Why are you here? Well you probably clicked on the link at the top of the page … forgive me for that one. But really, why are any of us here? Is the purpose of life, just to ponder the purpose of life and never get an answer? So says the Agnostic. Or is the meaning of life revealed only to a select few through some mystic revelation as the Gnostic believes. Are we just “dust in the wind” like the song from Kansas states or a ‘candle in the wind” as Elton John wrote. Maybe you like to “imagine” a wonderful world, like the one John describes, I mean John Lennon of the Beatles, not John the apostle. Yes, John Lennon had some good ideas but so do most beauty pageant contestants when they are asked what they want, they reply “world peace”. And actually most people want world peace, prosperity, an end to sickness and no more death. Most people share these common good desires. Most people don’t mean anyone any harm, they are just trying to “coexist” and get through this world the best way they know how. But is it enough to simply desire these good ideals for life but never have the assurance of achieving them? This sound like a cruel trick to me, like when Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown.
As you read through the many theories and philosophies about why we are here, you will see that I am an equal opportunity offender. Unfortunately, this is how the truth works. By definition there can not be many truths. For something to be “true” the other things in comparison to it must be “false”. This is why the judge asks a witness in a court of law “do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God”. It is because lives hang in the balance of the outcome of the trail; the life of the person on trial if he is found guilt, the lives of those effected by the crime and the life of the person that might be killed next if a guilty person is declared to be innocent. And that is the why it’s important to find the truth of why you are here. Your life hangs in the balance of knowing the truth and responding to it. Some people use the Bible to wash over the issue of finding the truth by saying, didn’t Jesus say “Judge not, lest you be judged”. Yes, but Jesus also said in John 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”. In other words, Jesus was teaching that we are not to be prejudice in judging a person’s character by his appearance. This is were we get the expression, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Of course we are supposed to judge things, without judgement we would walk in front of a moving cars, put our hand into fire or mail all of our money to the first scam artist who calls us on the phone. So we must judge which explanation of why we are here is true and which ones are a false, lest we fall prey to the scams and reap the consequences for failing to judge correctly. Therefore, we must “contradict” and not “coexist” when it comes to finding out what is true. More importantly, truth is not a thing but a person. For Jesus said in John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
The question “why am I here?” is really the essence of philosophy, a study a person undertakes to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other. The term “philosophy” means, “love of wisdom” and for thousands of years the highest goal of learning was to gain wisdom by seeking the truth. That is why the first Universities of higher learning in America were seminars for becoming a ministers of God’s word, the truth, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge. However, these universities that once taught God’s unchanging truth now instead teach people to undermine God’s truth and make up their own truth. And that is where we are at today in America; people don’t see the importance of God’s unchanging truth, so we are lost and adrift in the courts of changing human opinion. If you don’t like the decision of truth that was rendered by a court of law, just appeal your case to an activist judge who will rule in favor of your opinion of the truth. Descartes was right “I think therefore I am”. This is not a dream, you are really here on earth. God put you here for such a time as this. God has given you the ability to “think” and figure out why you are here, so let’s get started.
Perhaps Darwin’s explanation of why you are here gives you peace of mind, significance and meaning? “From goo to you by way of the zoo”. The only change I have seen in man is that on the whole, he is getting fatter, including me. I’m not able to go into a deep scientific debate about creationism vs evolution but I do understand why evolution scientist tend to debunk the Bible. The Bible’s account of the history of the universe is six days plus about 6,000 years, yet scientific instruments indicate that the earth and the universe are billions of years old. I can only offer the explanation that God who created it “all”, created it with age, the same way God created man and woman as fully grown people. Based on this reasoning, the age old question of which came first the chicken or the egg is easily answered, “the chicken came first”. On the issue of life, Darwin did not have the advantage of knowing about DNA and all the information that is contained in it. His book “On the Origin of Species” was a proof of “micro-evolution”, changes that occur within a species, like the different dog breeds that are found within the wolf species or the different bird breeds that are found within the bird species. On this point all scientist agree, micro-evolution, different breeds, occurs as a mutation of the DNA, when a loss of DNA information occurs within a species. However, there is NO proof to support the theory of “macro-evolution” where a new species is made from another species. In fact the fossils records show just the opposite, that all species existed together from the beginning, not appearing one after another. In order to create a higher evolved species, more information has to be “added” to the DNA. But, in this fallen world, the theory that things improve over time flies in the face of the most basic scientific theory, the second law of thermodynamics. This scientific law states that matter goes from order to disorder, or ever increasing entropy, from shiny new to rusty old. Look, you can leave a pile of junk sitting in your yard forever but it’s not going to evolve into a Maserati, it will only deteriorate into a worse pile of junk. As Norman Gisler states “I simply don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist”. I told you I was an equal opportunity offender but I think the “intellectuals” are probably the proudest and most offended because they are not willing to acknowledge an intellect more knowledgeable than themselves, i.e. God. If you would like to see more compelling information concerning the fallacy of evolution I recommend visiting John Michael Fischer web site: (Shock Dynamics – Debunking Evolution).
