GEORGE'S ANGELS NEWSLETTER

In Loving Memory of BishopGeorge E. Moye May/June 1999

KNOWING THE WILL OF GOD

Have you discovered the meaningless of this thing we call life? The wisest man that ever lived, King Solomon, gives us his take on the meaning of life. He was not only the wisest man that ever lived, he was also the richest. In his pursuit of the meaning of life, he sought after wealth, knowledge and pleasure but found no satisfaction for his soul. Does that sound familiar to you?

We spend the majority of our lives searching for meaning and substance, when knowing God and His will for your life is where to find the meaning of life.

Whether we realize it or not, we are all born with an empty whole in our soul, a longing, an emptiness that cannot be filled with anything but God. All the wealth and pleasure of this world is not enough to make us happy. If you have learned this mystery, you have found true knowledge. Solomon explains it this way:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"

says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless."

Tony Evans explains that the striving for the meaning of life frustrates those who are down-and-out and feel locked into their misery with no hope of escape. He speaks of the cry of a single mother who is trapped by poverty, not knowing where to find the father of her child. The frustrated cry of a black man who has not been able to rise from the level of ``boy'' in the eyes of his employer and cannot adequately support his family. The miserable cry of a young man who tries to fill his emptiness by having relationships with women without concern about their chances of getting pregnant, because he has no intention of supporting the offspring. Their cry is seen in a teenage mother who, realizing that she has missed out on the ``fun'' years of her adolescence, abuses her child or neglects him while she tries to catch up with her single friends.

Some look for meaning in a career while others look for it in relationships. Some drink for it; others snort for it. Some give up and commit suicide because they can't find any meaning.(1)

We must remember that we have an enemy who is out to destroy us, especially after we are saved and have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. The enemy's other job is to keep others from making that commitment to Christ while enticing them into committing to other "things" knowing that pursuit of these of "things" will ultimately destroy them.

Evans' explains the strategy of Satan. Satan doesn't want us to find meaning and value in life, he is overjoyed when we feel confused, frustrated, and defeated. He works hard to set up cardboard imitations of life and is delighted when people are fooled into believing that they are real. Having tricked us into accepting an imitation in place of the real, he takes pleasure in setting up fakes and phonies that trip us up, like alcohol or drugs, and dishonest or immoral lifestyles.

But those are only a few of the ways Satan takes people out of the running. If he can't take us out with ungodly lifestyles, he'll try another method. Satan is crafty. He's not the funny man with horns we see in cartoons. Christ knew his true nature and called him a murderer and the father of lies (John 8:44). Satan is the accuser of the righteous (Revelation 12:11), and he's in business to destroy believers by using every technique imaginable (see I Peter 5:8 for an example of Satan's destructive nature). If money will corrupt, he'll provide money. If power will lead a believer astray, he'll give power. If a new job with a more attractive salary will move God's child away from the Father's will, then Satan will help him get the job. God does not allow these attacks because He wants His children to be powerless; that's not the case at all. He has provided us with the armor to withstand any attack. See Ephesians Chapter 6 for dressing in the armor of God. But Satan will try every trick to find the chink in a believer's armor. And no matter what his method, his goal is simple: TO KEEP THE BELIEVER FROM FINDING THE REAL MEANING IN LIFE.(2)

So there it is in a nut shell. We see that Satan is determined to sidetrack us from knowing the will of God which is where we will find the meaning of life.

Abundant life in Christ

Christ lived, died and rose that we might have life and have it more abundantly. John 10:10.

Evans goes on to explained that Jesus appeared on the scene as the answer to the questions about the meaning of life. He appeared in God's brush stroke of glory and said, ``I'm here to give you life that has substance, meaning, depth and quality.''

Tragically, most people believe they already have life. You may be thinking, Wait a minute, I do have life. I'm healthy, active, alive. How can Jesus give me life?

But having the physical life isn't the same as having this abundant life of which Christ is speaking. (3)

There are many who have the resemblance of life, they breathe, move and have the appearance of life but in reality there is no life in them because the Spirit of God is absent within them. We are all creations of God but, only those who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior are children of God. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born NOT of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. John 1:12-13.



