What is my purpose?

Asking the question is a good place to start. It shows intentionality. We

don’t want to float through life, drifting from one pursuit to the next
without aim or passion. Living without intention feels empty, even
meaningless.

Instead, looking at what God says about our purpose in life can
invigorate us back into living the way he designed us to live. It can infuse
us with purpose, passion, and a path forward.

If you’re wondering, what is our purpose on earth according to the

Bible, the simplicity of the answer might surprise you.

Jesus was once asked, “What’s the most important commandment?” 

In Matthew 22:36-40 He replied "You must love the Lord your God with
all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and
greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself."

Jesus tells us the most important things in life boil down to these two
commands: love God and love others. Instead of chasing after careers,
promotions, degrees, and pay raises to find fulfillment of your purpose in
life, God is asking you to do two things right where you are.

Love God. Love others.

It doesn’t matter if you’re working part-time at a coffee shop or putting

in 60 hours a week as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Your purpose
is to love God and love others.

Loving God means spending time with him–reading the Bible, praying,
worshiping at church, and inviting him into every aspect of your life.
Loving God takes intentionality. It takes commitment. It takes an
openness to hear and obeying what he wants for your life. A life filled
with gratitude, love, and joy for the Lord is a life filled with purpose.

Loving others means living with open hands to serve and give
generously to the people around you. God has intentionally placed you
in your family, your friend group, your neighborhood, your social circles
for a reason. Those are the people he wants you to love.

Does that mean the refugee across the street? Of course. The single
mom you met at the park? Yes. The friend who’s struggling with anxiety
and depression? 100%. Even the coworker who votes for a different
political party? Absolutely.

God puts people in your path for a purpose. And that purpose is to love
God and love others in the exact place you’re in right now. You don’t
need to keep searching for your purpose in life. You’re already living it.
Use the skills, passions, and opportunities God has given you to fully
embrace God’s purpose for your life.

To understand the answer to the purpose of man, let’s answer the three questions from
the Bible, beginning with “Who am I?”

Who am I?

According to the Bible, man is composed of spirit, soul and body (1

Thessalonians 5:23). The body is the physical shell in which he lives. The
breath of life added to the physical body makes a living soul (Genesis 2:7,
King James Version). And the spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11) comes from God
Himself.

This “spirit in man” isn’t a separate person, nor is it an immortal soul. It

cannot function on its own. It needs a living body to interact with. This spirit
in man returns to God at death (Ecclesiastes 12:7), making possible
a resurrection.

Why am I here?
This second question is equally important.

We find in Scripture that humans were created by God, and they were
created after the God kind. By that, we mean man was created in the image
of God, but not of the substance of God. Man is flesh and blood and not
spirit. He was not created after the animal kind, as we read about in Genesis
1.

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and
over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps
on the earth’” (Genesis 1:26). And in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life; and man became a living soul” (King James Version).

We see that man was not given an immortal soul. He is, in fact, a soul, a
living soul that is subject to death (Ezekiel 18:4).

Man was created with the potential to become a spirit being and a child of
God. Man was created with the potential to become a spirit being and a child
of God. Paul writes in Ephesians: “For this reason I bow my knees to the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14-15; see also Hebrews 2:9-11).

Paul, in writing to Timothy, declares: “I write so that you may know how you
ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the
living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

The Greek word translated “house” here is oikos, which means “the inmates
of a house, all the persons forming one family, a household” (Thayer’s Greek-
English Lexicon). The amazing future of mankind is to become part of this
family of God, of which the Church is a physical representation.

Now we get to the final question.

What happens when I die?

Scripture speaks of a resurrection from the dead. “So also is the resurrection
of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is
sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in
power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians
15:42-44).