There are several questions we all want answered. We want to know why we are here. We want to know if there is any meaning or purpose to life. We want to know what happens when we die. We want to know what is right and what is wrong.
Christianity answers those questions in ways that other religions or philosophies don’t. Let me explain:
Where did I come from?
I’m not talking about the origin of life. I’ll look at that briefly in Christianity is a Story. I am specifically talking about you as a person. Why are you the way you are?
God made you to be exactly the person you are.
Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you [1]
Psalm 139:15
My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. (The womb)
Please note that this does NOT mean that you have stayed the way God made you to be. When we are conceived, we are conceived into a broken world. The perfect image God created is immediately distorted, sometimes severely. This leads to tragic events such as birth defects and stillbirths. Once we are born, our personalities start developing. This development is deeply affected by the damaged world and broken people around us. We are warped and distorted by our imperfect parents. We are also warped and distorted when we follow our sinful desires. Every time we sin, we change just a little bit. If we don’t change course, we will become something very evil indeed. God can unwind the chains we have wrapped around ourselves and untwist us. He can restore us to something closer to what He created us to be. He has promised to do that, but in order for that to happen, we have to turn to Him and follow His path.
The fact that we were very specifically woven together by God has implications. Please see Specific sins, specifically the sections on murder and abortion:
- We have value
- We have a reason to be here
- We may not be injured or killed without offending God
-We may not abuse ourselves or try to turn ourselves into something other than He made us to be without offending God
God is tremendously happy when we return to Him, and inexpressibly sad when we die in our sin and distortion. I will discuss why He allows this to happen in Good and evil and What are people.
The important thing is that our value is not related to our appearance, popularity, money, power or any other factor. God doesn’t care about those things. You are valuable because the God of the universe took the time and effort to fashion you specifically to be you.
So what is the meaning of life?
God made you to be a specific person for a specific purpose. That purpose may be clear and apparent here on earth or may only become clear after you die, and move on to whatever real work He has for you. Remember that God takes the long view. We tend to think of life on earth as all of life. It’s only the very smallest portion of our lives. Our lives really begin after we die and leave this combination assembly plant and training ground. God may only be looking at the short-term future – only the first ten thousand years or so. If you think in those terms, the meaning of life changes, as does how important the things around us are.
Romans 2:15
Or do you show contempt for the abundance of his kindness, tolerance and patience, ignoring the fact that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
God’s purpose for humans on this planet is to lead them to Him. His ultimate goal is our happiness, but His definition of happiness is very different than ours. God seeks our ultimate happiness in an eternal relationship with Him. This does not mean forcing people to turn to Him in the face of their resistance. This may frequently means eliminating things that bring us pleasure and security so we learn to rely on Him. This also frequently means making life so hard for us that we turn to Him.
2 Corinthians 12:7
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Even Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was afflicted by God’s command to keep him focused and dependent on God. This makes it look like God is evil. He is not. He is just taking the long view, and doing what is necessary for us to fulfill our intended purpose.
What is right and wrong? How do I know what to do?
God designed us to be in a correct relationship with Him and a correct relationship with each other. When people rebelled against God’s rule, they distorted that relationship, so God provided us tools to help us know right from wrong. The first help He gave us is our conscience. Within limits, your conscience will tell you what is right.
Romans 2:15
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. This because they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending.
People were imprinted with an intuitive understanding of right and wrong – what used to be called Natural Law. All cultures throughout history generally agree in the main points of correct conduct – they vary only in details, although some have deviated rather significantly in specific areas. This is what we call our conscience. It tells us when we do what is wrong.
But your conscience needs a set of guidelines to work properly. The guidelines He gave are recorded in the Bible. As when teaching a child, they started out very simple, with clear requirements and punishments for deviation. As God’s people learned more through the centuries, He clarified the rules. When Jesus sacrificed Himself to pay our penalty for rebelling against God and failing to follow the rules, He eliminated the penalty, but not the rules. Unless specifically revoked, like the dietary restrictions (see Mark 7:19), or fulfilled, like the Passover[2], all of the Old Testament rules regarding our relationship with Him and with each other remain in effect.