Maybe you are romantic, an admirer of the sacrifice that is often displayed by the human spirit. Perhaps, you think the purpose of your life is to live it sacrificially toward a noble cause, like raising your family, serving your nation or saving the planet. There are a countless number of poems, sonnets, songs, novels and comic books that are written about the valor and courage that men and women display as they fight and die in order for good to triumph over evil. When I hear the cry of “freedom” from Braveheart, I’m ready to storm Long-shanks castle just like everyone else. And there is a “truth” that resonates in us and tells us that a life of sacrifice is worthy of praise. Well, perhaps this is the most deceptive philosophy to refute because living a life that man considers “good” or living for others is only partially true. It is not the whole truth or the most important part of the truth. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him”. – Hebrews 11:6. Therefore, unless you have first died to self and been born-again in Christ, your good works are self serving, they will not save you from your sin and your sin penalty of death! You could save a hundred babies from a burning building but your works, no matter how noble are not sufficient to remove the sin from your heart. God created you and is the only One worthy to be Lord of your life. Jesus lived a perfect life before God and died on the cross for your self centered sinful nature. To ignore and reject Christ’s sacrifice that He paid for you is to put your own sacrifice above His. This is an issue of pride within you, not honor. And you can cry a river of tears and be totally sincere about how good things and wonderful things you have done but unless you come down off the throne of your heart and ask Christ to rule and reign over your life by giving you a new born-again heart, your noble desires and efforts are just vanity and rebellion toward God. You may think you deserve to belong in God’s hall of fame but without Christ you will end up in the lake of fire, to be tormented eternally.
Maybe you are a new age philosopher like I once was, believing that man will evolve into a god. I remember reading the book “Chariots of Fire” and I was convinced that the people of the Old Testament had not seen manifestations of God but they were seeing manifestations of aliens from another planets. And I thought some day our science and technology would advance to the point that we would be transformed into a superior life form, similar to the one that planted us here. We would be like gods, able to overcome death. Then we would go into the universe and seek out new civilizations … these are the voyages of the Star Trek Enterprise … “beam me up Scotty”. There’s only one fundamental flaw to the logic of this reasoning … “who made the alien superior life form”? And actually, we have been visited by a superior life form from another place … Heaven. This superior life form is Jesus, God’s son. Therefore, if you want to believe in aliens, believe in Jesus.
America’s journey towards discovering the meaning of life has for the most part been derailed by the liberal intellectuals and hard working business men. With all the focus on prosperity, affluence and pleasure, the mantra of America is “he who has the most stuff wins”. This is more like a child’s game than a life purpose. Even churches have been deceived and are preaching a “health and wealth gospel” instead of the abundant life found in serving Christ. Note, it is not money that is evil, but the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. Focusing on materialism as a means to happiness and fulfillment in life amounts to worshiping a false god of money and essentially rebuilding the tower of Babel. It is rebellion to God with the purpose to prove to Him that by our intelligence, technology, business sense and hard work we are self sufficient and we don’t need God in our life. Some people call it a New World Order, a utopia of existence, unfortunately they don’t understand that this is actually Satan’s plan. Just as Satan led Nimrod to build the first tower of Babel, he will give his power to the Anti-Christ (the false Christ) who will become the ruler of the New World Order and if you read the book of Revelation, you will discover how God deals with this rebellion.
