Greetings, Salutations, and the Meaning of Life
Welcome.
What a word
this is. What a marvelous, astounding, spectacular word.
Welcome.
Acceptance.
Peace. Joy. Hope. All this is Welcome.
Are you
tired? Thirsty? Come to Isaiah’s waters-
Jesus.
The one who
quenches thirst eternally and provides relief to the weary. An oasis of Biblically sound truth is what
this blog is, God-willing, to be. If I ever stray from that intent, I give you,
dear readers, free reign to correct me in love, according to the Biblical
mandates.
Last year,
I had the honor of teaching a variety of classes to a host of ages at a local
private school. When I began seeking a job and attempting to discern my purpose
in this life, I found it to be astonishingly simple: focus on the Gospel.
Wherever I went, whatever I did, it was to be done as unto the Lord. If you ask any student in any of my Bible
classes-sixth grader or high schooler-they can tell you the meaning of life: that
age old question, confounding scholars and learned men. And yet is it not true
that knowledge and wisdom are not the same and that God has “hidden these things from the wise and learned,
and revealed them to little children,” for this is what the Father was pleased
to do (Luke 10:21)? Oh Father. Give me the faith of my sixth graders. For they
know the meaning of life is:
To know God
and make Him known.
Write that
on an altar stone. This sentiment and phraseology is not original to me in the
least, but the implications? Utterly. Completely. Magnificently.
Life
Changing.
For awhile, my students and I discussed the notion of “fire insurance.” There is a
wicked deception in the church that leads people to believe that all there is
to the Christian life is to accept Jesus into their hearts. At that point, they
find their Christianity to be complete. They’ve received their tickets to
heaven and can now return to their lives. If they go to church, that will result
in heavenly bonus points. What a sad and destructive deception! God is a good,
good Father who wants only good for us, in the same way a parent wants only
good for their children. The All-Knowing One knows
Only He is
good.
All our
good is wrapped up in knowing Him and living His purposes, which is to reveal
this good to the sons and the daughters of man. Know God and make Him known. Have you known Him? Him, who created
all things? He created us perfectly, but we broke the one law God gave to us,
and sin entered the world. Without this law, there would have been no choice.
God desires our love, but love is not love if no choice is present. (Just take
a peak at the first three chapters of the book of Genesis.) We chose poorly and are now all born under sin.
God is a fully holy God and cannot be in the presence of sin.
But God!
He sent His
own son, Jesus, to live a sinless life, die an innocent death on a Roman Cross,
and rise from the dead three days later. And this-all this-to make us right
with God! To restore us to the presence of our creator.
All we have to do is accept the free gift.
All we have
to do is repent of our sins and ask Jesus into our hearts! Boom! New man born,
old man gone. What a glorious thought! For more on this, please see the “Meet
Alyssa” section of this blog or email me at tabor.alyssa@gmail.com. I would
be so excited to talk with you about this!
I have found that when I have ears to hear, my
Father routinely speaks to me in a myriad of ways: stories, music, even a
street sign! (But perhaps that is another story for another time.) My prayer
for this blog is that God will speak to you. I pray I would get out of the way
and simply let Him
Speak.
Comments
Post a Comment