God Created You for a Great Purpose

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
–Jeremiah 1:5

God created you for a great purpose. We hear that all the time, and we assume everybody believes that God created us for a purpose. But here is a news alert: not everybody believes that.

Many non-Christians don’t believe they are here for any specific purpose; they believe that their existence is due to a biological fluke. In fact, the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said, “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer–but none exists.” Do you believe that your existence here is by accident? Do you believe you are simply the product of some primordial chemical broth that oozed over the earth millions of years ago?

Even nonbelievers sense that there is something more to life than what we see. A few years ago, a survey by Johns Hopkins University asked eight thousand college students in forty-eight different colleges what was most important to them in life. Only 16 percent said “making a lot of money,” but 75 percent said the most important thing was “finding a purpose and meaning to my life.”

There is a higher purpose in life. In Jeremiah 1:5, God said to the prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Notice these words “before I formed you in the womb.” Life does not begin at birth; life begins at conception. That is when God starts weaving us together in our mother’s womb. God said, “I formed you in the womb.”

But even before then, God knew you. That word “know” in Hebrew refers to the intimate relationship between a husband and wife. God was saying, “I had a relationship with you before I even began forming you. And not only have I formed you and known you, but I have consecrated you.” That means God has set you apart for a great purpose.

What was true of Jeremiah is true for you. God has not only made you, but He has set you apart for a great, eternal purpose.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Finding the One Thing in Your Life” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2019.

Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in “The Meaning of Life,” Life magazine, December 1988.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.