Life seems to keep on moving faster and faster. Things are getting more complicated, even as we use more and more inventions designed to simplify life. People are getting stressed out with life, as life just seem to be a whirlwind rushing past. Someone had said, “This is a time when people place more value on success than significance.”
Success is a life devoted to the accumulation of things, of prestige, of money and of power. All those things seem to give a person something worthwhile, but they can all disappear in an instant and all will be gone when you pass on. This last year, as in all years, saw the passing of the rich and famous: Johnny Carson, Pope John Paul II, Peter Jennings, Bob Denver (Gilligan) and the list goes on and on. They had success, but did their lives have significance? Were their lives devoted to something that will last forever or will their successes by forgotten in light of eternity? MSG Proverbs 11:28 A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree. That Scripture could be paraphrased, “A life devoted to success is a dead life, but a life devoted to God is a flourishing tree.”
Today, we begin a new message series entitled “Why Am I Here?” This is the most important question of life. Many people live as though the answer to the question “Why Am I Here?” is simply to be successful. For some people, success is having a nice house, for others it’s getting to a certain level in their company, for yet others success is simply having food on the table and clothes on their back. God created you for much more than that and that’s what we’re going to talk about in this message series.
My message title today is “The Meaning of Life.” Does your life have meaning? If your life has no meaning, than what’s the point of life? Unfortunately, for many people, life has no meaning at all other than to enjoy the moment. If you have no idea what the meaning of life is, if you have no idea why you are here, then you’ll never accomplish anything of significance with your life. And your life will be full of pain, despair and heartache. But, when you begin to understand the meaning of life, when you begin to understand how you fit in, something wonderful happens. God gives you hope, God gives you joy, as you enter into the adventure of life with your creator.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my January 1, 2006 message entitled The Meaning Of Life