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There is a very interesting opening to this message. It is a street interview with people who are asked the question, "What is your purpose?" These interviewees are really taken off guard and few have any sense of that at all. Dennis Rouse, continuing his series "Doors", at http://victoryatl.com, lays out the question of purpose in three categories; Existence Significance and Intention. Jeremiah, a prophet of God, even asked why he existed. God stated that he created all of us for a purpose. We were the object of God's love. But often, most people see God as a God who loves one minute and then releases wrath the next. As a result, people tend to serve God for Love instead of serving Him through Love. Why did we (parents) have children? We wanted a place to express and extend our love as a family. This has much to do with why God created us! But Satan comes in and tries to intervene. Shame and guilt prevent us from hearing God and we then try to find purpose in other things. One of the deepest revelations we can receive from God is that he loves us despite who we are or what we've done. Because He loves us, He gives us purpose. Solomon had everything that anyone could ever want. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon talks about all that he had done and what he had experienced. At the end of describing these things, he looks back on it as "vanity and vexation". The New Testament references the Old Testament as the place in the Bible where we are taught to live life to the fullest. People tend to live on three levels: 1) Survival - Living paycheck to paycheck - 2) Success - the pursuit of all we can possibly achieve - It's the "American Gospel" - We've bought into it as a society 3) Living a Life that Matters - Dennis was raised with the philosophy of being successful. There is this list that he (and many of us) was to accomplish. But in God's Word, parents are called to raise our kids to become warriors against the powers of darkness. It is a life where the kids may not always be happy, but they are fulfilled. Success has a way of becoming a barrier to significance. We can be so consumed that we miss our purpose. Some of the top thinkers in the country were sent letters by a well known pastor asking them what their purpose was in life. Dennis reads several of the responses of these men and they were not much better than the street interviews!! In Proverbs 16:4, it says God made everything for his purpose. In Ephesians, he talks about our finding our purpose in Jesus. Jesus came to save the world. We can find our purpose in Him. We came here to SERVE. Because we are connected to Christ, we can recognize His purpose in the life around us. But we have to know and meditate on His Word. It's much tougher as adults to "renew our minds" because we have so much junk at a later age. Praying to God is as much of a listening process as it is a talking process. God will whisper to us in our spirit if we will listen.