What is the meaning of life?
How can purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life be found? How can something of lasting significance be achieved? So many people have never stopped to consider these important questions. They look back years later and wonder why their relationships have fallen apart and why they feel so empty, even though they may have achieved what they set out to accomplish. An athlete who had reached the pinnacle of his sport was once asked what he wished someone would have told him when he first started playing his sport. He replied, I wish that someone would have told me that when you reach the top, there's nothing there. Many goals reveal their emptiness only after years have been wasted in their pursuit.
In our humanistic culture, people pursue many things, thinking that in them they will find meaning. Some of these pursuits include business success, wealth, good relationships, sex, entertainment, and doing good to others. People have testified that while they achieved their goals of wealth, relationships, and pleasure, there was still a deep void inside, a feeling of emptiness that nothing seemed to fill.
The author of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes describes this feeling when he says, Meaningless! Meaningless! ...Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless ( Ecclesiastes 1:2 ). King Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, had wealth beyond measure, wisdom beyond any man of his time or ours, hundreds of women, palaces and gardens that were the envy of kingdoms, the best food and wine, and every form of entertainment available. He said at one point that anything his heart wanted, he pursued. And yet he summed up life under the sunlife lived as though all there is to life is what we can see with our eyes and experience with our sensesis meaningless. Why is there such a void? Because God created us for something beyond what we can experience in the here-and-now. Solomon said of God, He has also set eternity in the hearts of men... (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ). In our hearts we are aware that the here-and-now is not all that there is.
In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we find that God created mankind in His image ( Genesis 1:26 ). This means that we are more like God than we are like anything else (any other life form). We also find that before mankind fell into sin and the curse of sin came upon the earth, the following things were true: 1) God made man a social creature ( Genesis 2:18-25 ); 2) God gave man work ( Genesis 2:15 ); 3) God had fellowship with man ( Genesis 3:8 ); and 4) God gave man dominion over the earth ( Genesis 1:26 ). What is the significance of these things? God intended for each of these to add to our fulfillment in life, but all of these (especially man's fellowship with God) were adversely affected by man's fall into sin and the resulting curse upon the earth (Genesis 3).
Real meaning in life, both now and in eternity, is found in the restoration of the relationship with God that was lost with Adam and Eve's fall into sin. That relationship with God is only possible through His Son, Jesus Christ ( Acts 4:12 ; John 1:12 ; 14:6 ). Eternal life is gained when we repent of our sin (no longer want to continue in it) and Christ changes us, making of us new creations, and we rely on Jesus Christ as Savior.
We have a choice. We can continue to seek to guide our own lives, which results in emptiness, or we can choose to pursue God and His will for our lives with a whole heart, which will result in living life to the full, having the desires of our hearts met, and finding contentment and satisfaction. This is so because our Creator loves us and desires the best for us. It's not necessarily the easiest life, but it is the most fulfilling. You may wish to pray this prayer. "Dear God, I believe that you love me, died on the cross and rose from the dead for my sins. I admit that I have sinned and I right now ask You to come into my life, forgive me, and take me to heaven whenever I die. I want to follow You as Lord for the rest of my life."
Have more questions? Contact Pastor Kevin.
