In 1999, USA Today asked, “If you could get in contact with God directly, ask a question, and get an immediate reply, what would you ask?”  The number one response was “What is my purpose here?”

Someone that is not planning on living forever will have a very different view on the answer to the purpose of life.  King Solomon searched for purpose and meaning in life, in pleasure, riches, power, learning and accomplishment (see the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible).  He came to the conclusion that everything in life under the sun was totally meaningless.  Every pleasure will end, riches stored up will eventually be given up at death and you can’t guarantee who will inherit all of your hard earned wealth.  The more knowledge we gain the more pain and grief we experience and the more we understand how little we really know.  Ultimately, everything built or accomplished will be forgotten or will fall apart.  Nothing is lasting under the sun.  

Similarly, Andre Maurois, the French biographer, critic and novelist wrote, “The universe is indifferent.  Who created it?  Why are we here on this puny mud heap spinning in infinite space?  I have not the slightest idea and I am quite convinced no one has…”

I agree, no one could, unless the Creator revealed Himself and our purpose to us.

The Bible says that you were designed by God for a very specific purpose.  You were fearfully and wonderfully made and you were created in the very image of the eternal God.  The Bible very plainly and simply says you were created to know God and be known by Him.  Jesus said it this way: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).  In other words, your purpose in life is to have a relationship with your Designer.  

My computer is an amazing tool for storing, sending and receiving information.  I can also use it to hold down papers on my desk and prevent the breeze from the swamp cooler from blowing them off.  But what a waste that would be to use an expensive and well designed machine capable of so much as only a paperweight. If you were the best doctor in the world and saved thousands of lives, your life would be a waste in the end if that was your sole claim to purpose.  Every one of those people you saved would eventually die, and all that you accomplished would be forgotten.  Even the high calling of saving lives dims in comparison to something that will last forever. 

And God does call us to save lives, not the temporary physical shell in which our soul dwells, but the true person inside of the shell that will go on existing for all eternity, either in hell, as the just penalty for a life of rebellion and rejection of God, or in heaven because of faith in Jesus Christ, the King of kings, who suffered the just penalty of God already in every man’s stead.  If you know for sure that you will be in heaven forever, your purpose and meaning can only be found with this in view.  If you were a doctor on an airplane that is about to crash, would you concern yourself with the minor injuries of the passengers or even their major injuries?  Or would you concern yourself with ensuring that every passenger got a parachute and was prepared to use it?  There is a more urgent and needful purpose for our lives.  Jesus gives it to us in Mark 16:15, to preach the gospel to every creature, because we are not going to live “under the sun” for very long, but we will live “under the Son” (the Son of God, that is) forever. 

So, what are you waiting for?  Are you tired of living life with the hopelessness of NOT knowing your purpose?  Then call on God now, thru the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell Him that you are ready to live for Him, and to fulfill His purpose for you in this life.  Read Acts chapter 17 and hear the words of Scripture for you: “And He (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods (when you would live) and the boundaries of their dwelling place (where you would live), that they (you) should seek God, in the hope that they (you) might feel after Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us (you).”