is a child who almost wasn't. Yes, that was my mom in the waiting room reading her Bible and the verses that literally saved my life. Friends, life has a purpose. There is a purpose why I was born. It was by God's choice, by God's word that I was end up being born. There's a purpose to why you were born. There's a purpose to why every unborn child out there, because God thinks and plans ahead that way. God plans their life before they start. He does a lot better at planning than you and I do. There is a purpose for those children. You know, I am so glad my mom read and obeyed the scriptures so that I might have a right to live.

David:

[18:40] I'm glad he made it so you guys could live as well. You know, I am an engineer. And part of my job is to seek out root causes to why things go wrong so problems don't come back. And as I look at this, I look at my life, the root cause of why I lived is because my parents had a belief in God Almighty that he created this world. They had a belief that man was made in God's image. They had a belief that the Bible is true and that it should be trusted and that God rewards obedience. You see, God created everything. God created everything you see. And God created man in his own image. And man is different. Man is different than animals and everything else we see around us. We are unique. Think of the rocks. we crush rocks stick them together and we make roads out of them make buildings out of rocks.

David:

[19:38] Look at trees, the plants. We cut trees up and we make furniture out of them. Or we make build homes out of them. Or we burn the wood to heat our homes. Look at the animals. We either use them as pets or throw them in a zoo or we eat them. We eat them as food and that's fine. But when you look at man, man is made in God's image. We don't kill man mindlessly. We don't use men mindlessly. You should not, because they're made in God's image. God has said in the scriptures that if you kill man, by man, your blood must be shed. Because man is made in the image of God, and you're to treat them different than an animal. Very much different. They are sanctified. They're holy. They're set apart from all the other creation.

David:

[20:30] Life has a purpose, my friends. And there's a purpose why you were born. I am here because God wants me here. You are here because God wants you here. It is God's purpose that you should be pursuing, not your own purpose. It is God's glory you should be pursuing, not your own glory. You are God's workmanship, creating good works, walking them. And there's lots of other babies who are being born, unborn babies. They are here for God's purpose as well.

David:

[21:05] Friends if you do not know god and you are not reconciled to him through Jesus Christ please reach out and contact me or contact somebody else you know who does know god you are here for a purpose i encourage you to seek out that purpose why you are here it's bigger than you are it's bigger than your own personal selfish desires so much bigger i urge you to redeem your time, redeem your business, and walk worthy of God's great name.