Why are we here?

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Question: Why are we here? Does God have some use for all who are believers after we die?

PP

ATP: Has there ever been a generation of people or even an individual who hasn't wondered in some way about the answer to the question, "Why are we here"? It is doubtful. It seems that God has hard-wired into our souls, a quest for meaning and purpose.

Funny isn't it, if there is no God then sooner or later we ought to find people who don't think about God or the concept of God, along with related questions like the one asked here by PP. If we have simply come out of the primordial ooze and evolved into what we are today, sooner or later we ought to find people who don't think about the meaning of human existence and the purpose of life.

And yet the subjects of God and the meaning of life are universal in human pondering, and from what we know of the human historical record, have always been so. Why is that? And what does it have to do with answering the question, "Why are we here"?

Part of the answer is found in Acts 17:26-27.

...He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek after God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

God's purpose for our lives, the answer to the question, "Why are we here?", is that we might come to know Him.

Whether we like it or not, God in his love is pursuing us to develop a relationship with us. His original purpose for creating us as I noted in the previous blog entry, is a mystery. We don't fully know why God interrupted his eternity to bring us into being, and to do so on an eternal basis, that is, to create us as eternal beings. (We are going to live forever. The question is where: heaven or hell?) It would have made more sense to have us created for a short season, see if things work out, and if not, just evaporate us back to nothing.

But since God is all knowing and never comes into possession of new knowledge (he is the original and only perfect "know it all") he already knew what was going to happen when we came into being. So why did he create us? We don't know, but that is a different question than, "Why are we here?" which does have an answer:

We are here to seek after God and find Him.

And the passage from the book of Acts noted above, tells us part of how God is working out that purpose for our lives.

He has in effect, hemmed us in both in terms of time and place. He has drawn a time map of our lives and overlaid it with a road map. In doing so he has determined how long we will live in each of the places we live on earth, and he has determined what those places will be. He has done so to orchestrate or allow circumstances and/or people to intersect with our lives in such a way as to cause us to seek after him.

He wants us to come to know him and his Son, Jesus Christ, so we can be forgiven of our sins and spend eternity with him, enjoying literally perfect existence forever.

When we decide it is time to make a geographical move we may do so for any number of reasons: job, health, family and so on. And humanly speaking, these kinds of things will be the decision drivers that cause our move. But behind the curtain of human existence God is at work, either allowing these moves or orchestrating them, as they fit into his plan for us to encounter people and circumstances that will cause us to seek after him.

It is no accident that you live where you do. It is no accident that you know the people that you do. It is no accident that you are reading this blog. God is at work. He is circling his wagons around you so that when you look around you will see him! If we do not do so in one place, he moves us to another place or brings other people into our lives, all to show us from another angle that he is there and he loves us.

The divine purpose for our lives, the answer to the "Why are we here?" question, is that we might come to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and receive the forgiveness and eternal life God offers through Christ.

In John 20 verses 30 and 31, as the Apostle John explained why he wrote the Gospel of John, he explained the purpose of his writing in a way that fits the answer to our "Why are we here?" question. He said,

Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in his name.

Can it be that simple, that the meaning of life, the purpose of life, the answer to the question "Why are we here?" is wrapped up in knowing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior? Yes. And once we understand this and "find" Christ by asking for God's forgiveness through Christ, things begin to make sense, not only past things, but future things.

God has a plan for you to spend eternity with Him. It involves you being forgiven by receiving Jesus Christ into your heart as your Lord and Savior, asking God to place all the penalty for your sins on Christ, allowing Jesus to pay your bill.

There is much we don't understand about it all, so that we feel at times like we are "groping," as the earlier mentioned Acts passage described the human quest. But the truth is that God can be found. He says so. He desires it. Having us find Him is at the very center of the master plan he put in place before the world was even created. (Ephesians 1:4)

"To find God" is the answer to our question, "Why are we here?"