What is the ultimate purpose and meaning of your life?
by Gary Petty

There must be some meaning to humanity's mixture of awesome abilities
and awful atrocities. What is the ultimate purpose and meaning of your
life?

What would you ask the Supreme Being if you could get a direct and
immediate answer? A poll in USA Today reports that the No. 1 question
people would like to ask God is "What's my purpose here?"

With all our technology and sophistication we still haven't answered
the fundamental question of what is the purpose and value of human
life. It seems Henry David Thoreau's observation that most people live
lives of "quiet desperation" is all too true.

Where would you even start to discover the purpose for your life? Can
you find it in psychological tests or philosophy? Aptitude tests might
help you pinpoint your abilities. Personality evaluations could
conceivably help you focus on aspects of who you are. But the social
sciences can't explain why you live.

The place to begin

The complexity and interdependency of nature around us, the miracle of
life itself, reveal a Life Giver, a Creator. Would it make sense that
a brilliant Life Giver would create intelligent beings without
purpose? "What's my purpose here?" can ultimately be answered only by
the Creator of life.

Western society claims to have its roots in Christianity, yet the last
place many people search to find purpose in life is the Bible. The
Bible reveals a special creation with a special purpose. The first
book of
the Bible is Genesis, which simply means "beginning." Here is the
Bible's first sentence: "In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth."

God then created a unique biological being called man. Genesis 2:7
states, "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
being."

Does this mean that man is just another animal, different in form but
essentially the same as a chimpanzee or other mammal?

The theory of evolution would lead us to that conclusion, but
evolution doesn't explain the obvious differences between humanity and
animals. How do we explain the human ability to create music and art,
discover and use geometry, develop architecture or invent complex
forms of communication?

Instinct and intellect

A slug or a spider is driven entirely by instinctive behavior. The
more complex the life-form, the more it can learn. Yet the behaviors
of even the supposedly highest forms of animals are primarily
instinctive. This isn't true of humanity.

Mortimer J. Adler, in his book Ten Philosophical Mistakes, makes the
point that if we compare animals with man "a radical difference
appears. In the strict sense of the term instinct, the human species
has no instincts—no innate, performed patterns of behavior. We have a
small number of innate reflexes, only some of which are congenital. We
also have what might be called instinctual drives or impulses. But in
carrying these impulses out, members of the human species behave in a
wide variety of ways. They do not all manifest a single pattern of
behavior, such as we find in all members of a particular species of
bee, ant or termite" (1985, p. 31).

This ability to reason and make complex decisions and choose courses
of action makes humans infinitely different from any animal. The
differences between the quality or quantity of the human brain and the
brains of other mammals aren't sufficient to explain the vast
differences in function. When it comes to size, some mammals have
larger brains than humans' while others have a higher brain-to-body
ratio than that of humans.

The difference between other mammals and human beings—the ability to
reason, create, communicate emotions, experience love and empathy—are
all aspects of what we call the mind.

Adler concludes: "The relation of the sensory powers to the brain and
nervous system is such that the degree to which an animal species
possesses these powers depends on the size and complexity of its brain
and nervous system. This is not the case in regard to the intellectual
powers. That the human mind has such powers does not depend upon the
size or complexity of the human brain. The action of the brain is only
a necessary, but not the sufficient, condition for the functioning of
the human mind and for the operations of conceptual thought. We do not
think with our brains, even though we cannot think without them" (pp.
52-53).

What is the human mind?

Brain size and biology can't explain humanity's uniqueness. So what
creates the differences?

Once again we turn to the Bible. In the creation account we see that
God created each animal "according to its kind," but human beings are
in the "image" and "likeness" of God (Genesis 1:24-28).

Creativity, positive emotions, logic, love, abstract thought,
communication skills—these are aspects of the mind of the Creator.
These are ways in which He has created us in His likeness.