Vanities of Vanities

If any man should have had a full and meaningful life, it was Solomon. Yet the opening words of Ecclesiastes are `` `Vanity of vanities,' says the Preacher, `Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.' '' What an unusual beginning for a book about life!. When introducing the book of Ecclesiastes, he tells the reader right up front that he has nothing to say because life is all nothingness, emptiness, and vanity. Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes toward the end of his life, and he was looking back and asking, ``Who am I?'' ``Why am I here?'' ``Where am I going?'' In spite of a life of great prestige, responsibility, and luxury, he described much of the life he had known as ``empty.''

If King Solomon could say life is meaningless, what about the rest of us?

Can the unemployed, elderly, fixed income families and the poor find meaning in life despite the ability to experience the fullness of life? Can a successful, two- income couple avoid the rut of the fast track and rat race? What about the wealthy and their struggles with power, prestige, money, drugs and suicide? Solomon's opening words suggest a negative answer to all of those questions, but let's not stop reading too soon. In spite of the doom-and- gloom beginning, Solomon does have a positive message for each of us no matter what our age or lifestyle.

The Pursuit of Pleasure

As to lifestyles, Solomon tried them all--as only the richest man in the world could--he evaluated three of the major ones. He took the pleasure route first, thinking that if he had enough fun and good times, he'd have a reason for living. Chapter 2 describes Solomon's plan to fill his life with all the pleasure possible.``I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine.'' Solomon would have been right at home in our society. The only difference is that he experimented with alcohol, whereas today we have added drugs. Not unliike us today, Solomon was looking for thrills. That's the case with too many people. Their lives have holes in them as big as Mack trucks, and they're looking for something with which to fill them.

These people are desperately trying to find solutions to the problems of meaningless lives, but their solutions lead only to bigger problems. Because they are unfulfilled in life, they cloud their minds with pornography, alcohol, and drugs. This is nothing new. In fact, Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. He tried it all. At the end of verse 3 Solomon confesses that he wanted ``to take hold of folly, until [he] could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.'' Even a king looked for something to give his life meaning and value.

Personally, I know what it is like to look forward eagerly to something special, and then find when you finally reach the date or the event that there is no joy in it. I remember about 3 years ago I redecorated my apartment with new carpet, drapes and furniture. After all the shopping and spending, arranging and rearranging, I sat down on the couch in amazement, feeling quite empty. I remember saying to myself, "now what ... "there has to be more to life than this." Maybe you understand this, perhaps you may have looked forward to buying a new car, then when you bought it-- whoosh--the excitement was gone. You may have looked and looked for that special new house, but soon after you bought it, it became just a place to hang your hat. Things tend to get boring quickly.

What about you, the one who set goals and plans and brought houses and land, take a note from Solomon, he learned the truth of that from hard experience. He says in verses 4-6, ``I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.'' (There's a key word in these verses. Have you caught it?) ``I bought male and female slaves, and I had home- born slaves. I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men--many concubines.'' (Have you picked out that key word yet? It's the word "I".)

Verse 10 sums it up with this statement: ``All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them.'' Solomon, preacher and king, withheld from himself nothing. He didn't go to the party; he brought the party to himself. But there was one problem. When the party was over, he was still all he had. After all that frenzied activity, he realized that it was all vanity and striving after wind. Have you ever tried to catch the wind? It's an exercise in frustration. Every time you grab, it slips through your fingers. How many of us, like King Solomon, are out there grabbing for things that are impossible to hold onto and are worthless? The mere accumulation of things will not and cannot provide meaning and purpose in life.

The Pursuit of Wisdom

Since the answers Solomon was seeking weren't to be found in pleasure and material possessions, he tried another angle: education. He told himself, ``The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness,'' (v. 14). Solomon was saying that it's better to be smart than ignorant. Working on that premise, he set out to become well-educated. And he accomplished exactly what he set his sights on because the Bible says he became the wisest man on earth. Not only did he have a vast amount of knowledge, but he also possessed a unique ability to appropriately apply that knowledge to the human situation, which is the true nature of biblical wisdom.

