The Gospel of John takes us all the way back to the time before creation. At that time, only the eternal God existed; apart from Him, no life existed yet. Jesus, the Word, was (has always been) God and was (always unified) with God as the second person in the eternal trinity. Through Him (Jesus), all creation came into being and life (Greek: zōē) became possible for us as an extension of His own. Therefore, because all life has its origin and purpose in Jesus, all attempts to operate outside of our purpose eventually yields frustration and dissatisfaction.
Of course, God has blessed us with certain individual skill sets and we’re able to use these to make a living in this world. As a result, we can have and do a number of things including holding a job and raising a family, for example. Whether our lives are filled with raising our own kids, helping with nieces and nephews, or helping extended community members, the people who depend on us need to know that our job supports our life, our life was never meant to support our job. In other words, we work to promote life for our community, our community doesn’t exist to support our job promotions.
If we view our life as all about accomplishing something, feeling something, experience something, or making ourselves important, we’ll never be completely satisfied. We’ll be living for the temporary perishable things and not the things that last. We won’t live life to the fullest; we won’t have zōē. Because our life is produced as an extension of the life of Jesus, partnering with him and living to extend that life to others is the complete fulfillment of our deepest inner purpose, and we’ll enjoy perfect satisfaction and peace.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13 NIV
