A Reason to Live

On September 11, 2001, nineteen men boarded four airplanes, gained entrance to the cockpits, and hijacked them. Three of the airplanes hit their targets. One crashed in an open field


Two weeks later, a friend from Rock Hill--Kyle Torreyson, left for New York with the Red Cross. He served doughnuts and breathed the poisoned air of the World Trade Center. Years later, Kyle got cancer from being there. He knew it was a possibility when he went, but he was willing to risk his life to serve doughnuts and ground zero.

In the last nine years, hundreds of thousands of men and women have gone into harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan—every one a volunteer. Thousands did not come back. But they went, believing in a cause greater than themselves.

There is a big question that hangs over all of this. Why do people walk into danger, even certain death? There is one simple answer--because they believe in something greater than self, greater than comfort, and even greater than family.

It was the same reason that Christ went to the cross. If life is all there is, then it doesn’t make sense.

Spirituality is not just a matter of religion. Just as there is a Holy Spirit, there is a human spirit--a part of all people regardless of their beliefs. That spirit fulfills an essential function in who we are and what we do.

Think of the human soul as a triangle. The top two sides are our physical and the psychological self. The physical side contains our bodies and the needs of our bodies. It involves our health, our jobs, houses, etc. Our psychological self is everything that it non-material--our relationships, social standing, memories, intellect, and our wants and needs.

But underneath all this, there has to be a foundation. The foundation is our spiritual self. It is the system of belief and values that keeps us going. It helps us resist temptation, take the difficult road, keep on enduring, and put ourselves in harm’s way, when necessary. It is what makes a man fight for his country, and a missionary travel to the ends of the earth. It is what we love and believe.

This spiritual basis is not just a feeling. It is farther down than feelings. People will act contrary to all their feelings if they do it for love or loyalty. There is something that cries out to be part of something greater than ourselves. We want to have contributed, not only to our family, but to our world.

Years ago there was a psychiatrist named Maslow, who came up with an idea he called the "priority of need." He said that if a man is hungry he will think about nothing but food. If he is insecure, he will think about nothing but security. But if a man is full and if he is secure, he will think about other things--love, a family, friendship. If he has those things, then he will seek for something else--something he called "self-actualization." It is having a purpose in life. We do not want to think that we've lived and died in vain.

I disagree with Maslow in one way. I think that this desire for a reason to live is far deeper than food or drink, or security. I think everyone, no matter where they might be, needs to have a reason to live.

And the first place people go who need a reason to live is to their church.

God promised Jeremiah this when he said “For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not evil to give you an end and a purpose.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

God has a plan and purpose for our lives.

Unfortunately, many will walk away from church without a reason. They will leave frustrated and disappointed, because the church does not give them a reason to live.

Try to imagine what it is like for the poor seeker who comes to church. He comes looking for a challenge, a real God, and real love. He wants to be part of God’s great movement in

But what does the seeker get instead? He hears tired old songs, incomprehensible messages, meaningless rituals, and people who look as though they can't wait to get out and go home. The messages are aimed at soothing and comforting those who are already saved. The seeker does not want soothing and comforting. He wants a fresh challenge and a holy cause. It's frustrating for a seeker, especially a young seeker, to find that the church has no reason to exist, except to keep its own members comfortable. It is as though they showed up at the army recruiters and discovered they were meeting inside the lobby of a nursing home. They take one look at the people around him, and leaves because he thinks he’s gone to the wrong place.

What is your reason for living? Don’t say that your reason for living is to get to heaven—that’s our reason for dying, not living. That’s like saying that the reason for doing your job is to retire. We need more than that—some reason for being here in this life. We need to know why we are doing what we are doing.

There was once a king named Solomon. He had great wisdom and knowledge. He had literally hundreds of women at his beck and call. He had all the money he could stand. He had absolute power. But none of this gave him a reaon to live. He said of it all, "Meaningless--it is all meaningless." After he explored wine, women, wealth, and wisdom, he still could not find a reason to live.

Most people live like Solomon without the wealth and power. They live for pleasure, wealth, or fame. As long as they can have a good time, then they do not care whether life has a meaning or not. In the end, though, money fades, along with power and glory. Even the people we love on earth, even our family disappears in the end/

Suppose some day we stand before God and God asks us "what have you made with the life I have let you borrow?" Would we say. "I sat six hours a day in front of my big screen TV all week, and spent two days on the lake in my motor boat. I owned a vacation home, listening to my music, and partied whenever I got the chance?" Meaningless, Solomon said--all is meaningless.

There is something I've noticed about some people who become wealthy. They are no happier than the poor. The rich seem to go through three stages. First, they use their wealth to meet their needs, and their family's needs. That ought to make them happy, but I usually doesn’t. Then they feel the need to play with their wealth. They fulfill their wildest desires. But after a while, this, too becomes boring. Finally, they get an itch to do something important with their money. They give to charity, politics, or religion. They look for a reason to spend, and a cause to suppoer.

I wish it were true for all rich people, but it is not. Some people never grasp that were given what they have to give what they can. Too late, they recognize Solomon’s words-- "Meaningless--all is meaningless."

It was not until late in his life that Solomon understood it’s meaning. He wrote in Ecc. 12:13-14 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.

You don't have to be as rich or as smart as Solomon to find the meaning. You don't even have to read Solomon’s book. Just flip to the back page and read the conclusion. We exist to fear and obey God. He is the meaning of life.

How do we do that?

First know what you believe. Don't settle for secondhand faith. Is fearing God and obeying His commandments really foremost in us? Or do we say that because we think we are supposed to say it?

We are all too quick to let others think for us. We often are guilty not putting what we hear to the test. As a result, when tests come, we find that our faith is not as strong as we thought. Second hand religion produces secondhand lives--lives that are carbon copies of those we have observed, without any divine spark of purpose. Secondhand faith does not really inspire

us to deep purpose or sacrifice.

In Herman Hesse's novel Siddharta, a seeker after truth in India spend years searching for the Buddha. When he finally meets the Buddha, he receives an invitation to become a disciple. The man turns him down. When the Buddha asks why, he replies tha the wants what Buddha has, not just o follow him. He wants bo be enlightened, not to live off he enlightenment of others. This ought to be the vision of we Christians. We want to now Christ, not to just know those who know Christ. We want to serve Christ, not to serve those who serve Christ. This kind of faith cannot be arrived at without struggle.

Second, know what is really important. Don't waste time on secondhand goals.

There is only one leading north from Waxhaw--highway 16. They have been working on that intersection and it has been shut down. Now, suppose I went to the drug store, taking my usual, and came to that detour. Instead of going around, I park my car and wait until they reopened the street. My real goal is not to pass through that intersection, bt to get to the other side. That would be confusing the road with the destination.

We confuse our road with our destination. The church could use a building, but our goal is not to build church buildings. We make money, but now to have money. We don’t even raise children for their sake, but to instill in them the same reason for existence as we have ourselves. God is the purpose for our being, and all other things take second place.

Third, constantly reinforce the truth. Don't settle for being a "cross-eyed" Christian. Know our purpose does not end our struggle. Our minds must be conquered for Him, bringing every thought into captivity for His divine purpose.

Faith requires constant reinforcement. Even Paul had to to this. See Phil 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Moses put it this way in Deut 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Today, no doubt, he would put it differently. He might say “Hang them as pictures on your walls. Put them as bumper stickers on your cars. Make them the screen savers on your computers. God wants us to put Him in before us at all times. That’s because God knows how easily we forget. So we must keep being reminded that we have a reason to live.

A Reason to