What’s the point of my life? Why am I here? What’s God’s purpose for my life? These questions are asked in different circumstances. Sometimes they are asked in a quiet moment of peaceful self-reflection. Sometimes they are asked in the midst of yearning for direction. Sometimes they are asked in desperation—as part of questioning the value of one’s life.
The answers to questions like “What’s the point of my life?” determine the outcome of our lives. Our lives will be inevitably and powerfully shaped by how we answer the question of the purpose of our existence. The outcome of the lives of those who say the purpose of life is task accomplishment will be different from the lives of those who say the purpose of life is to build relationships.
For Christ-followers the best place to find the answer to the question of the purpose of life is to start with the question, “What’s God’s purpose for my life?” Romans 8:28 says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (NIV). And the next verse, Romans 8:29, announces what God’s purpose is: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
Echoing these words in Scripture, John R.W. Stott says, “The eternal and ultimate purpose of God by his Spirit is to make us like Christ.” And Eric Johnson writes, “The supreme goal of human life consists of the manifestation of the glory of God, and the best way human beings manifest God’s glory is through resembling God’s Son.”
What’s the point of my life? Ultimately and generally, the point of each of our lives is to glorify God by being formed into the image of Christ. In that “Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself” (Dallas Willard), we glorify God and we find our deepest fulfillment.
Just knowing the point of our lives puts everything into perspective. The Message paraphrase translation of Romans 8:29 says God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son…. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. If we know that God is using everything in our lives to shape us into the image of His Son in order to glorify Him and fulfill us…then we know the point of our lives—and we have a lens of meaning through which to view everything we experience.
