What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? Why are we here?
These questions plague the minds of nearly every person, if not individually, then collectively. It’s been the struggle of secular humanity since the beginning of time due to the belief that life was created by mere accident.
As believers, we know we have a purpose; we know we’re here for a reason, but I honestly find myself thinking that even we sometimes don’t grasp the “why” fully, even though it’s written out for us plain as day in the Bible.
The Problem with our Purpose Vocabulary
As is often the case, I find that our vocabulary starts the problem. I hear this around the church fairly often: God’s got a purpose for you; you may not know what it is yet, but you’re still here to do something. The problem with this phrase is that you do know what your purpose is already. What you might not know is the method by which you fulfill that purpose.
Here’s the thing. Once you become a believer, your purpose is the exact same as every other believer’s purpose: to make disciples. Your only goal, your only reason for still being alive is to point nonbelievers to Christ. That’s it. It really is that simple. If you don’t believe me, allow me to point you to Philippians 1:21, which says, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
More on the second part later, but for now, let’s break down the first part. To live is Christ means that while you are alive, you are to be Christ. Disregarding all the things about Christ that we can’t achieve, such as perfection and sacrificing ourselves for the sins of all, what was Jesus’s purpose while He was here? His purpose was to make disciples so that people could be saved!
So, if we follow the Bible, which we should be doing, every believer’s goal is to be like Christ while they live. This means the purpose for each Christian life is the exact same; the only difference is the method. Just like Jesus fulfilled His purpose in a variety of ways: teaching, preaching, healing, etc. so are we to fulfill our purpose in varying ways. Believe it or not, this is also biblically sound.
Spiritual Gifts Give us the Means to Fulfill our Shared Purpose
Whether you get your list of spiritual gifts from 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12, they’re both a list of ways for believers to show the power and glory of God to the world. What they are not is a list of purposes for you to fulfill. If your spiritual gift is wisdom, you are not in this world to be wise. You are in this world to use the wisdom God has granted you to point people to Him. Likewise, if your gift is healing or prophecy, your purpose is not to heal or prophesy. Your purpose is to point people to Christ by providing mental, physical, or emotional healing or by speaking the Word of God to those who need to hear the message.
I’ve already written on this, too, but it needs repeating for context here, so I’ll cover it briefly. Paul provides us yet more proof that our purposes are one and the same following his list of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. (You can check out the original post here: https://nathanielgevans.net/blog/unique-positioning.)
Every last part of your body serves the same purpose: keeping you alive. Your liver does it by purging toxins. Your heart does it by pumping blood. Your lungs do it by giving you oxygen. Your intestines do it by gathering nutrients from the food you eat. If the body of Christ is a body, each part is unified in fulfilling the purpose of the body while diversified in how they go about the process.
By this point, I’m hopefully beating a dead horse about our purpose being the same, so I’ll move on.
Lack of Purpose Fulfillment
Earlier, I quoted Philippians 1:21 and mentioned I’d get back to the second part later. Later is now. Something that disturbs me about Christians nowadays is the penchant for ignoring 1:21a and skipping straight to the second half of the verse: to die is gain.
For whatever reason, a number of Christians are so focused on the end times, on Jesus coming back, that they aren’t bothering to fulfill their purpose. They just want to die so they can get to Heaven; they just want the second coming so they can end their existence on this planet and be completed with God.
And to be fair, the desire to be complete and in Heaven is a good one. I can’t begrudge that because I believe that growing closer to God implants an intense desire to be with Him in our glorified bodies. There’s not even anything wrong with being prepared for Jesus’s second coming. The Bible says we must be ready for it to occur at any time (Matthew 24:42-44). What I can begrudge is those who neglect their purpose while on the path to true sanctification.
End Times Preparation
So, if just waiting in anticipation isn’t what you should be doing, what should you be doing? Why, fulfilling your purpose, of course; it’s selfish to do otherwise and in complete contradiction to God’s character. You can even see a clear example right at the crucifixion.
Even unto the moment of His death, Jesus was saving people. Luke 23:42-43 depicts Jesus saving one of the men being crucified with Him right before they were both to die on crosses. There’s even a chance that a Roman centurion who was there was saved as Jesus died. Three of the gospels include text indicating that at least one man knew Jesus to be the Son of God at the moment of His death.
What believers should be focusing on in Philippians 1:21 is the first half of the verse: living as Christ. We should settle for nothing less than doing as He did, preaching, teaching, healing, loving as He did. Whatever the method we were granted by God to fulfill our purpose, every action we take should be tailored toward making Heaven more crowded, right up until our dying breath. We should even hope for our actions to be so purpose-driven that they inspire people to turn to Christ after our death. If your every action isn’t directing people to Jesus, you’re doing it wrong.