Did his education or its application give him a reason for living? No. In fact, it probably made him even more miserable. Because he was wise, he realized that his fate was no better than that of the biggest fool in town. What could happen to a fool could as easily happen to him. Since his Ph.D. in world knowledge was no protection from life's misfortunes and from death, he decided that education, too, was emptiness.

The Pursuit of Work

Neither pleasure nor education gave life meaning, but Solomon wasn't ready to give up his search so easily. Next he decided that work might fill the void in his life. Work might give him a reason to get up in the morning and something to look forward to each day. It might keep him occupied, challenged, and enthusiastic about living. So he turned his attention to his job. No one could possibly have had a better position than Solomon, the king of the great nation of Israel. People came from all over the world to meet and talk with him. His work must have given great purpose to his life. But did it? Verses l8 and 19 say, ``I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely.'' Do you understand Solomon's complaint? He was saying, ``I am breaking my neck to build up Israel, and when I die somebody is going to take my place. I don't know if he'll be someone I'd approve of or if I'd agree with the way he'll do things, but he is going to take my place and, worse yet, get for free what it took me a lifetime to build.'' Knowing that crushed all Solomon's joy in working.

I've had glimpses of what bothered Solomon. When I think of the material things I will leave behind for someone else to enjoy, it encourages me to enjoy them even more myself. Life is to be lived until you die. Real life begins after death. This life is but a vapor, it is a journey not a destination.

The Answer

Solomon explains God's plan in Ecclesiastes 3:11: ``He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.'' There's the answer to Solomon's search and ours for meaning in life--God has set eternity into the hearts of mankind. In understanding that, there is purpose in life.

``Eternity in their heart'' means He has placed deep in every man's soul a big question mark. There is nothing in finite time that can provide the answer to that cosmic question; however, because of the question mark, people all over the world are looking for a god to answer the question.

Everyone who has ever lived has looked for a god to worship, something to fill the God-shaped vacuum inside of him. Everyone looks for something to fill that void, for without that, life has no purpose, no meaning. That lack of meaning is what Solomon called ``vanity'' or ``emptiness.'' Some men try to fill the vacuum with immorality, drugs, or alcohol. Others stuff it full of church or civic activities. Some make the God-shaped void a bank vault, accumulating wealth. Solutions differ, but the common thread is that all men try to fill the vacuum inside of them. ONLY GOD FITS, but many people would rather squeeze something else into His space. As a result, no matter what they try, it ultimately turns into meaninglessness. God has set eternity in the hearts of men, and only He can satisfy the heart's desire.

Who owns my life?

Many of us have lost sight of the fact that life and its work are from God. We believe we've earned those things. We get up in the morning and say, ``I'm going to do this, this, and this.'' Then we get irritated, aggravated, and even angry when things interrupt those plans. What we've forgotten is that our lives are not our own. They are God's, and it is His work we are here to do. The plans, the timing, and the assignment are all His.

For this reason the Book of James warned businessmen against setting their own agendas. He reminded them that their lives were nothing more than a ``vapor'' that would vanish in a short time and encouraged them to plan in a new way (James 4:14). Instead of saying, ``Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit'' (v, 13), he told them that they should plan by saying, ``If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that'' (v, 15). No matter how important or successful the person, he has got to remember that life is God's gift to him for a time. Many a man or woman has gone to the job and never come home again, made his plans for the year and suffered a heart attack on January 1, arranged her schedule for the week and found herself under the surgeon's knife instead. We need to realize that even though life is given to us, life is not due us; it is a gift.

The Bible says they turned their attentions toward creation and away from the Creator. To put it another way, they forgot the Giver and began to worship the gifts He had given. This is the ultimate sin. Suicide and murder, as terrible as they are, are not as horrible as the deepest sin-- Adam's sin in taking the gifts of God and used them for his own purposes. Selah - meditate on this.



