Devo 3: What is the Meaning of Life?

At some point in their lives, every human being struggles to understand the meaning of our existence. It is a question that every person thinks about and few really know the answer. As Christians, we know we were made to be in relationship with God, but do we actually understand that concept? Why did God create us?

The answer is very simple. He wanted to. I truly think it was because there was so much love within the Trinity that He/They wanted to share it with someone. Think about it. In John 17:26, Jesus finishes his final prayer before going to the cross by saying, "I have declared to them Your Name and will declare it that the love with which you loved Me may be with them and in them."

All throughout this prayer, Jesus constantly uses language that describes us being joined as believers into the fellowship of the Trinity (17:11, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26). Although many of these verses are typically used in church gatherings to promote church unity, they are not soley speaking of church unity. They can be used this way, but they should not be reduced to that alone, because Jesus is speaking of a unity in the heart of the believer with God in Three persons. (Remember this is right after John 14-16, where He is speaking of communion with the Holy Spirit.)

Jesus continually prays for us to be joined into the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--who have infinite love, fellowship, and humility.

So back to the original question, what is the meaning of life? Very simple. Our human life is meaningless in itself. We were created because God decided to create us. He just wanted to. We are truly a non-necessity, non-essential, and totally unneeded (to be entirely redundant and repetitive), BUT...

He WANTED to create us, because He wanted to love us and for us to love Him. He wanted to give us His love for us to receive it--and then lavish even more love on us, so that we could give that unconditional agape love back to Him. It is by His will that all things exist and were created (Rev. 4:11).

It is for this reason that you never truly feel content with things in this life, because they truly are meaningless--the writer of Ecclesiastes called them hebel--the Hebrew word for "meaningless" or "vanity," and it basically is the same word used to described a puff of wind that is gone in a moment. David describes man's life as being a vapor (Psalm 39), and Isaiah says, "All flesh is grass" (Isaiah 40:7).

So, why is knowing about all this vanity so helpful? Because when everything seems so meaningless, you can close your eyes and picture God seated on His throne. You can see Him in all of His Glory as in Revelation 4 with lightning, thundering, voices, angels, sounds, colors, smells, and imagine yourself throwing down your crown with the elders as the angels cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty...You created all things and it is by You that all things exist and were created!" (Rev. 4: 8, 11)

Then, you will find that your life means more to you than you could ever imagine because your worship is accepted and cherished by One who is Worthy of more than you could ever give. He looks at your life and says, "Oh, Look at him love Me!" "I am so glad I created her!" "I want to give them even more love!" Then, He pulls you up into all that Glory and calls you son and calls you daughter. Only in this newfound identity do you truly understand what your life means. You were created to love God and be loved by Him.

I love you too.

Amanda

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