People often wonder about God’s goodness when some disaster happens in the world, or in their personal lives. They ask “Where was God? Doesn’t He care?”. But what these people don’t understand is that God does indeed care. God cares more about a person’s life than that person cares about his or her own life. In fact, God cares so much about each individual’s life, that most people would rather have it that He didn’t care as much as He does. God cares so much about your life that He holds you accountable for every thought, action, and deed you commit. It is terrifying how much God really cares. We are all accountable to God, because in His eyes we all count.

One step in living a purpose driven life is to live an accountability driven life. As a Christian I no longer have to answer for my sin, that’s all been taken care of. I do have to answer for my obedience to Christ though. There are many commands for Christians in the Bible. Living an accountability driven life will keep me from living a purpose centered life, and cause me to live a Christ centered life. For the non-believer your first step in a purpose driven life is also to live an accountability driven life. Understand that you are accountable before a perfectly righteous, perfectly just, and perfectly “Hater of sin” God.

My accountability driven life starts with obeying the greatest commandments. Worship, the Word, and prayer are the three musts in knowing and loving God. And then I must love others. I can only do things things by the grace of God. I can do nothing by my will power alone. My own will doesn’t even come close to being strong enough to obey these two commandments. In fact when I think about it I know that I have never obeyed these commandments nearly as well as I should.

My next step in a purpose driven life is to take all those things I refer to as “obstacles to overcome”, “mountains to climb”, or “closed doors” or whatever…and lump all those things into one simple category called: “My Enemies”. Next I find my closest enemy and I pick a fight. Now my life has purpose. Your enemies give your life purpose. In fact, don’t be surprised if when you ask God for purpose, He throws a rock at your nearest enemy’s head, and when the enemy turns to see who threw the rock, God points to you and says, “He did it!” Identify your enemies. Your worst enemies will always be within. If you are not a Christian, your nearest enemy is God Himself. I dare you to pick a fight with Him. Your battle with God will either get you saved or get you into hell a lot faster. Don’t just wait until you die to see if God is real or not. Pick a fight with God today and face reality. There is more hope for a God hating atheist to be saved than there is for a complacent agnostic.

The word enemy comes from the Latin inimicus. Broken down the word means: in: not, and amicus: friend. So “not friend”. My enemy isn’t just things/people that want to take me out, but the enemy is also those things which may seem harmless, but are not with me to advance me–they are a distraction to me. All enemies must be removed.

I don’t think purpose is hard to find, and you certainly don’t have to go far to find it. Accountability to God, and facing my enemies are the two basic ingredients to my purpose driven life.