Has life become meaningless? Are you busy with work or with entertaining distractions that mask an inner hopelessness? Do you wonder if your life will mean anything in the end? You are not alone. Many people in this day and age are navigating a world which they feel has lost any meaning. They keep themselves busy with frantic competition in the global marketplace, finding that moments of pleasure, consumption, and the accumulation of wealth are the best they can hope for in life. They are lonely, feeling disconnected from long-lasting relationships with family and friends they once had.
Does life have any meaning? Many of us today have sought for meaning in an inner quest for spirituality. We crave something lasting, something eternal, but don't have any certainty about it. Many of us are no longer interested in the type of organized religion that shaped the world of our grandparents and their parents. Or, at least we prefer to pick and choose aspects of it that speak to us personally. After all, there are so many disagreements. How can anyone know what is true? And does truth even exist? Or are we just transient spirits forever destined to seek after meaning but never find it?
The thoughts and condition just described represent a quest for knowledge which begins in ourselves. The reason why it seems so fruitless, why there is nothing lasting on which we may lay hold upon with our own minds, is that we are relying on our own finite understanding to grasp what is infinite. Eternal truth cannot be found in this way. The finite cannot invent the infinite, and neither can mere human beings accurately imagine what is ultimately true. Eternal truth, that is, the true God, must reveal himself to us or we cannot know him. And he must reveal himself to us in messages that are obviously from him and could not possibly be of an idea of human invention
Unlike any teaching or philosophy on earth, the Holy Bible reveals a God who is not invented by mere humans, but who comes down to human beings to tell us who he is. The Bible was transmitted from God by direct revelation to humans during a period of over 1000 years. Unlike merely human writings, it is not a human quest. It is God's message for humans. God's message, the Holy Bible, tells us many things that we already know deep down about ourselves. It describes accurately our own sense of good and evil that we have ingrained in our being, and our failure to live up to it. It explains why there is so much death and suffering in the world, and yet why it still hurts so much when people die. It tells us many things that we know inside but could never admit to ourselves if God had not told us. The Bible, most importantly, tells us something we could never know unless God told us, that is, how our broken lives may be remedied. Unlike any other teaching which pretends to be from God, the Bible reveals a remedy that human beings would never imagine. It is a remedy which does not flatter us. It follows a plan in which God takes all the credit and we get none. And yet in God's plan alone human beings find true happiness and the true meaning of their own existence. The Bible teaches us that we may ultimately find meaning not in ourselves, but in our Creator, the one who made us for his own purpose.
God created everything that exists out of nothing by the Word of His power. On the sixth day He created mankind after His own image as His crowning creation. He created us to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. But in our father Adam, we all sinned when he ate the forbidden fruit contrary to God's commandment. Romans 5:12 As a result of this rebellion we have all inherited not only guilt in God's sight, but a radically sinful nature. Indeed we prove our guilt by sinning against God every day. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
Because God is just, good, and holy he cannot let sin go. He must punish rebellious sinners according to the full letter of the law. A just God "will by no means clear the guilty." Exodus 34:7 But when the whole world lay guilty before God's holy judgment, deserving only eternal hellfire, God, in His unspeakable grace, chose to have mercy upon some. The eternal God and Creator of the universe came to earth and assumed a human nature to suffer and die for rebellious sinners. He came, "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Mark 2:17
This God-man, Jesus Christ, is the only Savior of men, the only one who can reconcile God and sinful men because he is both fully God and fully man. "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Colossians 2:9 Jesus' death on the cross powerfully fulfilled God's justice to punish sin and His mercy to forgive sinners. Christ was counted a sinner so that God would count His righteousness on the behalf of wicked sinners. Christ was punished, so that all those for whom He died would receive the reward of Christ's own merit. It is only by the meritorious righteousness of Christ that anyone may be considered right in God's eyes. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21
God has promised that whosoever believes in Christ will never perish, but will have everlasting life. John 3:16 This same Jesus who died for sinners, rose again on the third day. He will one day return to judge the living and the dead. We do not know the day or the hour of His return, but now is the hour of pardon. Repent of your sin and believe in Jesus before your time runs out!!
God describes all people as naturally dead in sin. Ephesians 2:1-7 Therefore, it takes more than a prayer, a good decision, or a new set of principles to set them on the right direction. It takes no less than life from the dead. A dead man is not able to believe. Faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8 In His own time, the Holy Spirit makes alive and indwells God's elect, making them willing and able to embrace Jesus Christ as He is offered in the gospel. "No man can come to me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him..." John 6:44
God does not leave the forgiven sinner in his sin, but makes him more and more holy throughout the course of his life by the inner working of His Spirit in conformity to the image of God. As Jesus said, "If you love me, obey my commandments." John 14:15
