The Purpose of Life

Identity › The Purpose of Life 06/09/15   By Nealreal

I wrote this for any fol­low­er of Je­sus Christ who’s got­ten off track (me in­cluded at times) as a re­mind­er of what the purpose of life is all about.

This serves as a re­start but­ton when life gets dis­or­gan­ized and you be­come frus­trated or con­fused. This is not an ex­haust­ive list, but it’s a point back in the right dir­ec­tion again. Any­one who’s strayed away can get back on track with this mes­sage.

First, re­pent and con­fess your sins

Any­time you get off track it’s usu­ally be­cause of sin. There­fore, some re­pent­ance and con­fes­sion is in or­der. The book of first John says:

6 If we say that we have fel­low­ship with him, and walk in dark­ness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fel­low­ship one with an­oth­er, and the blood of Je­sus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we de­ceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we con­fess our sins, he is faith­ful and just to for­give us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un­right­eous­ness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a li­ar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:6-10)

I would en­cour­age you to con­tin­ue to read 1 John 2:1-4 and Psalm 51 as well. But the above verses show us how to fix a broken re­la­tion­ship with God. I would also en­cour­age any­one to think about how they got off track, when, and what triggered it.

Now that you’ve hon­estly con­fessed your sins (ac­know­ledged your fault against God’s right­eous stand­ards) and re­ceived for­give­ness, you can con­tin­ue your jour­ney with God. Your purpose in life is 3 fold.

The purpose of life is to make a choice

The choice is wheth­er you will obey God or Satan, life or death (Jos 24:15; Deutero­nomy 30:19). We’re giv­en this choice every day, every hour, every minute. This time al­lot­ted on this earth is for us to make a choice to obey God’s com­mand­ments as op­posed to our own de­sires. So­lomon, the wisest man on earth, sums up the purpose of life in the last verse of Ec­cle­si­ast­es:

Let us hear the con­clu­sion of the whole mat­ter: Fear God, and keep his com­mand­ments: for this is the whole duty of man (Ec 12:13).

The purpose of life is to be trans­formed

For whom he did fore­know, he also did pre­des­tin­ate to be con­formed to the im­age of his Son, that he might be the first­born among many brethren (Rom 8:29).

God wants us to be­come like his holy son Je­sus Christ (1 Peter 1:15-16). Why? So that we can have deep fel­low­ship with him. We have all “fallen short” be­cause there is something in­her­ently wrong with our souls (Rom 3:10-23), but through the grace of God we can be trans­formed (Titus 2:11-12). And in that trans­form­a­tion we learn to be con­nec­ted and fo­cused on God like is was in the be­gin­ning.

Be­fore the fall of man­kind, Adam and Eve walked in per­fect fel­low­ship with God. They were per­fect and holy in all their ways. God and man were good friends. This is all God wants—a lov­ing close re­la­tion­ship without the sin—like it was in­ten­ded to be.

The purpose of life is to be used by God

17 There­fore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; be­hold, all things are be­come new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath re­con­ciled us to him­self by Je­sus Christ, and hath giv­en to us the min­istry of re­con­cili­ation (2 Cor­inthi­ans 5:17-21)

After God makes us in­to a new creature and brings us in­to a grow­ing re­la­tion­ship with him­self, he wants to use us as liv­ing testi­mon­ies to tell oth­er men and wo­men of his de­sire for a holy re­la­tion­ship with them. This mes­sage doesn’t just in­volve preach­ing, but the mak­ing of dis­ciples—people who want to learn to love God through obed­i­ence—they have to be taught. Be­fore Je­sus as­cen­ded to heav­en he com­manded this:

19 Go ye there­fore, and teach all na­tions, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Fath­er, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teach­ing them to ob­serve all things what­so­ever I have com­manded you: and, lo, I am with you al­ways, even un­to the end of the world. Amen (Matt 28:19-20).

That’s pretty much it. It’s just that simple:

  • Make a choice to obey and love God
  • Al­low him to trans­form you in­to the im­age of his per­fect son
  • And in the pro­cess, tell oth­ers about God’s de­sire to do the same with them