Post Author: Bill Pratt
This is the one of the most basic and fundamental questions that every human being must come to grips with, or waste their lives away. If you don’t know what the end goal of your earthly existence is, you will drift like a boat without a rudder on the high seas of life. You will chase one thing after another, never making any progress, because progress implies that there is something to progress to.
The Christian answer to this question is powerful and compelling. Recently, as I was reading philosopher Peter Kreeft’s little book, Prayer For Beginners
Becoming saints is the meaning of life. It is why we exist. It is why God created us. It is the reason he banged out the Big Bang, . . . and why he providentially provided this one perfect planet, and why he breathed his Spirit into the Adam he formed out of its dust, and why he does the same to every baby conceived, and why he prepared a chosen people, and sent prophets among them, and finally came down from Heaven into a mother and a manger and a Cross, and was forsaken by God so that we need never be forsaken, and rose again, and sent his Spirit to haunt our hearts—all this stupendous effort was for one end: to make saints, to make little Christs, to give his Son brothers and sisters.
The whole universe is a saint-making machine. And prayer is the fuel that powers it. He was not called “Jesus” (Savior) merely because he was to save us from the punishment for our sins; he was called “Jesus” “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). His purpose was not just to make us safe but to make us saints. Prayer is our first step in becoming saints.
The meaning of life is to become like Christ, to become a saint. It is not to become wealthy, it is not to gain honor before other men, it is not to become famous, it is not to gain power over other humans, it is not to seek bodily health so that we can live longer, it is not to revel in fleshly pleasures.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Heb 12:1-2