Living With A Purpose

“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.”  Matthew 10:39

What is life?  Is it breathing, talking, eating, working, and playing?  Is it striving to get more stuff or reach for the stars?  Or is it a sense of accomplishment, contentment, and making a difference in the lives of others?  Which one of these purposes in life do you wish to pursue?  The above verse is a statement by Jesus which is a paradox: something that seems not to be true, but actually is true.  The goal of the majority of earth’s residents is, as the saying goes, “get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the can”.  Or, as in the case of many, “get all you can and blow it”.  I wonder how many folks have received a very generous inheritance that would have probably set them up for life barring any major unforeseen catastrophes, but they wasted it on items that they thought would make them happy only to get old and wish they had not been so, well, stupid.  What about those who win huge lotteries that, in their own words, ruined their lives?  Come into a fortune, and “friends” that you didn’t know that you had, come “out of the woodwork”!

Our world is a material seeking world.  How sad to spend a lifetime seeking pleasures and possessions that cannot and never will satisfy the deepest longing of the heart.  Jesus asked a very thought-provoking question in Matthew 16:26: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  For a moment, imagine what it would be like to own everything in the world, that is, every bit of land, every building and home, all the gold, silver, and other valuables, yet have no hope of eternal life.  First of all, he would be a target of people in every nation of the world.  He would never have any rest.  He wouldn’t even be able to trust those whom he hired to help protect all of his goods, and then he would be like the rich man who depended on his wealth to provide for him the rest of his life but died suddenly.  Everything he owned became the property of someone else, and he had to face God in his self-centered condition.

We are all experiencing inflation now.  The cost of everything has risen a lot.  The authorities try to tell us that prices have only risen ten to thirteen percent, but I have found that the prices of many of the grocery items that I buy have doubled.  I read online that some folks are skipping meals.  We have certainly had to make many adjustments in our homes and lifestyles.  However, I thought that perhaps this could be a good thing with Christmas around the corner, in that, folks might get their focus back on the reason for Christmas and not so much on gifts, parties, food, and drinking.  But then I realized that 9-11 didn’t make any long-lasting changes to the attitudes of people concerning the important things in life, and neither did COVID.  At first, the pandemic seemed to wake folks up to the brevity of life and eternity, but once things calmed down, it became business as usual–making and spending what money we do have again attempting to satisfy that longing for a purposeful life, but never really finding it: looking for “whatever” in all the wrong places.

The only purposeful and fulfilling life that can be had is one that is lived for Jesus Christ.  That’s how God intended life to be.  That’s why one cannot find happiness, satisfaction, and contentment in careers, other people, fame, or fortune.  There have been multitudes of famous people who have committed suicide or died of a drug overdose because their lives lacked real purpose.  In some countries, the governments are pushing euthanasia as a solution to escape the realities of a life lived for self.  Jesus doesn’t want us to waste our short time on earth searching for the worldly “high life”.  Rather, He wants us to follow Him on the “high road” to real life.

To know the God of the Bible, to place our faith in His Son Jesus Christ, and to have the presence of the Holy Spirit residing in our hearts giving us guidance, hope, comfort, and joy is worth far more than anything the world has to offer.  Only those who have experienced life in Christ can understand what real life is like.