My hypothesis

[Angrboda]

You are breaking the two things up: patterning oneself after Christ and serving God. I think the are two sides of the same coin. My point was the following Christ teachings results in an overall purpose for life. Do you think there is a secular parallel?

There are plenty of secular parallels, from living a life of virtue, one driven by agape and selfless love, to one driven by rational self interest. But this is to misunderstand the nature of purpose. Purpose exists to drive activity. It need not be transcendent or unitary to do this. One may start out with one purpose and in fulfilling it, graduate to another. It doesn't make it an inferior purpose because the person's life is divided into different periods.