Maybe you think the purpose of man is to strive to be perfect in righteousness before a righteous God. So perhaps your philosophy for life is “he who dots the most i’s wins”. This is what the Pharisee thought. They thought they were justified before God by their self-righteous acts of trying to keep the the law given by Moses. But Jesus told them that their focus on trying to keep the law of God caused them to overlook the more important thing, the love that was due God and their fellow man. The law, was a tutor that revealed to the Jews their selfish motives and their inability to keep the law. And the animal sacrifices where a way to acknowledge their need for forgiveness for failure to keep the law and it way to look forward to the “perfect” sacrifice of Jesus that was coming, to pay for their sin, once for all. We are in fact Spiritually bankrupt and unable to please God by our good works. Our good works will never be good enough to please God because God doesn’t grade on a curve, He grades on the “cross” and God demands that you live a “perfect” life that does His will to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But how can you do God’s will when you are Spiritually disconnected from God at birth? You can’t! It is an impossibility for man to live a perfect life that pleases God, that is why the only life that is acceptable to God and is allowed to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is the life that accepts the perfect life and work of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus died in your place for all things you have thought or have done, apart from God’s will. Even you best righteous acts that you have done are like filthy rags to God. Only God has the rightful authority to rule over you life and fill you with His righteousness so you can know His will and choose to live a life pleasing to Him.
Hey, are you are a fundamental believer of Islam who does what the Qumran commands you to do to infidels that won’t submit to Allah? I sure hope not! Sura 4:89 “seize them and slay them wherever you find them”. If you think Islam is a religions of peace, you probably haven’t read the Quran or studied the life of Muhammad it’s prophet. The same warning goes out to Christians, if your think your witness for Christ will be received with peace then you haven’t read your Bible and understood what it is like to be a disciple of Jesus. Luke 12:51-53 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” You see the truth divides people, not physically like the sword of Islam but the Sword of the Lord pierces the heart of a person and reminds them and convicts them that their sin is exposed before their Holy Creator. The Sword of God’s Word is a spiritual sword, that divides households between those who love Christ and have surrendered their life to Him and those who pretend to love Him, hate Him or just ignore Him. The Sword of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, reminds people that God is willing to forgive their sin if they confess their sin and accept the new life of Christ, a life free from sin. However, there is no forgiveness in the teaching of Muhammad concerning Allah. Moreover, as a Muslim, you never really know if you have won the favor of Allah but killing people in His name does seems to help. It is obvious that a religion based on pride and murdering those who don’t agree with you is not from the God of the Bible, who is The forgiver and life giver, it is from Satan, who is the prideful, rebellious one that seeks to destroy life. Also the God of the Bible sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to save men from their sin but in the Qur’an it is stated 13 times that Allah has no son. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 They say, “God has a begotten son.” God forbid! Self-sufficient is He. His all that the heaven and the earth contain. Surely for this you have no sanction. Would you say of God what you know not? Qur’an 10:68
Maybe you have learned to block out the thought that you are going to die one day. After all, death is not a pleasant thought to consider when you have no assurance for a life after death. Perhaps, like the eastern world, you have decided that “nothing” is the answer to life and you follow the path of Buddha to obtain Nirvana. Sure it would be great not to need anything but we do have a real need. We have the need for love and eternal life and only One person ever proved He loved us and concurred death for us. Right, that person was Jesus Christ, not Buddha. John 11:25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies”. But it is not enough to merely “like” Jesus or be amazed at the person of Jesus Christ in order to receive eternal life, even Muslims revere Him as a prophet of God and demons shiver at the mention of His name. You must accept Jesus on His terms, not yours and most people are not willing to do this.
And last of all, since I am trying to be an equal opportunity offender of those who claim to have the truth, I need to make sure an offend those who claim to lead people to the Jesus of the Bible but instead they mislead people to follow the “cult” of their own man-made religion. Here is a short list of the organizations that claim to be Christian but their doctrine in fact deny one or more essential truths of the Bible; Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus died and paid the price for the sin of all mankind, Jesus was resurrected on the third day, man is separated from God by sin and destined for eternal Spiritual death, the only way for man to be saved from his Spiritual death penalty is by grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone, not by works least any man should boast.
