The Five Purposes of Life

What is the purpose of life?

Philosophers have mulled over that question for thousands of years. They have discussed it, theorized answers to it and written books about their theories. Many people these days believe that there is no purpose to life. If you listen to the popular atheistic 'scientific' theory of the beginning of the universe, everything, including human life, was just an accident. It's no wonder that so many people are wandering around with little sense of purpose. It's also no wonder that people are filled with selfish inclinations and goals:

How can I improve my life?
How can I reach my goals?
How can I be successful?

Naturally we as Christians can look to the Word of God to find our purpose but often we do it with the eyes of the world. Often we still look at the Bible with the above questions in mind when we should be looking at the Word of God with a different set of questions:

What did God create me for?
How can I fulfill God's mission on this earth?
How can I share God's love with those around me?

You see the world is self centered but we as Christians have been called to be God centered. God has promised that as we fix our eyes on Jesus he will keep us on the right path, the path that we were created for.

In A Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren does a great job of laying out our five purposes according to the Word of God:

1) We were planned for God's pleasure

2) We were formed for God's family

3) We were created to become like Christ

4) We were shaped for serving God

5) We were made for a mission

To shorten it up even more:

We were created for worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism!

Everything we do should somehow fit under one of these purposes, if it doesn't it's a waste of time. Of course we all do things that don't directly fall under one of these things and that's okay, but the question remains:

How much time are you wasting?

What's your ratio between time spent pursuing your purposes and time doing other things? Are there any of these purposes that you are not fulfilling at all?