Purpose

Purpose?

Many years ago I discovered a wonderful story by Ben Zion Bokser called The Rose Talked Back. It goes like this,

The Rose Talked Back

"The man sweeping the synagogue paused for a moment.  He looked at the flowers lying about in disorder, ‘What waste!’  He said too himself.  Those roses had adorned the pulpit at a wedding aan hour before.  Now all was over and they were waiting to be discarded.
The attendant leaning on his sweeper was lost in thought when suddenly he heard a strange sound.  One of the roses replied to him.
‘Do you call this a waste?” the flower protested, ‘What is life anyway, yours or mine, but a means of service?  My mission was to create some fragrance and beauty, and when I have fulfilled it my life has not been wasted.  And what greater privilege is there than to adorn a bride’s way to her beloved, what greater privilege than to help glorify the moment when a bride and groom seal their faith in each other by entering the covenant of marriage?’
Our little flower paused for a moment too watch the man’s face, and then continued her discourse.
‘Roses are like people.  They live in deeds, not in time.  My glory was but for a brief hour, but you should have seen the joy in the bride’s eye.  I like to believe that I had something to do with it, by creating a suitable setting for the moment of her supreme happiness.  So don’t grieve for me.  My life has been worthwhile.
Having spoken her little piece, the rose was once more silent.  The attendant, startled from his reverie and a little wiser, pushed the sweeper again and continued with his work".
                                                                                                                 Ben Zion Bokser
Do you have meaning in your life?
As I look sadly at many people going from the west to join terrorist organisations like IS. I have to wonder what is causing them to go.
But perhaps we should reverse the question and ask, why can’t western society keep them here. What is so lacking in western society that people would want to join such a twisted way of thinking and theology?
Personally I think western society is the very best choice of a lot of bad choices.
We in the west enjoy freedoms that are the envy of many countries in the world. However western society is extremely materialistic. And materialism is a cold bed partner.
My father’s generation had a cause to fight. He and other young men like him at the time fought against the evil that was Nazism. They believed in their righteous cause and were willing to die for it.
Youth today seems to lack a cause a purpose in life. In our materialistic society. A society that seemingly has forgotten God. Life seems cheap. With many people particularly our youth trying to fill it with the latest gadget, bangle bobble or popular trend.
While there are causes within western society that our youth can latch onto. Our youth see a society that while it claims to the best, with int it is a lot of poverty and suffering.
With in North American society as rich as it is, people can’t get access to health care and medication they need, because they lack the money and government is unwilling to help.
People struggle to put food on the table. Children and adults go without meals every day. People rely on food banks to get food. Something that should be a basic human right written into the laws of the land.
People live on the streets while the top ten percent have more money than they will ever need.
There are programs out there to help people but they are far too few, hard to find and woefully underfunded.
Sometimes I look at the news and think the gun lobby and the right to bear arms gets more attention than the need to help the poorest of the nation.
Is it any wonder idealistic youth looking for a better cause can be fooled by such perverted people like Islamic State.
Hitler proved you could fool one of the most culturally advanced nations in Europe ultimately causing the deaths of millions.
To my mind society need to turn to Christ, to God. For only then will the individual find fulfilment in life.
Abba Hillel Silver wrote,
“Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.”
                                                                                                                                  Abba Hillel Silver.
It is my belief that the further our society moves away from God the worse it will become.
Our youth and for that matter everyone within our society needs something to aspire to. We need purpose and meaning in life. This is what faith in God and his One and Only Son Jesus Christ has to offer
Jesus said,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 
                                               Matthew 11:28-30.
I have found that to be so true.
It is my hope that people everywhere would find hope and meaning in Christ Jesus.
Please take time today to start to read the New Testament and see what Jesus can do in your life.
Please think about it.

That empty hole

That empty hole

I believe that everyone on earth has, if you will, a whole inside them. A hole that they are trying to fill be it with material things or philosophy. This is I believe is a hole that only Christ can fill.
Today we here of young people and old going to join terrorist groups. They are in my opinion going because the world around them offers little or nothing.
Materialism and our secular society has good things within but ultimately it offers little fulfilment for those who are truly looking for meaning to life.
Pope John Paul II wrote,
“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.”
                                        Pope John Paul II.
Please think about it.