Roman Catholics – salvation is obtained by repeatedly eating sacraments from a priest at the eucharist.
Calvinism – a person’s salvation status is known only to God, man has no responsibility or free will to exercise concerning his salvation. According to Calvinism, God is a malevolent dictator who provides irresistible grace to some people so they will be saved and He withhold His grace from others so they will be eternally tormented in the lake of Fire.
Jehovah Witness – denies Jesus was God in the flesh – salvation by works and following teaching of the WatchTower
Mormons – Church of Latter Day Saints – denies Jesus was God in the flesh – salvation by works
Lutherans – salvation through child baptism
Anglicans – salvation through child baptism
Eastern Orthodox – salvation through water baptism
Seventh Day Adventists – salvation by “investigative judgment”
Sometimes I fell like the Oracle in the Matrix Movie, “I don’t like to give good people bad news”, the only difference is that no one is good, except Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” , therefore “following your heart” is the worst thing you can do. And in a way, you are like a person plugged into the Matrix, unaware of the “real” life that is going on around you. The real life includes your physical self (smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch) your soul self (will, personality, emotions and reasoning) and your Spiritual self (God’s image – truth and love). Unfortunately, because of sin, your Spiritual self is born disconnected from God and therefore you do not have the truth and love of God to guide your life.
Your soul self gets a lot of input from your senses (the desire for pleasure and comfort), the world (the desires for money and fame) and Satan (telling you that you desire the best of life) but you do not have a Spiritual connection to God to know how to live a life pleasing to God. Without a Spiritual connection to God, you miss the mark of being the person God designed you to be. When you do something that you know is morally wrong God’s Spirit convicts your Spiritual of the transgression and this causes your soul to grieve and sense that something is wrong. This kind of sorrow is meant to lead you to Godly forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ. But the free will in man is not easily persuaded to admit having done wrong and instead of confessing your sin and seeking God’s forgiveness, man usually will rationalize the behavior, shake it off and continue to rebel against God.
I really don’t think sin and love are tangible things like electricity that can be turned on and off. I don’t even think they are powers like gravity. I think sin is a “decision” of the human will that goes against the Creator’s will, whereas love is the decision that is made based in faith upon God’s will. Now if you were able to make only love decisions that pleased God, then you wouldn’t need a Savior. You wouldn’t even need to be reconnected to God. But the hardest thing to understand about love is that love can’t be understood until you are first connected to God. Matthew 22:37-40 “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.” However, you can’t love God, until you honor who God is and give Him authority over your life. In other words this is the real chicken and egg debate. You can’t love God until you are connected to Him and you can’t connect to God until you choose to love Him as Lord of your life. The only way to make decisions that please God is to first be connected to Him by faith and then live a life of faith, following the Holy Spirit in you. This is what love really is, making holy decisions of faith.
Love’s a decision that’s founded on faith,
in God fearing promises time can’t erase
But sin’s a decision that founded on hate
apart from the goodness that’s comes from God’s grace.
Now, you may ask, well if I’m connected to God by salvation, and have new eternal life in Jesus Christ why do I still make ungodly decisions like before? Why do I still sin? The Bible explains that our sin nature does not vanish when our new Christ nature is born in us but that the two nature fight for control of our life. That is the message of this web site “die2live“. We must daily die to the self, the old sin nature and live by the new Christ nature.
I don’t know where the sin nature is located but for one thing you have a life time of bad habits in your mind that put you on auto control at times, demanding what you are use to getting by your selfish way. For another thing, the body is dying, getting old, tired, lazy, it wants comfort while the Spirit of God in you wants to excel in effort for God’s sake. Mark 26:31 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Some commentators say we only have a “deposit” of the Holy Spirit in us, not the full measure of God to make it a “no brainer” decision to always follow Christ. Ephesians 1:12-13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Even with only a deposit of the Holy Spirit, we have so much more than the Old Testament believers who only occasionally had the Spirit fall upon them and would also be taken from them. The only thing I know for sure is that when a born-again believer is in heaven, we will be rid of this body of sin, we will be free of the burden of sin. And when Christ raptures His church, we will be changed and have a resurrected body. We will still have free will but we will never want to disobey God because it will simply be illogical to consider it in the light of His glory and grace.
