This morning at church one of the elders spoke about our purpose in
life. It has stirred some heavy thinking for me.
is your purpose in life?
What
is it that drives you?
What
thoughts dominate your mind during the day?
We watched a video clip of random street interviews of people. Here are some of the answers they gave to the
question “What is your purpose in life?”:
- “I’ve never really thought about it before”
- “I don’t know”
- “To be happy”
- “To be successful”
- “To have as much fun as possible”
- “To hopefully leave a legacy”
Out of the 15 or more people interviewed, only one of them mentioned
Christ or God at all. What’s wrong with
this picture? It is almost mind-numbing
to think of how many people are simply moving through life at full speed with
no idea where they are headed or, if they have any idea at all, are aimed at
self-pleasure and self-preservation.
Sadly, this includes many Christians as well. We can become so focused on getting people
“saved” that we forget what happens afterward; we lose a huge part of what
salvation actually is. I love how Shane
Claiborne puts it in his book The
Irresistible Revolution:
“I came to realize that preachers were telling me
to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren’t giving me anything to pick
up…. I had become a ‘believer,’ but I had no idea what it means to be a
follower. People had taught me what
Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.”(p.38)
So now we must ask the question, what does it really mean to be a
follower of Christ? What is our purpose
in life? Jesus sums it up for us in John
17:3,
“And
this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
The reason we are alive, the reason we were created, is to be in
relationship with the Creator.
For some reason, it seems easy to forget that sometimes. It could be partly due to the fast-paced
lives that we live today. What is
probably closer to the truth is a lack of trust.
Do we, do I, really believe that simply knowing God intimately and being
in relationship with Him is all that I need? Am I willing to give up everything to pursue Him?
successful if only we had “X” (you fill in the blank). Then we find ourselves caught in the downward
spiral as our whole life becomes focused on attaining more and searching for
that which will bring happiness.
Today, I’m choosing to step away from this game that the world plays, to
remember what is truly and eternally significant, and to pursue that with every
fiber of my being.
“But what
things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things as loss
for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain
Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from
God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I
may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press
on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of
me.” – Philippians 3:7-12
