If You Don’t Have This One Thing, You Don’t Have Anything

I got the magazine in the mail almost a year ago.

It’s one of those huge things that your alma mater sends you to remind you of what a good time you had at college and make you feel like you should donate money.

I did have a wonderful experience in college. Thank you, alma mater. But I didn’t like the theme of the magazine. In fact, I got so worked up that I thought through an entire blog I was going to write about it. But the magazine promptly got hidden under piles in my room and it wasn’t until just now that I unearthed it.

What was the theme?

The meaning of life.

What is the meaning of life? Obviously, they presuppose, no one can know for sure. However, they claim, you can create meaning in your life. Here are some of the examples that people wrote about: Freeing prisoners from life sentences, providing education, showing love, being grateful for every day, doing good in this world, leaving the earth better than how we found it, showing compassion and serving others. Many good things, but still empty to me.

I refuse to believe that no one can know the meaning of life. I refuse to believe that those things are all there is to live for. Am I too picky? Do I want too much? Am I unrealistic? I almost started asking myself those questions.

But before I could, a verse popped into my head. Oh how I love God’s Word hidden in my heart. I love that one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit is to bring those verses to my mind when I need them most. The verse put my heart at rest and my mind at ease.

How could a single verse do that? Can a single verse tell us the meaning of life? I believe the answer is yes!

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17: 3, NASB).

What else could be the meaning of life except for having eternal life? And how do we have eternal life? This verse tells us. By knowing Jesus!

What I love about this verse, though, is all the hidden depth of the Greek language in the little word “know.” Know here is not a noun. It is not a list of facts. It’s a verb! (I can tell how excited you are.) I’ve hated grammar since I was a child, but this verb thrills me to pieces.

“Know” being a verb means that it is saying eternal life is the action of knowing God. A verb makes this word relational and experiential. We are getting to know a person, not just a list of facts.

That is why Jesus came to earth. To die for our sins, to rise from the dead, and to bring us to reconciliation with the Father so that we can know Him! He gave us His Word so that we can know Him. He longs to spend time with us so that we can know Him. He wants us to experience life, so that we can know Him.

I beg you, don’t miss this. If you are serving God or reading the Bible, and it isn’t all about knowing a person, you will end up wasting so much time not experiencing eternal life. I can say with confidence that I do know the meaning of life, because my Creator God told me. And that is to KNOW Jesus.

Love you brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

This blog was first published on finishwellcon.com