What do you want out of life? I think we have all heart that. Sometimes we are referring to what we desire to become in our lifetime; but, I think, mostly, what we refer to is our “dream,” what we desire to happen to us, how we desire other people to view us, to treat us, what we desire to possess, etc. We are told that the heavens and earth will pass away, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 2 Peter. Therefore, we are asking, what do we want out of a dying world, a world that is passing away? What the world believes to be good, to be right, is passing away. Is that what we want to be part of? Is it our desire to be partakers of death? Entertainment is enjoying that which is passing away, death. The world holds up dying things, death, and tells us these are good and will make us happy. Dying can only give us death. Death can only give us death. There can be no true happiness in dying and death.
Life is not death; life is not dying. Life is life. We cannot live without the sun; nevertheless, the sun cannot keep us alive. We cannot live without oxygen; nevertheless, oxygen cannot keep us alive. We cannot live without food; however, food cannot keep us alive. You can go on and on with this. Only Life can give life; therefore, if we desire life, we must look to Life—God.
When man was created, he was given life. He was not dying; he was made to live forever. Adam and Eve had life because they were united to God, Who is Life. As long as they had communion, were united, with God they had life. This communion, this unity, is kept through obedience. Disobedience is a rebelling, a break, from communion, unity. Therefore, when Adam sinned through disobedience—it was Adam’s sin, not Eve’s, that caused the Fall of mankind, because he was the head of the human race by being the “first born”—humanity severed itself from life. What is the effect when someone is cut off from life? Death. Because mankind had cut himself off from Life, he no longer had the resource to reach out to Life. God, because of His love for mankind, reaches out to us, giving us enough grace to reach out to Him.
The reason there is a necessity for atheists to be present in the world is in order to show mankind how far it has fallen, how extreme its separation from God is. God is informing us through the atheist that if it was not for God Himself, by His grace, not one single human being would believe in Him. It is by His grace that we actually see His existence in creation. Through agnostics, deists, and the myriad of denominations, we see that God’s “normal” way of working humanity: He reveals Himself to us by His grace, causing us to come to believe in Him—if we do not reject this grace. The more we cooperate with what grace we are given, the more we seek the Truth of Him, the more He reveals of Himself. If we stop seeking, He stops revealing, and we begin dying once more. All of mankind have access to God. If they earnestly seek Him, He reveals Himself to them. If an individual has no desire to learn of God, he can ask for the desire to learn of Him. The question remains: What do I want out of Life?
--Tommy Turner
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