Matthew 5:18
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth perish, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is done.
If we want to follow God, we have to follow those rules, not out of fear of punishment, but out of love and respect for our maker and our savior.
But He also simplified it for us. If you follow the two big rules, you will automatically follow all of the smaller rules. The two big rules are:
Mark 12:30-31
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
No other commandment is greater than these.”
If you truly act in love[3], you will be in a right relationship with everyone else, and will follow the rules. Of course, we don’t, so the rest of the rules are still there to remind us what right looks like. If there is any question about whether you should do or say something, the answer is probably clear, you just don’t want to follow it.
This also includes loving yourself. Remember that you have value, and that the king of all creation loves you enough that He took the time to hand-craft you and die to save you. If you call yourself unlovable or try to turn yourself into something other than what God made you to be, you are calling God a liar. Love yourself and care for yourself with the same love God commands you to use for other people.
What happens when I die?
It really depends on your relationship with God. God will judge all of us according to the requirements of the law. The law is very clear. The rule is: Be perfect or be condemned. Sin is a capital crime. If you are a Christian, you will be judged on whether or not you followed all of the rules perfectly and whether or not God was the center of your life at all times. If you are not a Christian, you will be judged according to the code of conduct you have chosen, with one exception – there is no mercy. There is no allowable deviation from right and wrong for either person. Just like Christians, non-Christians are expected to be perfect in their conduct.
Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after that to face justice
Revelation 20:12-13
The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
Matthew 5:48
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect
Nobody can do this. There is, in fact, no way to live a good-enough life to get into heaven. Good intentions don’t matter.
Jesus satisfied the requirements of God’s justice by being killed in our place. The penalty of the law is removed but the requirements of the law remain. As long as Christians are legitimately doing their best to follow Jesus and live according to His way, they will be forgiven their failures. I will more fully discuss this in Salvation.
But if you reject Jesus and His sacrifice, having refused the gift of forgiveness, you will be doomed to eternal punishment. Please see Death, Heaven and Hell.
Revelation 20:14-15
The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
This is an uncomfortable truth, but the Bible is clear. God is not fair as we understand the word. God is honorable and inflexible in His justice. He will see justice done, but He loves us so much that to save us, He executed His justice on His own Son.
It matters how you live your life
Even though Jesus paid the penalty for our crimes, that doesn’t mean we get to just live however we want. We have to live the way He wants us to live.
We can only serve one master. We either follow Jesus or we follow sin. By sin, I mean whatever we put at the center of our lives other than Him. It is usually ourselves, but could be money, power or even dogmatic religion. If we truly honor Jesus as our lord, then we will do what He told us to do, to the best of our ability.
Do your best to honor God and respect your fellow people. Treat everyone with kindness and respect. Realize that God will forgive you when you fail because Jesus took the hit for you. Your life doesn’t end with your death. Consider how horrible you would become after a thousand years of consistently being selfish or hateful. Consider how magnificent you will become after a thousand years of living in love.
There will be short-term consequences. People will mock you and reject you for living according to God’s design. Don’t continue to hang around with those people and try to blame them for your failure to live the way you should. Following Jesus means change – sometimes hard change.
Matthew 10:34-36
Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
There will be people who will try to turn you away from God. Don’t listen to them. Seek out those people who will welcome you and support you in living according to God’s plan. Choose the kind of friends that will help you live the kind of life you want to live. Take the long view.
Footnotes
[1] God told Jeremiah that He created him specifically and for a specific purpose. Taken with the Psalm reference, it establishes the more general principle that God creates each of us individually before conception.
[2] The Passover was fulfilled in Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice. The Angel of Death passes over us because we are covered with the blood of the Lamb. We keep the Passover when we celebrate Communion.
[3] This means acting in love as God understands the term, not as we use it. The law can be usefully reduced to: Love God and love each other. The rest of the law tells us how to do that.