USA Today published the results of a poll listing significant
questions most on people's minds. At the top of the list was "What
is the purpose of life?"
That question has intrigued philosophers and theologians for generations.
While the answers proposed are as varied as the world's entire ideological
landscape, none is convincing. No one, it seems, has found the answer to
life's biggest question.
Yet the answer has been available for centuries. God's Word plainly tells
us that man's destiny is to become the children of God, divine members
of His immortal spirit family. This truth goes to the very heart of the
true gospel of the Kingdom of God.
Long ago ancient Israel's King David gazed upon the infinite vastness
of the night sky while he pondered the significance of man. Psalm 8:3-4
records his thoughts: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your
fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that
You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?"
David understood that man is the pinnacle of God's physical creation.
He went on to say: "For You have made him a little lower than the
angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him
to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things
under his feet ..." (verses 5-6).
Human beings in God's image
Genesis 1:26 describes man as created in the image of God. This helps
us understand what Paul meant when he spoke of us as God's children. "The
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children
of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together" (Romans 8:16-17, King James Version).
