The Purpose-Driven Porpoise

From Psalm 104 - A Hymn of Creation:

How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number--living things both large and small.

There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which You formed to frolic there.   Psalm 104:24-26


The leviathan - giant sea creatures, like whales and dolphins and porpoises - which He formed to frolic there!

Frolic - to make merry - to have fun - to be playful!

That's the job -- the purpose -- of the sea creatures -- to play and frolic in the oceans!

The psalmist pictures the great sea creatures as large and sportive animals whose very existence glorifies and delights the Creator!

They gladden the heart of God.


May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in His works...
Psalm 104:31


And then we look at the closing verses of the Psalm:


I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.  Psalm 104:33

That's our job -- to proclaim His praise!

The sea creatures exist to frolic and bring joy to God.
That's their response to His goodness!

We exist to praise and glorify Him.

That's our proper response!

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.....says the Westminster Catechism.

I want to do as good a job at achieving God's purpose for me as the sea creatures do at theirs!

I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live....

and that's forever!



And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems....and God saw that it was good.
                           -- Genesis 1:20-21 - The 5th day.....

But God Gives A Song!

God leads His dear children along.  Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song -- in the night seasons, and all the day long...

"Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You" (Psalm 143:8).

"As for me, I call to God, and the LORD saves me. Evening, morning, and noon  I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice" (Psalm 55:16). 

"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety" (Psalm 4:8).

"The  whole earth is filled with awe at Your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, You call forth songs of joy" (Psalm 65:8).

         In the night seasons...and all the day long!     Praise Him forever! 

Life Stinks!? - Max Lucado

"Yes, life stinks. But it won't forever.  As one of my friends likes to say, 'Everything will work out in the end. If it's not working out, it's not the end.'

  In the meantime, don't overreact. Psalm 37:7 says, 'Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for Him to act. Don't worry about evil people who prosper, or fret about their wicked schemes.'

  This is a toxic world. But neither do we want to join the Chicken Little chorus of gloom and doom: 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'

  Somewhere between Pollyanna and Chicken Little, between denial and blatant panic, stands the levelheaded, clear-thinking, still-believing follower of Christ.

  Psalm 27:3 says, 'My heart shall not fear -- though war arises against me, yet I will be confident!'

  Confident in Him!"

Reshaping the Pot

 "The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hand; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him"(Jeremiah 18:4).

God sent Jeremiah to watch the potter reshape a marred pot, carefully handling the material and reforming it "as seemed best to him" into a new, better pot!

The prophet reminds us that God is the skillful potter and we are the clay.

He is sovereign and can use what He creates to both destroy and create beauty in us. He, the Master Potter, can, and is wiling to create new and precious pottery from our shattered pieces. He doesn't look at our scarred broken lives and discard them as waste!

He picks up our pieces and lovingly reshapes them as He sees fit.

Even in our scarred brokenness we have value to our Master Potter.

In His hands the broken pieces of our lives can be reshaped into beautiful vessels to be used by Him for Hs glory!

                         Something beautiful, something good

                             All my confusion He understood

                    All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife

                       But He made something beautiful of my life

What is Jesus doing right now?

What Is Jesus Doing Right Now?

One of the things He is doing right now is:

1. He is praying for us

Jesus' prayers for us assures the security of our salvation.


If  He were not effective in His role as our mediator/advocate we could lose our salvation.

Jesus Christ who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  (Romans 8:34)

Therefore He is able to save forever those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.  (Romans 7:25)

-- He is in the Presence of God right now -- at the right hand of God. In Scripture God's  right hand is the symbol of His unique and almighty  power and authority.


-- His intercession is continual and intentional - He lives to intercede for us! - Present tense!


 Jesus' prayers for us restores us to fellowship with God when that fellowship is broken by sin.


Christ is called our "Advocate," like our "defense attorney."
When we sin He is there interceding for us before God - being our Advocate - every day - all the time.


"It's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer!"

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the righteous One.

(1 John 2:1)

He's not just praying for us.  He is also -

2. Jesus is preparing our heavenly home for us

The picture is of a wealthy father who adds additional rooms to his home to accommodate his married children and their families. Much like the Amish farmer in earlier days. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, but also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms...I am going to prepare a place for you; I will come back and take you to be with Me...

(John 14:1-3)

There's room for all!

And He is also....

3. Jesus is producing fruit in the lives of believers

As the branch  is connected to the vine and draws its life and nourishment to sustain life and produce fruit, so the believer is grafted into spiritual union with Christ to draw spiritual nourishment from Christ.

Spiritual fruit is the result.

I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener....every branch that does bare fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful...Remain in Me and I will remain in you. I am the vine and you are the branches. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me...Without Me you can do nothing...This is to My Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples. 

(John 15:1-7) 

We were grafted into Christ and now we are being nourished and pruned so we can produce abundant fruit for Him!

A friend in California owns many acres of farmland and they produce a great harvest of citrus fruit.

She mentioned once they were expanding their acreage and citrus planting  to produce more.  I asked her if they were  planting lemons or oranges or grapefruit.

She answered, "We just buy citrus, and then we graft the little plants into what we need. In one greenhouse we will make them into lemon trees. In another we make them into oranges. What we graft on them determines what kind of  tree and fruit we will get!"

Since we are grafted  into Jesus, our fruit should be those listed in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Our fruit should reflect our Root - our true Vine   - Jesus!