The Purpose Driven Life

what on earth am I here for?

ZONDERVAN

Contents

DAY 1

It All Starts with God

For everything, absolutely everything,above and below, visible and invisible, ...everything got started in him andfinds its purpose in him.

COLOSSIANS 1:16 (MSG)

Unless you assume a God, the questionof life's purpose is meaningless.

BERTRAND RUSSELL, ATHEIST

It's not about you.

The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personalfulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greaterthan your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams andambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet,you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for hispurpose.

The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people forthousands of years. That's because we typically begin at the wrongstarting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like Whatdo I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals,my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselveswill never reveal our life's purpose. The Bible says, "It is God whodirects the lives of his creatures; everyone's life is in his power."

Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tellyou, you won't discover your life's meaning by looking within yourself.You have probably tried that already. You didn't create yourself, sothere is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for! If Ihanded you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn'tknow its purpose, and the invention itselfwouldn't be able to tell you either. Only thecreator or the owner's manual could revealits purpose.

I once got lost in the mountains. WhenI stopped to ask for directions to thecampsite, I was told, "You can't get there from here. You must startfrom the other side of the mountain!" In the same way, you cannotarrive at your life's purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. Youmust begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God willsthat you exist. You were made by God and for God—and until youunderstand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God thatwe discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, oursignificance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.

Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, butthat is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were madefor God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for hispurposes, not your using him for your own purpose. The Bible says,"Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to Godleads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life."

I have read many books that suggest ways to discover the purposeof my life. All of them could be classified as "self-help" books becausethey approach the subject from a self-centered viewpoint. Self-helpbooks, even Christian ones, usually offer the same predictable steps tofinding your life's purpose: Consider your dreams. Clarify your values.Set some goals. Figure out what you are good at. Aim high. Go forit! Be disciplined. Believe you can achieve your goals. Involve others.Never give up.

Of course, these recommendations often lead to great success.You can usually succeed in reaching a goal if you put your mind toit. But being successful and fulfilling your life's purpose are not at allthe same issue! You could reach all your personal goals, becoming araving success by the world's standard, and still miss the purposesfor which God created you. You need more than self-help advice. TheBible says, "Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way,to finding yourself, your true self."

This is not a self-help book. It is not about finding the right career,achieving your dreams, or planning your life. It is not about how tocram more activities into an overloaded schedule. Actually, it willteach you how to do less in life—by focusing on what matters most. Itis about becoming what God created you to be.

How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for? Youhave only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is whatmost people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize. Whenpeople say, "I've always thought life is ...," they mean, "This is the bestguess I can come up with."

For thousands of years, brilliant philosophers have discussed andspeculated about the meaning of life. Philosophy is an importantsubject and has its uses, but when it comes to determining thepurpose of life, even the wisest philosophers are just guessing.

Dr. Hugh Moorhead, a philosophy professor at NortheasternIllinois University, once wrote to 250 of the best-known philosophers,scientists, writers, and intellectuals in the world, asking them, "Whatis the meaning of life?" He then publishedtheir responses in a book. Some offeredtheir best guesses, some admitted thatthey just made up a purpose for life, andothers were honest enough to say theywere clueless. In fact, a number of famousintellectuals asked Professor Moorhead towrite back and tell them if he discovered the purpose of life!

Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about themeaning and purpose of life. It's revelation. We can turn to what Godhas revealed about life in his Word. The easiest way to discover thepurpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true fordiscovering your life's purpose: Ask God.

God has not left us in the dark to wonder and guess. He hasclearly revealed his five purposes for our lives through the Bible. Itis our Owner's Manual, explaining why we are alive, how life works,what to avoid, and what to expect in the future. It explains whatno self-help or philosophy book could know. The Bible says, "God'swisdom ... goes deep into the interior of his purposes.... It's not thelatest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as theway to bring out his best in us."

God is not just the starting point of your life; he is thesource of it. To discover your purpose in life you must turnto God's Word, not the world's wisdom. You must buildyour life on eternal truths, not pop psychology, success-motivation,or inspirational stories. The Bible says, "It's in Christ thatwe find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we firstheard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designson us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out ineverything and everyone." This verse gives us three insights into yourpurpose.

1. You discover your identity and purpose through a relationshipwith Jesus Christ. If you don't have such a relationship, I willlater explain how to begin one.

2. God was thinking of you long before you ever thought abouthim. His purpose for your life predates your conception. Heplanned it before you existed, without your input! You maychoose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and manyother parts of your life, but you don't get to choose yourpurpose.

3. The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmicpurpose that God has designed for eternity. That's what thisbook is about.

Andrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up under an atheisticCommunist regime. But God got his attention one dreary day.He recalls, "In my twenty-seventh year, while riding the metro inLeningrad (now St. Petersburg) I was overcome with a despair so greatthat life seemed to stop at once, preempting the future entirely, letalone any meaning. Suddenly, all by itself, a phrase appeared: WithoutGod life makes no sense. Repeating it in astonishment, I rode thephrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro and walkedinto God's light."

