How do you find your life purpose?

It’s a question most people ask themselves many times. The gravest mistake any person can make is to believe that there is no life purpose, specifically your life.
When you understand that life has a purpose, you can find your life purpose and fulfill it.

There are three simple questions that help you find your life purpose:

• Who are you?
• Where are you?
• What do you do?

How do I answer these questions?

These questions are answered by your worldview.

“Everybody has a worldview. It is the way we each view life, the belief system with which we interpret the the world; we use it to explain history and plan for the future. It affects our thoughts about ourselves and the intentions behind our actions.”

Dean and Lynn Wickert, Families from the Beginning, (Harrison, OH: Families from the Beginning, 2014), pages 1-2.

Worldviews are built upon presuppositions, which are unproven assumptions accepted by faith. Because presuppositions are reflections of our faith, our worldviews are inherently religious.

Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis says:

“in an ultimate sense, there are only two religious views in the world – beliefs built on man’s fallible word and the one that’s built on the infallible Word of God.”

Ken Ham, “Only Two”, AnswersinGenesis.org, Answers in Genesis, August 1, 2018, https://answersingenesis.org/worldview/only-two/

If this is true (and I agree that it is), the main difference between these two religious views is adherence to an absolute standard that originates outside of men. I’d like to examine these three questions to find your life purpose in light of these two worldviews.

1. Who are you?

Man’s word

The question of who you are is handled very differently in these two worldviews. Man’s view is that you are either a result of random chance, or that you are a pawn in a game played by unknown forces. Life purpose is focused on the individual.

In the materialist view your existence is the result of chemical reactions over eons of time driven only by random mutations that successively enabled survival. In this view your life purpose is simply to ensure the human species survives to the next generation, and possibly to develop some mechanism that will allow future generations to thrive. Then you die, and that’s it.

In non-Christian spiritual worldviews, the hope of somehow attaining the afterlife means your life purpose is to do enough of the right type of deeds to earn access to a better next life. The required deeds vary depending on the religion that is dictating the type(s) of afterlife available. Then you die and maybe become something else.

God’s Word

The Bible’s view of who you are is distinctly God-centered. Our identify is who He says we are.

• First, you are created in God’s image [Genesis 1:26] for His glory [Isaiah 43:7].
• Second, He created you as a male or a female [Genesis 1:27].
• Third, your relationship with God is marred by sin [Genesis 3:7-8, Romans 3:23].
• Fourth, only God can correct the third point [Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:7-9]. He did that, which restored who we are to the first and second points.

As a Christian man or woman your life purpose begins with who God says you are: His child [1 John 3:1]. The assurance of a continued relationship with Him after this life makes the deeds you do now a matter of obedience to a loving Father, not a striving to be good enough. While our deeds are an important part of the process of conforming us to His image in this world, their eternal value has more to do with how He uses them to reconcile others to Himself.

Who you are is an indicator of life purpose because God created you for His glory. If your purpose is to glorify the God who created you, then your personality, your appearance, your intellect, and your history can all point to His purpose for your life.

2. Where are you?

The question of where you are has many factors.

Where are you physically on Earth (location)?
Where are you in history (time)?
Where are you in your growth as a human (process)?

Where you live has something to do with your life purpose; it is the “home base” of everything you do. Our locations can change; many of us live somewhere other than where we were born.

Man’s word

Materialists tell us that our original location is just as random as our existence, and any choices to move are simply survival-centric instincts that will hopefully enhance our reach into the next generation. The spiritualist will defend our location as the best place to “reach the next level” or to be effective in our good works. Unsuitable locations are simply Fate dealing you a bad hand, and there is nothing to do about it.

If your time frame is unlucky, that’s just it; it’s unlucky. So much for your next generations.

Your process as a growing human is randomly experienced. Physical growth moderates intellectual growth, intellectual growth controls emotional responses, and they are all tied to chemical imbalances which are functions of chance.

