The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

One of the most enigmatic verses in the entire bible is also one of the most intuitively obvious once someone is honest with themselves about the state of this world, the great wickedness that we witness daily, the injustice of war, the corruption of authority, and all other horrors of humanity.

Indeed, this verse captures the natural, Holy, and true response to the violence, sexual perversion, and delusion that we see, experience, and sometimes even partake in in our own shame.

“And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” (Eccelsiastes 4:2-3, ESV)

What an obvious statement–its almost a truism or a platitude. This verse, more importantly, completely cedes to the Atheist the most poignant criticism against God that there is: God should not have created at all, if the known result was that the elements of His creation would go on to form the molecules of evil and suffering whatsoever.

This criticism is still the strongest in academia today, and it was also my own greatest criticism of a good God. It was what I shook my fist at God for. It was why I cursed him whenever I saw injustice and evil. It was why I resented all that was comforting, sweet, kind, and charitable, because I “knew” it was a fantasy and a lie.

Ultimately was why I laid all of the world’s dysfunction at God’s feet to blame, rather than men. Worse of all, it led me to become a very, very bitter person.

Therefore, you could imagine my surprise when I find that the bible itself completely cedes the premise that it is better to not be born and experience life if that experience includes any form of evil. Moreover, it fascinated me that this book could be inspired, and thus considered infallibly true, by Christians! However, my experience with deep thinking Christians in life and throughout history spared me the foolish and intellectually dishonest exercise of merely chalking it all up to religious doublethink.

However, in my fascination with the book of ecclesiastes as a book considered to be inspired literature, I considered not that it was merely some contradiction or limited human musing as many biblical teachers often lazily claim (my thinking was and is that if the bible is true, ALL of it must be true–infallibility is nonnegotiable).

Now, for many other reasons, the book of Ecclesiastes was the book that led me to salvation in the resurrected Son of God, the Jewish Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. However, this verse was the wrecking ball that shattered my criticism.

How so?

Well, as the late Dr. Chuck Missler was fond of claiming, whenever you find a supposed contradiction in the bible our reaction ought to be to rejoice because we are about to learn something!

Therefore, I turned to the only way of solving it that I could think of: making an equation.

Solomon as laid out the following dynamic: To be dead is better than being alive, and better is the one who experienced neither. Therefore I wrote the following:

Life < Death < Unbirth

However, the one who has died has also experienced life with evil, therefore death includes within it life with evil. So, I amended the equation as such:

Life < (Death + Life) < Unbirth

However, with not much else to go on, I left that to continue reading the rest of the book. When I got to the final verse, I found the following:

“For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecclesiates 12:14, ESV).

Since I knew from childhood bible studies that Revelation described this judgment as a second death (Revelation 20:6; 20:14; 21:8), I realized that I could then amend the equation for those all man as the following:

Life < (2 x (Death) + Life) < Unbirth

However, all these really proved to me was that the situation was even worse than I originally contemplated. Not did evil make life not worth living, but this was death compounded on itself when all of us are eventually judged for the evil we ourselves did. I felt my despair and cynicism vindicated, but I still didn’t solve how in the right mind any Christian could happy believing this was true!?? And clearly they existed, but I could not find an answer that I found satisfying.

Discontent, I shelved it…and it wasn’t until I found myself reading the words of the Lord himself did I get my answer like a punch in the gut:

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” (John 3:3, ESV).

Aha! My equation, Solomon’s equation, was incomplete.

I quickly amended it:

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

It was the second birth that changed the math in favor of God’s impetus to create. The second birth was the death of the old wicked sin, and the promise of eternal life in the presence of the Holy. It was the same crucifixion of Christ that made the second birth possible that also paid the cost of the wickedness that tarnished life. Therefore, it is the Christian life alone that is worth living.

Bonus:

In case you are a math nerd like me and need proof that this is even possible, you can also plug in numbers whose value represents moral betterness:

Life = 2

Death = 3

Unbirth = 9

Life < (2(Death) + Life) < Unbirth < (2(Death) + 2(Life))

2 < (2(3) + 2) < 9 < (2(3) + 2(2))

2 < (6 + 2) < 9 < (6 + 4)

2 < 8 < 9 < 10

Living Life < The Judged Life < The Lifeless < Life in Christ

 

The Christian Life Alone Is Worth Living

Check out the podcast about this subject with Justin and John

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Solomon Moment with God

Solomon Moment with God

Solomon Moment with God

If I had a Solomon moment with God what would I ask for?

II Chronicles 1st chapter.   

Selfishly and with complete honesty, if You Oh Mighty God , were to come to me in a communication of Your choosing, and ask me what I wanted more than anything else on earth, and that You also would grant me that deep heart desire (and I acknowledge that my wants can be motivated incorrectly by my flesh or influenced by the world or the enemy).

I can honestly say to You right now, that I want to be possessed by Your Son, Jesus Christ. 

I want to have the deepest possible love relationship with Him, so intimate, so fulfilling that nothing else in the universe would hold any appeal and to have a secret place with Him.