Notice what the Bible says in Job 32:8: "But there is a spirit in man,
and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding." One of the
biblical prophets, Zechariah, declares that God "forms the spirit of
man within him" (Zechariah 12:1).

Mankind and animals are both living "souls," or beings. Both are
subject to death, the cessation of life. The difference is that man
possesses a nonphysical component called a spirit that imparts
individuality, intellect, creativity and personality.

The Bible reveals the mystery science can't solve. We are physical,
chemical beings with a nonbiological component—a spirit—a mind that is
in a limited way like the mind of the Creator. But, if human beings
are like God in so many astonishing ways, why can't we solve our own
problems?

An incomplete creation

Why are human beings capable of writing inspiring music and also able
to commit terrible crimes against each other? We research into the
intricate human body and create medicines that heal, yet we produce
nerve gas that kills. We send a rocket to explore outer space but send
a missile hundreds or thousands of miles to destroy a city.

If mankind is made in the image of God—who reveals Himself as loving,
kind and merciful—why are we so filled with hatred, violence and
selfishness? The answers lie in understanding that we are an
incomplete creation.

Genesis reveals the root cause of humanity's evil. The first humans,
Adam and Eve, were given freedom to choose between their Creator's
instruction about life and a way simply called the "knowledge of good
and evil." They chose the latter, the knowledge of good and evil.

God told Adam and Eve that once they started on the course of
self-determination they would embark on a path that would ultimately
lead to death. Evil—what the Bible calls sin—brings about death.
History is a story of good and bad, of incredible potential and
incredible failure. It is also a story of death. It seems that
humanity's destiny is to struggle, suffer and eventually die.

Central to the Christian religion is the belief that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Son of God who took humanity's death penalty upon Himself.
Jesus also came to supply the missing ingredient to make eternal life
possible. On the night before His crucifixion Jesus told His disciples
He would send them another "Helper" (John 14:15-18).

The apostle Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth about the missing
ingredient that keeps humanity from solving its problems: "... We
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God
ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of
this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory.

"But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have
entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for
those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His
Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of
God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man
which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the
Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:7-11).

Here Paul writes that mankind knows the things of mankind-reason,
creativity, mathematics—because of the "spirit of man." This spirit is
what makes us have similarities to God and gives us the ability to
have a relationship with Him. Paul shows that to really understand the
spiritual nature of God we must also receive the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of God is the missing ingredient in humanity. Without it
human beings become both good and evil, lacking the wisdom to always
see and choose the good. Death is the natural result. The death
process must be reversed and a new nature developed in us. Peter puts
it succinctly when he writes that we must become "partakers of the
divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

God's purpose for you

Humanity's problems—from agriculture to economics to education to
government to family relationships to individual emotional health—are
ultimately spiritual in nature. Real solutions require not just a
change in environment but a change in people.

Our first parents chose to participate in both good and evil. Not just
Adam and Eve, but every human being who has ever lived—except Jesus
Christ—has made the same choice. The result is that every human
suffers and dies. Jesus came to pay the death penalty for evil. He
also came to make available to people the Spirit of God, the healing,
missing ingredient that will change corrupt human nature into divine
nature.

What is your ultimate destiny? What awaits those who are willing to be
changed by God's Spirit from corrupted human nature to become
partakers of the divine?

Paul explains in Romans 8:14-17: "For as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of
bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by
[which] we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit [itself] bears witness
with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then
heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer
with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

The purpose of humanity is to become the spiritual children of God!
The purpose for your life is more than making money, gaining social
status and wearing the right clothes. The coupling of the human spirit
with the Spirit of God makes possible the development of a new nature
and eventually a resurrection to a new life as immortal children of
God, joint heirs with Jesus of all things.

This is the ultimate potential of every human being.

But this isn't just a nebulous promise of something in the far-off
future. The Creator says you can enjoy a Father—child relationship
with Him now. There are real solutions to your problems. There is hope
for those willing to discover their true purpose. The first step on
that road of discovery is to turn to the Creator and His instruction
book.