WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?

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thorn prince

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WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
« on: June 06, 2008, 04:49:58 AM »
What is the meaning of life? what is its purpose?

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thorn prince

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Re: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2008, 04:50:16 AM »
What is the meaning of life? How can I find purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life? Will I have the potential to accomplish something of lasting significance? So many people have never stopped to consider what the meaning of life is. 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. One baseball player who made it to the baseball hall of fame was asked what he wished someone would have told him when he first started playing baseball. 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 society, people pursue many purposes, thinking that in them they will find meaning. Some of these pursuits include: business success, wealth, good relationships, sex, entertainment, doing good to others, etc. 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 states this feeling when he said, "Meaningless! Meaningless!...Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." This author had wealth beyond measure, wisdom beyond any man of his time or ours, women in the hundreds, palaces and gardens that were the envy of kingdoms, the best food and wine, and had every form of entertainment available. And he said at one point, that anything that his heart wanted, he pursued. And yet he summed up "life under the sun" (life lived as though all there is to life is what we can see with our eyes and experience with our senses) is 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..." In our hearts we are aware that this "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 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 items? I believe that 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).

In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, at the end of many other end-time events, God reveals that He will destroy this present earth and heavens as we know them and usher in the eternal state by creating a new heaven and a new earth. At that time, He will restore the full fellowship with redeemed mankind. Some of mankind will have been judged unworthy and cast in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15). And the curse of sin will be done away with; there will be no more sin, sorrow, sickness, death, pain, etc. (Revelation 21:4). And believers will inherit all things; God will dwell with them, and they shall be His sons (Revelation 21:7). Thus, we come full circle in that God created us to have fellowship with Him; man sinned, breaking that fellowship; God restores that fellowship fully in the eternal state with those deemed worthy by Him. Now, to go through life achieving anything and everything only to die separated from God for eternity would be worse than futile! But God has made a way to not only make eternal bliss possible (Luke 23:43), but also this life satisfying and meaningful as well. Now, how is this eternal bliss and "heaven on earth" obtained?

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Re: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2009, 03:01:23 PM »
life is what you make it