Meaning

Meaning

“Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men and all countries—not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of mankind as civilized.”
                                                                               Albert Einstein.
I firmly believe that mankind cannot provide a decent condition of life for all men. Even in the richest countries of the world there are those who are extremely poor. There are those who don’t have access to good food, housing, health care and other essentials of life.
There are those even in the western nations who are prejudice and refuse to respect the rights of others. Crime is also a very big concern.
All of this is magnified a hundred or a thousand fold in so called third world countries.
    On top of that over the past few years terrorist groups have been on the rise. Men and women who have a perverted idea of what civilized society and true faith in God is all about.
These groups are further sending our global society into an abyss. This however is not a new thing.
One dusty book I found in my wife’s library  "Essentials in Christian Faith" by John B. Harrington, published in 1958, could have been written yesterday.
   It opens with this quote from Paul Gallico in Esquire Magazine in 1948:
"A writer in a popular magazine has written the following words; 'We are all, if you will pardon the expression, Headed for Hell in a handbarrow. If, ever the people of the world stood in need of a spiritual revival, it is now. We are beginning to poison the face of the earth with our miserable presence. The brakes are off. The cart of the world is sliding down the way greased with hatred, ambition, lies, self-seeking and avarice toward the pit.’"
Harrington notes that Gallico makes no pretense of being "a religious man" noting that "...for him it is precisely religion in its organized forms which has in part caused the situation he deplores. He is careful to state that it is not "religion" for which he is looking. For in his opinion, religion throughout the history of our culture has advanced its control over human beings by the investment of bigotry and persecution. 
Yet, out of despair over the current human situation he says; ‘The voice for which my heavy spirit is yearning must reach us all... For if it is not heard, we are lost. Something beyond our material enrichment and lust for power and position, some rewards founded on good will, selflessness, and the innate dignity of the human spirit...honour, humility, decency courage."
Another Paul writing to a member of the first century church wrote the following,
"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God"
                                                                                                        2 Timothy 3:1-4
If Paul Gallico is right and I believe he is, mankind is considerably nearer the bottom of that slope than he was in 1948. Moreover at the bottom of that slope is a very deep lake filled with fire and brimstone.
And I truly believe the only way to get off that slippery slope is to turn to God in spirit and in truth.
For me at least, as I’ve looked at the world in my sixty plus years on this earth. I have seen western society turn further and further away from God. As this has happened and we have slipped more and more into a secular society our society has it seems got worse.
Abba Hillel Silver wrote,
“Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.”
                    Abba Hillel Silver
What we need today is for people to look at the truths Jesus spoke. Truths that are universal it was Jesus who when asked,
 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 
                                                                                            Matthew 22:37-40
He also said,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  
But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous...”
                                                                  Matthew5: 43-45.
The apostle Paul even giving us the true definition of Love, writing,
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails....” 
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
This is what our society as a whole needs to be proclaiming. Unfortunately our society here in the west has wandered far from God into materialism, and materialism has little meaning to those young people who are going to join terrorist groups. Young men and women who are looking for meaning in life in all the wrong places.
Think about it.

The seeker

The Seeker

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  
For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 
Matthew 7:7,8.

I believe that I will never be able, no matter how many words I write, or how persuasive my arguments are convince an atheist who’s mind is made up that there is a God. That being said I believe such people are small in number. Further more I believe even the most ardent Atheist is not beyond God’s ability to show him that He exists.
The above scripture is the words of Jesus. He is speaking to those who are truly seeking for meaning in life. His call to them is to continue to seek God with all their heart and he will show himself to them.
The psalmist writes,
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” 
                                                                                                      Psalm 19:1.
Nature does indeed show the evidence of a creator God.
If we look at nature it is mathematically prefect. We may not know all the formulas or simply the formula that run the universe yet, but they are there to find.
For me if there is no God and a life after this, life is meaningless. All our good deeds our great creative works, are simply a waste.
The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote,
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun”
Ecclesiastes 1:9
“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
Ecclesiastes 1:14
His ultimate conclusion,
“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole  duty  of man. 
For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” 
Ecclesiastes12:13,14
There is a God I’m convinced of that,
The Psalmist says.
“The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” 
                                                                       Psalm 14:1.
The apostle Paul writes,
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  
                        1 Corinthians 1:18 
I believe a true seeker of truth will prove the words of the psalmist and of Paul. I believe the true seeker will find God and come into a personal relationship with God.
Are you that seeker?
Are you looking for meaning to life?
Please take time to pray and ask God to show yourself to you. Take time read the Bible. Read the New Testament first and I am convinced God will show himself to you.
Please think about it.