Meaning and fulfillment

Charles Stanley made an observation on one of his radio sermons a few years back that has always stuck with me because it was so profound.  He said something along the lines that we were designed by God as spiritual beings, and therefore the only true meaning and fulfillment we are able to find is through spiritual means.  But all too often we aren’t fulfilled because we look for meaning and fulfillment through physical means – money, possessions, sexual gratification, etc.  In other words, because we are spiritual beings we cannot find these things through physical means.  This was truly an amazing revelation that God gave to Dr. Stanley because it explains so much about human nature, particularly our modern culture.

Basically, it perfectly explains why for most people, enough is never enough.  They get the home, car, or job that they’ve always sought after and longed for, but after a time their dream isn’t enough for them any more.  They grow tired of it because it didn’t provide the fulfillment they thought it would.  Then they begin to long for the next home, car, or job that they’re sure will do what the first one couldn’t do for them.  This explains why fads and trends exist, and why people fall for them.

Or they plunge headlong into a relationship with someone because they get such excitement and apparent meaning and fulfillment with that person – until time wears on and they realize that person isn’t always able to provide them with those things.  That person isn’t perfect and they make mistakes and they say and do hurtful things.  Then – more often than not – that relationship ends when one partner decides that being alone or finding another relationship is what will provide the meaning and fulfillment that the previous relationship was supposed to.

Sadly, people who call themselves Christians – those who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ – fall into the same trap of trying to find meaning and fulfillment in the things of this world instead of the One they claim as their Lord and Savior.  They start looking at the world around them and often unwittingly start wanting what it has to offer.  They look at co-workers and neighbors and start to become conformed to them instead of being an agent of change in their lives.  They compromise their morals in order to try to be accepted by those that hate God instead of daring to be different and taking moral stands and showing the love of God.  They start to buy the bigger houses, the newer cars, and the higher-paying jobs and begin to wonder if it’s really worth it to spare the time and effort toward getting to know their God better.

Then one day, most of these “Christians” by title only wake up and wonder what happened.  They look at their possessions and/or level of life achievement and wonder why they their lives aren’t meaningful or fulfilled at all.  Some think that meaning or fulfillment is still yet around the corner with the next possession.  Others think that God has let them down, as though being blessed only meant being financially abundant.  These are the ones who are still putty in the devil’s hands.

But a few come to realize that the years of effort and sacrifice to find these things through what the world has to offer, through physical means, has only built them a house of cards.  When the winds of life blow and stock prices tumble, or jobs disappear, or health fades, they find their house of cards is not able to protect them, let alone bring peace that passes all understanding, which is a reflection of true meaning and fulfillment.

Only when a person takes and makes the time to know God better – through things like reading the Bible, praying, being with other believers, and letting God love other people through them – will true meaning and fulfillment in life be found, through spiritual acts instead of physical means.

What "religion" are you?

Several times in my life I've had to fill out forms - on paper or online - that ask me what "religion" I am.  I can't help but be tempted to write "Non-religious Christian" because I can't stand the concept of religion nor do I practice a religion.

Now how's that for a contradiction in terms!  How can one possibly claim to be a Christian yet also non-religious?  Isn't Christianity a "religion", and therefore to be a Christian means you're "religious?"  'How blasphemous', you might be thinking.  Or is it?

There's a reason why it's called the "Christian faith", because a religion and a faith are two entirely different things.  People who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them wrongly call it a "religion" because they have a false understanding of who God is and how people are supposed to relate to Him.  However, people who have put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them - Christians - rightly call it a "faith".  They have realized that the salvation given to them through this faith is the "gift of God", that it can't be earned by anything you do (Ephesians 2:8-10).  Thus, they have been invited and accepted into a relationship - not a religion - with the one true God through Jesus Christ and Him alone.

I've come to realize that a religion is a man-made system designed to try to please their god (or gods).  It's full of rules and regulations and ordinances, most of which have no origin in the Bible.  It's also not a very fun system to try to follow, because failure to live up to its standards is constant and therefore it's a great cause of demoralization.  All too often, there is a push to get other people "converted" in a vain attempt to please or appease their god(s) and thus feel more important and better about themselves. 

Sadly, many denominations and movements claiming to be Christian are in fact religions far removed from what God intended Christianity to be.  They go by different names:  Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and so forth.  Then there are the cultic movements, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons (Latter Day Saints).  God did not invent denominations or movements; rather, He intended Christianity to be a way to personally relate to Him through Jesus Christ and Him alone - no human intervention required.  However, people unwilling to accept His grace extended through Jesus Christ thought they knew better, and viola - the birth of modern religion.

Unfortunately, a lot of the atheism and agnosticism in this world today stem from those who have felt the pressure to convert to a particular religion.  These mindsets are compounded when these people witness the failure of religious followers to live up to religious standards, such as practicing what they preach.  And when these religious followers fail (not if, but when), they assume - or are told by their religious leaders - that their god(s) will fail to love them.

How the Bible paints a different picture!  If only these people would look past man-made religion and instead to the Bible where they can be told not only of the reality of the one true God, but also His amazing love for them, available without a single religious act on their part!

Here's what the Bible has to say about the Christian faith:

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord [that is, Jesus], one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."  (Ephesians 4:4-5)

What this passage implies is that the "one" Christian faith is therefore the only faith that exists.  It is one of those passages that is very exclusive, the kind that annoys and even greatly angers those outside the Christian faith.  In other words, it implies that there is no Muslim "faith", or Buddhist "faith", or Hindu "faith" and so on.  In reality, these are all religions:  the "one God" is revealed only in the Bible and in no other bodies of scripture, and therefore they are all worshipping false gods.  Also, they all have strict, man-made standards that have created a schizophrenic god or gods who can snap and go crazy on their followers at any moment and, worst of all, deny them passage to eternal paradise.