You may have felt in the dark about your purpose in life.Congratulations, you're about to walk into the light.

DAY 1

Thinking about My Purpose

POINT TO PONDER: It's not about me.

VERSE TO REMEMBER:"Everything got started in him and finds itspurpose in him." COLOSSIANS 1:16B (MSG)

QUESTION TO CONSIDER: In spite of all the advertising around me,how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God,not myself?

MESSAGE TO HEAR:www.purposedriven.com/day1

DAY 2

You Are Not an Accident

I am your Creator.You were in my careeven before you were born.ISAIAH 44:2A (CEV)

God does not play dice.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

You are not an accident.

Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke ofnature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wasnot at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it.

Long before you were conceived by your parents, you wereconceived in the mind of God. He thought of you first. It is not fate,nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that you are breathing at thisvery moment. You are alive because God wanted to create you! TheBible says, "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me."

God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberatelychose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and every otherfeature. He custom-made your body just the way he wanted it. He alsodetermined the natural talents you would possess and the uniquenessof your personality. The Bible says, "You know me inside and out, youknow every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit bybit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something."

Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when youwould be born and how long you would live. He planned the days ofyour life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death.The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each dayof my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in yourBook!"

God also planned where you'd be born and where you'd live for hispurpose. Your race and nationality are no accident. God left no detailto chance. He planned it all for his purpose. The Bible says, "Fromone man he made every nation, ... and he determined the times set forthem and the exact places where they should live." Nothing in yourlife is arbitrary. It's all for a purpose.

Most amazing, God decided how you would be born. Regardlessof the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, Godhad a plan in creating you. It doesn't matter whether your parentswere good, bad, or indifferent. God knew that those two individualspossessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom "you"he had in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you.

While there are illegitimate parents, thereare no illegitimate children. Many children areunplanned by their parents, but they are notunplanned by God. God's purpose took intoaccount human error, and even sin.

God never does anything accidentally, andhe never makes mistakes. He has a reason foreverything he creates. Every plant and everyanimal was planned by God, and every person was designed witha purpose in mind. God's motive for creating you was his love. TheBible says, "Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us inmind, had settled on us as the focus of his love."

God was thinking of you even before he made the world. In fact,that's why he created it! God designed this planet's environmentjust so we could live in it. We are the focus of his love and the mostvaluable of all his creation. The Bible says, "God decided to give us lifethrough the word of truth so we might be the most important of all thethings he made." This is how much God loves and values you!

God is not haphazard; he planned it all with great precision.The more physicists, biologists, and other scientists learn about theuniverse, the better we understand how it is uniquely suited for ourexistence, custom-made with the exact specifications that makehuman life possible.

Dr. Michael Denton, senior research fellow in human moleculargenetics at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has concluded,"All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the coreproposition ... that the cosmos is a specially designed whole with lifeand mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in whichall facets of reality have their meaning and explanation in this centralfact." The Bible said the same thing thousands of years earlier: "Godformed the earth.... He did not create it to be empty but formed it to beinhabited."

Why did God do all this? Why did he bother to go to all thetrouble of creating a universe for us? Because he is a God of love. Thiskind of love is difficult to fathom, but it's fundamentally reliable. Youwere created as a special object of God's love! God made you so hecould love you. This is a truth to build your life on.

The Bible tells us, "God is love." It doesn't sayGod has love. He is love! Love is the essence of God'scharacter. There is perfect love in the fellowship of theTrinity, so God didn't need to create you. He wasn'tlonely. But he wanted to make you in order to express his love. Godsays, "I have carried you since you were born; I have taken care of youfrom your birth. Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even whenyour hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and willtake care of you."

If there was no God, we would all be "accidents," the resultof astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stopreading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning orsignificance. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyondyour brief years here on earth.

But there is a God who made you for a reason, and your lifehas profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purposeonly when we make God the reference point of our lives. TheMessage paraphrase of Romans 12:3 says, "The only accurate way tounderstand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us."

This poem by Russell Kelfer sums it up:

    You are who you are for a reason.
    You're part of an intricate plan.
    You're a precious and perfect unique design,
    Called God's special woman or man.

    You look like you look for a reason.
    Our God made no mistake.
    He knit you together within the womb,
    You're just what he wanted to make.

    The parents you had were the ones he chose,
    And no matter how you may feel,
    They were custom-designed with God's plan in mind,
    And they bear the Master's seal.

    No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
    And God wept that it hurt you so;
    But it was allowed to shape your heart
    So that into his likeness you'd grow.

    You are who you are for a reason,
    You've been formed by the Master's rod.
    You are who you are, beloved,
    Because there is a God!

DAY 2

Thinking about My Purpose

POINT TO PONDER: I am not an accident.

VERSE TO REMEMBER:"I am your Creator. You were in my careeven before you were born." ISAIAH 44:2 (CEV)

QUESTION TO CONSIDER: I know that God uniquely created me.What areas of my personality, background, and physicalappearance am I struggling to accept?

MESSAGE TO HEAR:www.purposedriven.com/day2