Why are you here?
Seriously. Ever wonder, “What’s the point?” or “Is this all there is?” I have. Pony up and admit that you have, too.
Good news: We’re not alone. Everyone has this kind of crisis from time to time. Some are better at tucking it away than others, but everyone feels it. The real question is, what to do about it?
You sense that there is more than the daily routine, and you have thought far enough ahead that you know that no amount of success or happiness is going to add up to anything. What’s more, you have rejected the notion that you are just a complicated animal, or the product of evolution.
Know what you want? You want meaning. You crave purpose; knowing that your life has a reason and that your life serves a purpose. You desire to know that you are more than a bank account, a closet, a mortgage and 2.3 children. You want to believe that you are more than a big pile of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
Well…you are.
You were made for a purpose: To enjoy God and glorify Him forever. You were made in His image.
Genesis 1: 26-27 says this about the creation of man:
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
There you are, created in Adam for God’s good pleasure. In Adams perfect body, God put Himself on display. Man is the only part of creation that relates to God in this way. In this way we are unique, set apart from the rest of creation. As humans, we are the crown of God’s magnificent creation, built to enjoy Him and to be enjoyed by Him. Now that’s something to live for.
But there is a problem. the image has been marred. Adam sinned and the race fell.
Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned– “
The evidence of the human race’s fall is confirmed by simply turning on the evening news. But the fallout is not limited to the bottom of the barrel. Scripture testifies that all have sinned:
as it is written,
“THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” (Romans 3:11-12)
That means you, too. All means all. We long for purpose because, being created in the image of God, we have left our true purpose and been turned over to our own sin. God made us, and in His holiness and righteousness, He has decreed that “the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).”
The image is in peril. Faced with eternal separation from God following a “life” of futility and struggle, our prospect are worse than bleak. They are fatal.
What will you do? In your sin you hate God and flee from His desire to reconcile His creation to Himself. You are in desperate need of the two most important words ever written…
“BUT GOD”
God steps in. As in:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4).”
In His mercy He spares us the righteous consequence of our sin. By His grace He bestows upon us the unearned, unwanted favor of forgiveness. But how can a holy and righteous God overlook our sin?
By nailing it, through faith, to the cross in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, God in human flesh (Colossians 2:9).
By God’s gift of faith, the image of God begins it’s restoration (Colossians 3:10). If you will trust that Jesus Christ lived up to God’s standard of perfection during His life, and died innocently on the cross as your substitute, your sins will be forgiven and your purpose will be restored. No longer living for yourself but for for Him who loved you and gave Himself for you 2 Cor 5:15).
By faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross is made effective for you and your eternal purpose is now revealed:
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (Roman 8:28-30).”
Recognize the authority of God as your creator. Recognize that you have distorted His image with your sin. Recognize that forgiveness comes through repentance from sin and by casting ourselves at the foot of the cross, trusting in Christ as your substitute.
Begin your restoration today.
And as we stand amazed at the suppression of truth, we also stand in humility at the blessing of revelation don’t we? And why has God chosen the foolish, the weak, the base, the things which are not to, to bring to nothing the things that are? That no flesh should glory in His presence. I love the section in Corinthians that proclaims to those Greeks who sought wisdom and to those Jews who sought a sign, Christ has become both the Wisdom of God and the power of God.
The thought of the wicked speaking truth makes me shiver. I would rather that Mr. J who hosted that special “project” say nothing at all and cancel the special than to actually get something right while doing it. It reminds me of Psalm 50:16 where God says to the wicked, “What right have you to tell of My statutes and to take My covenant in your mouth?”
Well, let us seek out the wicked then. They have no guide.
Blessings