To know His presence and out of this love relationship His good flowing out of me, my life for Your higher purposes and glory.  

Solomon Moment with God

That I would be transformed from my closeness with Him, to see Him as He is.

To gaze at His beauty, to be spellbound by His infinite character attributes, to enjoy Him every moment, to see what He does and follow and obey. 

I am already in outer darkness when I am away from Him.

Nothing else really matters. My existence doesn’t matter.

It is all vanity and vaporous. 

This is what I would ask for, to feel His heartbeat.

 

Solomon Moment with God

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We all travel on an individual journey on this planet earth that God has put into motion from the day we were formed in our mothers’ body. We all have deep questions that need to be answered. Why are we here? Is this all there is?

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When the Levee Breaks

When the Levee Breaks

When the Levee Breaks

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
Lord mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
It’s got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well, oh well, oh well

Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They got no work to do
If you don’t know about Chicago

Cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good.
When the levee breaks mama you got to move
All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

 

When the Levee Breaks, was originally written and performed as a country blues song by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. It was made famous in 1927 when the Mississippi river flood occurred. Later, in 1971, the rock group Led Zeppelin did a remake of the song with the same lyrics, but a much different rock edge beat and guitar riffs. The message is still the same.

 

You can tell the song was penned…

 

… by someone that is feeling very down and depressed by the destruction that was headed their way. Besides the fact that the author really did not have a relationship with God which made it even sadder and more depressing with him lamenting, “prayin’ won’t do you no good”.

When the ‘Levee Breaks’ can also be a real metaphor for when things go wrong in our lives. Yes, it’s a real occurrence if you live along a river or near the ocean when storms blow in or rivers overflow their banks and the dike or barricade gives out. The destruction of flooding can be devastating for many people losing their homes and businesses and possibly lives.

 

When our Personal Levee Breaks…

 

..the destruction we leave behind can be just as devastating when our personal levee breaks. Sometimes God puts a lot of pressure on our own individual river or body of water until our human levee gives out. Water is spilling out over the top of the dam and we do not notice. Many times, that is the only way God can get our attention when he lets our levee burst. Sometimes we feel the pressure building up but many times we are oblivious.

Our behaviors, unchecked over time, through our addictions or selfish desires, will bring water to the top of the dike and over. God will turn us over to our cravings and let us have what we so desperately think we want. He lets us come to the end of ourselves. It never ends like we think it will. These secret desires sing to us in such beautiful melodies and fool us that this is the ticket to be punched and the train to take. It’s all vanity or empty promises. Cotton candy in the end with no true lasting substance.

When the Levee Breaks

When the Levee Breaks

 

Is it all meaningless?

 

What is your measuring stick for meaningful?

Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament of the Bible, talks about this very thing. To me it’s the hardest and most eye-opening book of the Bible. It wastes no time getting down to the nitty-gritty, to the most essential questions that have plagued mankind from the beginning. Is this all there is? What does all this mean?

King Solomon is named as the author but, there is some dispute who really wrote it. Textually, the book is the musings of a King of Jerusalem as he relates his experiences and draws lessons from them, often self-critical. He was someone who had it all in his life like no one else through out history. He was rich beyond all measure. He had many wives and concubines. He took worldly pleasure when every he felt like it. God had given him wisdom so he understood things that most people could not. He was king over one the most powerful countries and armies of the time. Needless to say, he wanted for nothing.

He finally came to the conclusion, emphatically proclaiming all the actions of man to be inherently meaningless or futile. Because inherently the lives of both wise and foolish men, end in death. In light of this perceived senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one’s work, which are gifts from the hand of God. The book concludes with the injunction: “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” 12:13

In light of what is written in Ecclesiastes you could become very depressed because the writer is really getting at the heart of exitance and life on planet earth for all humans if they have an easy life or hard. How long does life last for a typical person? 30, 40, 60 or 80 years. Remember a long life is denied to many. But what is a long life and is it just a few more years tacked on?

 

My dad used to say…

 

…to me before he died, I do not know how I got here so fast. Now that I am in my 6th decade of life I understand what he meant. All those years behind me are but a distant memory now. Like the Bible says, life is but a vapor.

If you do not think there is a God then life here is a very cold and empty thing. In fact, the whole universe with all its billions of galaxies and trillions of stars is a very cold and empty thing. All life that has existed on this little tiny blue planet inside of this universe is meaningless and without purpose or meaning. When you die does your existence just wink out and then forgotten within a generation of being put into the ground? All the billions of souls that have ever walked and breathed and had families and had dreams is nothing but empty vapors.

I think this is why God allows our levee to break. Why would God give us pressure in our lives? Why does He let us experience death, pain, sadness or loneliness. What does it take for us to think outside of our little box we call life. Deep in our hearts we know that there is more to life, even when this life has many good aspects to it, it still does seem empty especially without Jesus. Everything grows old, withers and dies. God designed all life to do this very thing.

 

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” C.S. Lews  

 

Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

Bible Gateway Ecclesiastes

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