The Gift and the Giver

The gift of life cannot really be enjoyed until it is given and received as a gift. Some people act as though they could snatch life from God's hands or steal it while He isn't looking. They don't want the gift: they want ownership. But God can't be fooled. He wants to give you life and to stay in your life as an essential part of the gift. He also wants you be to thankful for the life He gives.

If you have accepted the gift of life, how does God know you are thankful? He doesn't know you are thankful because you go to church on Sunday. That is a small part of it, but God is just as interested in your Mondays as your Sundays. The proof of your thankfulness is in the fact that you let Him run your life. Think for a moment about the model for prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples (Matthew 6:9-15). He prayed, ``Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.'' God's will performed here on earth just like it is done in heaven. How is that?

In heaven, everybody and everything conforms to the will of God. It's His will--perfect, absolute, and only.

What God wants is men, women, boys, and girls who are so thankful for His gifts that they surrender their lives to Him. When they give their lives back to Him, then He is able to give the greatest gift of all--Jesus and the abundant life He brings. Nothing short of that will do.

Jesus is our answer

The Bible says of Jesus, ``There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved,'' (Acts 4:12b). This passage makes clear beyond a doubt that God's Son, Jesus, is the only way of salvation.

But why did God extend the salvation invitation to all mankind and then make the road to heaven narrow? Because the payment for our sin had to be wholly acceptable to Him; the sacrifice had to be sinless like God in order to satisfy Him. To save man from the condemnation that His own holiness required, God made a way to satisfy His wrath against sin by using someone as perfect as Himself, His Son Jesus Christ. No other sacrifice, before or since, has had the power to reconcile man to God forever through the forgiveness of sins.

Imagine that a young lady who was issued a speeding ticket could not deny her guilt, so she pled guilty before the judge. The judge lectured her and fined her $200. She was stunned at the size of her fine, and she told the judge over and over, ``I'm really sorry. I'm guilty, but I can't pay that fine.''

The judge looked at her sternly and said, ``The law is the law. It's either two hundred dollars or thirty days in jail.'' ``But I don't want to go to jail,'' she wept, ``and I don't have two hundred dollars to pay the fine.''

``I'm sorry,'' the judge said, ``but I can't change the law. It's two hundred dollars or thirty days. See the court clerk.'' Then to the astonishment of the people in the courtroom, the judge took off his robe, came down from the bench, and stood beside the young woman. Reaching in his pocket, he took out $200, laid it on the clerk's desk, and said, ``I'll pay my daughter's fine.''

That is what happened on Calvary. God looked down from heaven and judged mankind guilty. But instead of making man pay the price of sin, He took off the glory of heaven and put on the garment of humanity to come down to Calvary where He paid the price for man's sin for all time.



Call to Salvation

Today, even though He loves us, His holiness requires Him to find us guilty. Standing alone on our own merits, God must judge us and pronounce a guilty verdict. But we do not have to stand alone. God has provided the way through Jesus Christ; the blood of His sacrifice covers us and saves us from condemnation when we place our faith in Him alone as personal Savior because of His substitutionary death on the cross for our sins. In this way, when God looks at us, He sees His Son at Calvary paying the price for sinners once and for all. How can anyone refuse to live for the God who paid the penalty for sin and transferred him out of hell into heaven?

Accept Christ into your heart today, making the necessary spiritual preparations for the eternity of your soul. Visit Call to Salvation to pray the Prayer of Salvation and make the best decision of your life and enter the will of God.

Monthly Prayer Person

PHYLLIS NEWKIRK

I am seeking the prayers of the readers of the GA Newsletter. I desire specific prayer for spiritual strength and healing. It appears that the enemy has won a battle in my life at this time. But the war is not over yet. I am believing God has the victory and I am an overcomer through Christ Jesus who strengthens me. Pray my strength in the Lord and that He will continue to lead and guide me into His perfect will for my life and those I love.

REMEMBER TO PRAY FOR THOSE ON THE FAMILY PRAYER LIST

1. "The Alternative Newsletter" by Tony Evans.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

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