The Meaning of Life.

In the two church services I attended yesterday both pastors overlapped and preached about “relationships” well sort of. They were two different churches two different denominations. The one more “renewed” the other very conservative. (The second one is the one I attend and the first is where a distant friend of mine just began pastoring, it was his first sermon there)

Both preachers I consider as friends and both spoke the truth.

In this day and age everyone has turned their back on the people around them.
Yes, we say we love them, “Hey we talk to them’ but, do you know them? Do you love them?

My question and I believe the question they both would ask is if we are just
“Smile and wave Christians."

Do we really practice love or do we just give it lip service.

The first sermon out of Ephesians 4:11 and onwards went about how we as a church should be a community. Only if we are truly a community of believers will we love one another and that love will be seen by all.

The second sermon came out of Genesis 1. The title really grabbed my attention “The meaning of life.”

The whole point of the sermon was that the meaning of life is Relationship.

First and foremost it is relationship with God and then with God’s people. That is why we are here on this green spec floating in space. We are here to know God and have a relationship with him.

Our priorities are totally bent. With the busy schedules we are taken away from friend, family and God. Everything is competing for our attention, so being the silly people we are, we abandon the very reason we exists. We shaved away the time we spend on relationships and sell Christ and our families and Christian fellowship to the TV, hobbies, work and selfish preoccupation with self.

I think back fondly too times when I was all consumed by the helping and getting to know others, evangelising, counselling and just being with others. When you invest in others, in true relationship (doing without expecting or wanting anything back), that is when you are the happiest, when you forget about yourself and just place your time and priorities on the altar.

We are only able to give all if we know the one who gave it all, Christ. He gave it all so that we can be able to stand in a relationship with Him. Only if we drink at His fountain of friendship and love, will our broken container fill up with living water.

We will never be able to fill the broken containers around us, we will have to direct/carry them to the fountain and there help them be filled and by so doing we will be filled to the brim, overflowing.

Check your time.

In this crazy beautiful world we live in everything is changing. We as Christians have a constant, an anchor, God.

Today everything is seen as relative. Every person believe that what they think is right is right. The freedom of speech is a good thing. The freedom of thought is a very good thing.

Asking questions is the only way we develop as man. The problem comes in when we believe that more than one answer is the right answer.

We say that there is many ways to skin a cat. The thing is we ask questions like “What is a skinned cat?” We build a case that questions the meaning of the very words. We would question if there is really something like a cat. We will question and ask what it means when we say “skin the cat”. We ask ourselves so many questions even questioning the answers of the answers.

In the end we would say it is all relative, who says the cat, if it is a cat? Is not skinned already?

Today as every other age Christians should know what they believe and why they believe it. If we are to stand, if we are to grow in faith, if we are to answer the question posed to us, we cannot just pitch at church on Sunday and listen to the sermon and hope it is enough to face the tuff questions.

Our time is filled up with so many things, work, hobbies, school, family, friends, Facebook, blogs, net-browsing, movies, TV shows and all other kind of activities, we never dust the Bible cover off.

Our knees is bruised not because of praying but, because we bumped when we texted our friend as we are leaving his house.

The sense of community is fast being eroded by our technology. While we have the best communication networks today, nobody really knows anybody else.

In this vast disconnected world we find ourselves alone in a crowd.

We have access to the word of God but, we don’t know what we believe and how to explain why we believe it. We have access to a multitude of friends but, do we have any?

We say we are richer, but are we really?

The most precious thing we have is time, and we received it freely. The problem with time we never can get it back. How do we invest our time? Do we make wise choices when we decide how to spend it?

Is the time spending watching great movie worth more than a boring hour with the kids? Is a quick text to someone you hardly know worth more than eye contact with the person you speaking too.

Our frantic search for that illusive “Meaning of life”, our unquenched thirst for that deep satisfying relationship leads us to this over stretched life.

We compound as much things into the shortest, thinking maybe that will for fill my life maybe that will fill this void.

Christians also fall into this trap, chasing riches, cheap thrill that best life now. While quality goes out the window.

We have fallen victim to the “Fast Food” life.

Everything now, very fast and tasty (sort of) no matter what the results are.

That is not the Christian life. The pay-off is not now. This is time of investments, some fruits will follow now but, most will only be visible later.

Quality time is a “myth” there is no substitute for quantity.

If you don’t put in the time you won’t get a dime.

If you start off and start doing just a little each day you will over time accomplish a something big and it will last.

I wanted to learn a few things, my wife bought me a series of books and I have read about 12000 pages in that series. Some will say wow. Others will say so what I read that in a few months.

You see I never read much, I think I only read two or three of my prescribed books I had in high school.

How did I get through those books? By reading 20 pages a day.

Doing a little each day goes a long way and normal then it will be of better quality than the little quickly rushed things.

The most important thing in life is your relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Set yourself a goal, set a schedule stick by it, cut time off all the other little thing you do, beg borrow steal but, make time.