Perhaps an example will help explain the issue. Sin is like a computer virus that keeps a program from doing what it was designed to do. You are like the program and the virus of sin prevents you from making a connection to God, which is what you were designed to do. Jesus is like an Anti-virus program (not the Antichrist). When Jesus is installed into your heart, He re-connects your Spiritual self to God, permanently, forever. This connection to God, grants you eternal life with Him and fellowship with Him. Then you must daily continue to engage and run the Anti-virus program inside you, God’s word, to search for sin areas of your life and agree to allow the Anti-virus program, the Holy Spirit, to remove it from your life.
Like the Matrix movie, from birth you are plugged into Satan’s Matrix of death, you are born to die physically. This happened to all of us as a result of the first sin committed by our parents, Adam and Eve. In the movie, life plugged into the Matrix was good. In fact, one of the person who escapes the Matrix wants to return to the good life and offers to give up Morpheus if they will return him to a life of simulated pleasure and prestige in the Matrix. And our advisory, Satan uses a similar trick to keep people occupied with good stuff in the Matrix of this world so they won’t see they are plugged into a death grid and they won’t see the better abundant life that God has planned for them. But unlike the Matrix movie, we see the result of sin all around us, the hate people have for one another, wars, sickness and death plus we have a deep rooted fear and anxiety that plagues us. All these destructive thoughts are meant to act as an alarm to us, warning us that we live in a world corrupted by sin and we need a savior, not Nemo, but Jesus.
For God did not intend that we live with the effects of sin in our life, with hate, fear and anxiety ruling over us. He gave us His word for how to overcome the woes of this world, the Bible – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Have you ever read the Bible? It’s full of stories about flawed and sinful people, just like you and me; schemers, dreamers and unbelievers. Some people in the Bible discovered the danger of sin in their life and they turned from their sinful way and follow the new way of Christ. There are amazing stories about how their character was transformed by Christ and they found the new strength of Christ within them to live a victorious life for God, a life of glory and purpose. There are also heart wrenching stories concerning some of God’s most beloved believers, who were persecuted, tortured and killed because they stood witness to God’s goodness and righteousness. Then are also stories of hearts of men and women that were hardened by their continued acts or rejecting God goodness and mercy, even in the face of great displays of His power and mercy, like Pharaoh, and they suffered the consequences of their disbelief and died in their sin.
Well, we talked about man and how he likes to make up his own rules for life and we talked about sin and how that has ruined man’s ability to keep God’s rules. Now, lets talk about God and what He wants? God’s will is that none should perish but that everyone be saved and enjoy eternal life with Him., John 6:40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” God will is that we would know Him and enjoy Him forever.
Doesn’t this really make the most sense of all the other ridiculous reasons for why you are here? That God loves you and He created you and has a wonderful plan for you. It’s just this little obstacle of sin in your heart that is holding you back from seeing it. Well, really it’s no little obstacle at all or Jesus would not have had to die on the cross for your sin and my sin if it wasn’t a big deal. But why is sin such a big deal? Why is it so critical that I have sin removed from my life in order to be with God eternally?
Well, I think we have finally hit the nail on the head, you see it was not the nails that held Jesus to the cross but our sin that held him there. Sin destroys man and everything else that God has created. God designed man to reign and rule with Christ, not tear down what God builds. Plus, tearing thing down shows no respect for what God has created and no respect for the effort God extended to create it. How, easy we are to condemn someone who drives their car in our yard and digs up the nicely manicured lawn with doughnut tracks. Yet, this is what we do to God when we transgress His moral standard and live our life disconnected from Him, we mess up the beautiful lawn of the garden of Eden.
Look Jesus has come to reconnect you to God and to set straight the house of your heart. He is able to throw away the useless crap we obsess over and give us a new eternal life of hope and meaning. And unlike the worry and fear that paralyzes us the more we obsess about over them, you can’t over obsess on Jesus. The more you obsess about Jesus the better you are for it!
Here is something wonderful about Jesus to obsess over: http://die2live.worthyofpraise.org/about-Jesus/
Here is how to be saved: http://die2live.worthyofpraise.org/about-salvation/
+8^) Rogersings
