Porch Talks: If My Life Is to Be Meaningful

That Christ and my belonging to Him is the only comfort in life and death does not mean that my life remains the same life it was under the dominion of sin and Satan. 

• Nor does it mean that I must place something else over against it to which I flee from the emptiness of life. 
• The comfort that is in Christ does not exist next to, outside of, or above my life, 
• but has penetrated into my life, even as Christ has entered into this life. 

If my life had not been reclaimed, 

• and I had to place all my hope entirely on the future, 
• I really would not have been redeemed. 

For I am who I am, and as I am in this life; 

• and I cannot abstract myself from it. 
• This life is also my soul: what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul, which is his life? 
• What does it help me if I gain the whole world and yet my life continues to be vain, 
• as my pursuit in this time remains senseless and bears no fruit? 

Thus Christ asks: What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul (Mark.8:36)? 

• In His Word God has promised me the restoration of my life. 
• If I want to keep this life for myself, I will lose it, and my life will be meaningless.

If I an willing to lose my life, offering it to God to find Him therein, he will keep my life, 

• and my life will be meaningful, 
• as Jesus said: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, 
• but whoever loses his life for Me will find it (Matt.16:25).

The Scriptures direct me strongly to my present life. 

• It is true that the meaning of my life, if it really is to have meaning, must be an eternal one. 
• The sense of my temporal life is preserved in eternity. 

If only for this life I have hope in Christ, I am to be pitied more than all men (1Cor.15:19), 

• for I would have comforted myself with a contentment that proves to be no satisfaction at all. 
• Then the meaninglessness of this life would be clearly illustrated to me. 
• The meaning of my life therefore must be an eternal one. 
• That however does not take away the fact that it is the intent of this life already. 

Adapted Excerpt from The True Life by Simon G. De Graaf