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Scripture: 1 Peter 2:20-21: If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. Abridged: A purpose for the life of Jesus was not only to demonstrate how our human nature can be one with God’s holiness, but also to show us how to endure the pain, suffering, sorrow, grief, and injustice of the world and remain faithful to God’s special purpose for our lives. Meditation: The birth narrative of Jesus is a story we love to hear, tell, and re-tell every year. It fills our hearts with hope, joy, and gladness. But the purpose of God's existence in Jesus is not fulfilled there in the stable at Bethlehem. Likewise, when we listen again and again to the stories of Jesus traveling, healing people, feeding the five thousand, and making the blind see and the lame walk, we can be renewed in our faith and encouraged to rededicate ourselves to serving God’s purpose in our lives. But the deeper purpose of God in the life of Jesus is not found in these miracles. When we look at Jesus on the cross suffering, dying, and crying out in agony and pain, we may want to look away and shake our fist at the world that would treat this perfect love with such cruelty. Yet it is here that the purpose of God in the life of Jesus is made whole. God’s purpose in the life of Jesus was not only to demonstrate how our human nature can become one with God’s holiness, but also to show us how to endure the pain, suffering, sorrow, grief, and injustice of the world and remain faithful to God’s special purpose for our lives. Prayer: We come to you, Divine Creator, to bathe in your light. We pray the weakness of our flesh will be removed by the grace of your love so that the desire to serve your purpose guides our lives. Amen Enter password: .