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The meaning of Life can only be understood from an eternal perspective. Most of what life has to offer is a distraction from the pursuit of what is intentionally elusive. Suppose for a moment that you were perfectly happy. Would you want anything to change? Of course not. But humans are characterized by change. The very idea of perpetual happiness is difficult to imagine. We immediately think; “I will be bored." This is because we have not found but fleeting satisfaction in anything we try. This says nothing about us, if not that we are continuously dissatisfied.
So how do we discover how to be perfectly happy. We cannot, if our premise is that contentment can be discovered without outside help. The gnawing discontent we feel is the result of a broken relationship that we cannot repair. The relationship is with our creator. When this relationship is perfectly restored we can be content in any situation. Many are not willing to consider that there is a creator. This is a primary consequence of the broken relationship commonly referred to as “the fall". From this autonomous position there is no possibility to restore our broken relationship. Other consequences are visible in our failed relationships with others and nature itself. Once we distanced ourselves from the creator it became impossible for us to restore the relationship. There is a price to pay for restoration of which we are not generally aware.
Ancient scriptures tell us that the creator, being perfect, will not tolerate the presence of imperfection and revealed the standard by which it is measured. You may have heard of the 10 words. This standard serves to show us that we are not only imperfect but not capable of achieving perfection. No one has ever been recorded to perfectly comply with these words.
More recent scriptures tell us that the price of restoration can only be paid with a perfect sacrifice. Even if we give up everything, including our imperfect lives, to restore our relationship to the creator, it is not enough. The perfect sacrifice was revealed to be a sacrifice offered by God himself in Jesus the Christ. His sacrifice begins the restoration that will be completed in the hereafter. So if you look to people of faith in Christ to be examples of perfection, remember that you are looking at a work in progress. By paying for our errors before we were aware of them, Jesus became an example that we emulate in response. We love God, because He first loved us.
So the meaning of life is then to love God the way he loves us and then we will be content doing whatever we want. |
