How Can I Experience Peace, Meaning in Life, and Happiness?
The world today is filled with people that are involved in the relentless quest for happiness, peace, and meaning in life. Many travel different paths in their search for happiness and meaning in life. These well traveled pathways include relationships, pleasure, wealth, property, and things. Some choose to pursue power, prestige, and popularity. Still others try religion by attending or joining a church, becoming baptized, or following one of many false cults adn religions that are in the world today. Yet, true happiness and meaning in life cannot be found in any of these areas.
This quest for happiness, purpose and meaning in life can only be fulfilled by God through the Person of Jesus Christ. John 10:10 Jesus said, "I have come in order that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Although God wants us to have the abundant life, there is something that keeps us from this.
I. Sin Keeps Us From God's Happiness, Purpose, and the Abundant Life He Wants Us To Have.
The answer to this dilemna is sin. All of mankind has sinned, including you and I. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Sin is a missing of the moral mark or standard that God has set for all humanity.
II. The Penalty Of Your Sin
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death......" The penalty, or payment you receive for the sins you have done in your life is death. Not only a physical death, but also a spiritual death. Physical in the sense that we all must die in this body unless the Lord first returns, and spiritual in that this death is an eternity in hell.
Hell will not be a place of partying, revelry, or fun. Nor is it a place where one can dwell for a short time. Scripture tells us it is a place of unending pain and agony, filled with darkness and fire. People will cry and beg to be released from this place, but to no avail. It is eternal.
III. Jesus Christ Is The Answer
Many put their faith in other means to try to gain meaning in life, adn to attain eternal life. Proverbs 16:25 says, "There are ways that seem right to man, but they only end in death." There is only one way to have forgiveness of sin adnto enter into a saving relationship with God, and this is through Jesus Christ. If any other way would have worked, Christ would not have come willingly to die a cruel and excruciating death on the cross. Salvation, purpose, peace and meaning in life comes from a Person, not the church, your good works, or religion. Salvation comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. John 14:6 "Jesus said unto them, 'I am the way, the truth, adn the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.'"
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Why would God send His Son into the world to die for your sin? BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU! John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."
IV. The Gift- Eternal Life
With all gifts, there are four things that are involved. These are:
- The gift
- The giver
- The price paid
- The receiver
God has fulfilled the first three conditions for the gift of salvation to be ours. These are:
- The gift- Eternal life
- The giver- Is God, through Jesus Christ
- The price paid- Jesus left the glory of heaven, took on Himself a human body while on earth, lived a perfect, sinless life, and took upon Himself our sins as He was willingly crucified on the Cross. It was not the Cross nor the beatings that killed Him, but our sin, your sin, as these were laid to His account.
V. What Must You Do To Receive The Gift Of Salvation?
The fourth condition involved in the gift is the receiver. For you to receive this free gift that God wants to give, you must be willing to reach out and to accept this gift. How can you do that?
- Realize you have sinned against God
- Confess your sins to God and ask Him to forgive you. 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
- Make a commitment towards God by accepting Him as your Lord and Savior. To do this, you must invite Jesus into your life and ask Him to be the director, or Lord of your life. Romans 10:9-11 " That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:13 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."