Every individual has a purpose, a reason for existence. Without it, life would be empty and pointless. To understand man's real function, to realize that it is God-directed, that it is all-important and vitally necessary, provides one with a goal, and it simplifies achievement.
Christian Science points to the first chapter of Genesis, which records the creation of man as God's spiritual image and likeness and which reveals his purpose in these words (verse 28): "God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Thus spiritual man is under the divine directive to be productive, to expand and increase good by reflecting God's goodness and power. This is man's primal and eternal function, and to this end he has been given extraordinary authority —dominion over the whole earth.
Christian Scientists naturally turn to the Master to learn how he understood and carried out God's command. Very early in his career Christ Jesus realized that he had a divine purpose, for at the age of twelve he spoke of the urgent necessity of being about his Father's business. Later, when he understood more clearly his great work, he described it by quoting from Isaiah (Luke 4: 18, 19): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