God’s Word

The Bible deals with where we are immediately after Adam disobeyed. God’s call, question, and challenge to him was “Where are you? [Genesis 3:9]” He was telling Adam to consider that he was physically hiding in the trees [Genesis 3:8], that he was at the beginning of human history [Genesis 2:24, 3:20], and that he had fallen back [Genesis 3:17-19] in his growth as a human created in God’s image.

While God created the whole earth to be inhabited [Isaiah 45:18], He also distributed mankind across the globe [Genesis 11:8-9] so they could each find Him [Acts 17:26-27]. Christians should understand that our physical location gives us a ministry opportunity, wherever it is.

Because God is all-knowing and ever-present, our place in time is sacred, because He created us “for such a time as this [Esther 4:14]”. His plans to bring Christ “in the fullness of the times [Galatians 4:4, Ephesians 1:10]” shows that each person’s time on the earth is for a reason, and that He knows all our days [Psalm 139:16].

In God’s eyes, our position in the process of growth as a person may be the most important part of where we are.

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29*

Since He created us in His image and our sin ruins that likeness, His plan is to conform us to the image of Jesus, to be just like our firstborn brother. That process is life-long, and will only be complete when He returns and conforms us to His glorious body[Philippians 3:21].

Abraham understood where he was physically, in history, and in his walk with God. It’s all in God’s call to him in Genesis 12:1-3:

Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.
“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
“I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This call told Abram to change his location, understand his time, and recognize where he was in the process. All these helped indicate Abram’s life purpose. When you are looking for your life’s purpose, remember where you are.

3. What do you do?

We each have many abilities but some of those abilities are specifically important indicators of your life purpose.
It’s not our works to gain rewards that point us toward purpose, but rather the inherent abilities that make us unique. Anyone can follow rules, but it’s the type of activity that suits us that leads us to find purpose.

Man’s word

The materialist will claim that different survival strengths that developed in our ancestors are more prevalent in some humans than others and those strengths should be further enhanced to ensure preservation of the species. Weaknesses can be bolstered over time to become strengths.

Other religions of man will say the strengths of an individual serve to help them attain the blessings of their religion if they follow the rules.

God’s Word

God recognizes specific giftedness early in the Bible and in Israel’s history, God called out men whose skill made them suited for specific tasks to serve him.

• Before the Flood [Genesis 4:20-22].
• Moses complained about his lack of certain skills which his brother Aaron had [Exodus 4:10, 14].
• Bezalel and Aholiab [Exodus 31:2-6] led the gifted artisans that manufactured Moses’ wilderness tabernacle.
• Huram [1 Kings 7:13-14] led Solomon’s temple project.
• Asaph’s sons [1 Chronicles 25:1] were separated for service as skilled musicians.

In the New Testament, Paul recognizes that everyone has gifts, and we should all exercise our gifts to help one another.

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:3-8

Paul indicates that these gifts are from God, and that we should think carefully (soberly) to determine the purpose of our gifts. It will help find your life purpose.

Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:11 that some offices in the church are gifts from God. But those gifts, or service positions, were not dependent on the individuals’ talents, but on God’s callings. Apostles are listed as given and appointed for the church in Ephesians 4:11 and 1 Corinthians 12:28, but what we know about those apostles personally appointed by Jesus shows us that they were not all talented. The variety of temperaments among the Twelve is proof that the apostleship gift isn’t likely to show up in any modern personality profiles.

What are your passions, the things that either excite or provoke you? What makes you want to jump in and help or charge in and fight? Those passions are what you do, your personal bent, your knack, your genius.

So how does what you do indicate your life purpose? When you know who you are and where you are, your God-given natural tendencies will fill a need in the kingdom of God. If you are follower of Jesus, He will take everything you are, wherever you are, and work through you to glorify His Father [John 15:8].

Does life purpose change?

Another lesson we learn from the apostles’ lives is that your life purpose may seem to change over time. It’s a function of the growth of who you are in Christ, where you are in your walk with Him, and what you do with the opportunities around you.

Find your life purpose!

Where your passion intersects in your location and time with a need of the world or a need of the kingdom of God, you have found your life purpose.

By His calling, in His strength,

Dean

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