The appeal of Christianity is so much greater:

"Come to Me [Jesus], all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  (Matthew 11:28, emphasis added)

"Everyone the Father [God] gives Me [Jesus] will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out." (John 6:37, emphasis added)

"... [God] is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, emphasis added)

"For God loved the world in this way:  He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, emphasis added)

"For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift - not from works [religious effort] so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, emphasis added)

I don't know about you, but I much prefer the "one" true faith that accepts everyone - people of all races and colors and, yes, all religious backgrounds - and doesn't require us to be cleaned up and perfect before approaching the "one" true God and humbly and sincerely asking for His mercy to forgive and cleanse and save us.  How about you?

You're beautiful!

The past few months have been hard on me spiritually, and I've only 'come out of it' in the past couple of weeks.  One evidence for this has been the lack of ideas for this blog, or any ideas that I've had being too wordy and less simplistic, the result of the Holy Spirit not flowing through me but rather the flesh trying to drum up ideas.  I've gone through many struggles where I've questioned God's love for me.  But a rather profound thought that struck me during one of the darkest parts of this struggle became one of the major keys to getting me out of it as I pondered this thought further.

One day while I was looking in the mirror during this time, the thought struck me that my face is exactly how God designed it to be.  In other words, the same God that the Bible says created the limitless vastness of this universe (Psalm 19:1-6) and the billions of human beings that have existed before me also made the effort to arrange the features on my face to make me totally unique from anybody that has ever existed in the past and who will ever exist in the future.

As I've pondered this since, I've been blown away at what this represents.  For instance, the idea that everyone has a "twin" or "look-alike" is not true.  Even if somebody found someone who they claimed to be their look-alike, upon close examination there would be enough differences to sort the two apart.  This is true with even the closest-resembling twins.

At times I've wondered just how God envisioned what I would look like at all the various stages of my life.  Was He staring at my face at the dawn of time as he envisioned it, as close as the mirror that I now look into?  Did His very fingers trace its shape and arrange the features?  I marvel at how He coded my DNA to not only create the appearance but also cause the countless changes in it from conception to death.  Perhaps what is most profound as I write this is to realize that He did all this for me and for each and every one of us.  Even at the risk of you and I rejecting Him by rejecting Jesus, He made the effort to create every one of us to be unique in appearance and personality for His good pleasure.

You might be upset at God by what you see when you look in a mirror.  You might be upset that God didn't make you "handsome" or "beautiful" enough, or not at all.  You might even hate God because you perceive that He played a cruel joke on you, and that your looks have caused you to be the brunt of teasing and even violence that has destroyed any sense of self-respect and dignity.

But have you ever thought that God's standards are not that of man?  Have you ever thought that you are beautiful in the eyes of the One who the Bible says created you, that you are not a mistake?  Some might argue that the corruption of sin also corrupted the beauty of mankind.  Perhaps this is true, but perhaps not.  Consider what God declared to Samuel:

"Man does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart."  (I Samuel 16:7)

Suppose your looks have been the brunt of jokes.  Could it be that the damage caused has been due more to how you've reacted to them?  There are several people I've encountered who don't appear gifted in the looks department, but their personalities are remarkable.  These people have ignored or overcome what others have said about them.  In the case of Christians, they've also learned how to see themselves as God sees them, and to realize that the heart is of infinitely more importance than one's outward appearance, not just to God but to open-minded people as well - those who, like God, look to the heart.

To realize the immense love of God for me in this way and at this time has had incredible meaning, and I'm grateful that He has spoken to me in this manner!  Hopefully this realization will impact you as well.

The perfect time

I find it interesting to think about God's timing, in this case of when he chose to send Jesus to live on earth.  Biblical teachers and scholars have spoken many times of the fact that it was while the Middle East was under Roman rule, for example, and how their transportation network and the common language of the day over a broad geographic area contributed to the rapid spread of the Gospel after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But what I also find interesting – and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone speak about this – is how God chose to send Jesus before the human advent of mass media.  From a human understanding, how wise it would have been for God to send his only son at a time such as this when the whole world could have known about him instead of just one tiny region.  People from the world over could then have seen for themselves the first coming of the world’s only Messiah.  Also, it would have shaved millennia off the time it took to spread the Gospel to the farthest, most isolated reaches of the globe.  How many missed out on the hope of eternal life during that time?

But the flip side of this scenario might have been equally scary.  There were enough religious leaders in that tiny part of the world trying to vilify and even kill Jesus, afraid of losing their respect before men and the wealth and prestige that come along with it.  How many more so if his arrival had been broadcast globally in an age of mass transportation!

In addition, the mass media is notorious for distorting and warping the character of people and the nature of events, shaping them to fit their agenda or belief system.  It is enough that many people were doing this even as Jesus performed miracles right before their eyes.  How much more would Jesus and his miracles have been distorted had he been under the constant microscope of reporters and television cameras!

Instead, God chose to bring Jesus into a world where the only effective means of communication was personal; Jesus reached out to people on a one-by-one basis.  Even if he was speaking to a large crowd, the people were seeing and hearing him in person, and in many cases before and after they had an opportunity to have one-on-one interaction with him.  And following his death and resurrection, after the Holy Spirit first entered believers in Jesus on the Day of Pentecost, the Gospel was once again spread in the same manner:  one-on-one or in the presence of crowds within earshot.

In a sense, then, God intended for the Gospel to be introduced to the world then spread in a manner consistent with God’s nature:  personal.  Not in the distant, detached, and distorted manner that the modern mass media has introduced into the world.