"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8 NKJV).

      As the book of Revelation is of Jesus Christ, we should especially try to absorb everything about Him in it. Here He is called the Alpha and the Omega—which are the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. This indicates that Jesus is the beginning of the purpose of God, and He is the conclusion of it.

       As we noted in the first chapter of John, “He was in the beginning with God” (see John 1:2). He is the purpose and summation of all that was created. As we’re told in Ephesians 1:9-10 (NASB 1995):

      He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times. That is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

      Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God, and all things were made through Him and for Him. Here we see that all things are going to be “summed up” in Him. This means that the end of all things is to be united with Him, to find their purpose and their being in Him. It should be our purpose to do this today and every day.

      There was a study done years ago which found that the most common question people have is about their purpose. The apostle Paul remarks in Romans 1:19-20 that God put this sense of destiny in all people. All people have a sense that they were put in this life with a purpose. God put it in our hearts to question so that we would seek it, find it, and devote ourselves to it. The ultimate purpose that we all have is to be conformed to the nature of Jesus and, by this, be united with the rest of His creation through Him.

      One of the ways we work this out is to do all that we do as unto Him, serving Him in everything we do as worship. We should be doing our job—our vocation—as unto Him, not just for our employer. If we’re doing all that we do for the King of kings, we should do it with all of our heart with the excellence that the King deserves.

      This one thing can elevate our lives, our jobs, and all that we do in a way that leads us to a transcendent life, carrying us beyond the mundane and earthly. Instead of having us focus on the earthly, we focus on the heavenly purpose of God in Christ to bring heaven to earth.

      The apostle John called Jesus “the Word” at the beginning of his gospel, indicating that Jesus is the communication of God:

      In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:1-5 NKJV).

      Our ultimate purpose is to know the One who created all things and for whom all things were created. He is the One who gave life to all. This One, through whom all things have come, wants to know us and to be close to us. We were created for His pleasure, and to bring Him pleasure is our highest calling. “God is love,” so we can’t know Him without loving Him, which is the first commandment and our highest purpose as human beings. Only when we do this can we love one another as we should.

      The more we know Him, the more we begin to see Him in “all things” and as the purpose of all things. Then, our hearts will be turned to Him to seek Him, not just organizations and programs.