We live in a world that screams lies at us every single day, but what matters is how we let these words affect us.
There are lies that tell us that if we chase after our happiness we will truly be satisfied, but at the end of the temporary height of enjoyment, all that we gained was unsatisfactory results. From that point forward all we do is yearn for more things to simply make us happy, when we realize that the thing we gave everything to- our time, our money, our thoughts- ended and is gone.
Nothing on this Earth can satisfy us except the One who loves us.
He is the only one who loves us so much that He wants to live inside of us and guide us in our lives. He died for us, and He took on our sin and shame so that we would not have to.
He came down in the form of a man to show us that He is enough, and He is life.
The giver of life humbled Himself to that point so that we may see that everything else in this world fades away.
Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes saying, "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind". Without the Gospel, everything disappears like vapor in the air, but with it, it saturates our soul in fulfilment and worth.
With Christ, you don't have to search anymore for your value. Your value has been set before you in your mother's womb when you were called to be a child of God. The Lord has known us since the very beginning, and yet He still loves us. He has seen our past and future mistakes, and yet He still died a brutal death for us.
When Jesus said, "It is finished", death was finished; sin was conquered; chains fell, and the curtain was split in two. Because of the love of Christ, we do not have to settle for seeking our own happiness, but we can be fulfilled by living for the glory of our Savior.
When that is our mentality, our gaze shifts heavenward, and our praises will continue for all the rest of our lives and into eternity. The Gospel is not simply a way to escape Hell, but it is a way to have a relationship with the One who loves us unconditionally, and then we can be set free from the selfish desires in our lives and pursue meaning and purpose.
With Christ, every day is filled with kingdom work and life. Living for ourselves saturates us in continual unsatisfying searches for a meaningless pursuit of temporary things of this life.
Our identity is not found in our job, education, talents, or appearance, for it is found in the righteousness of Christ coming upon us when we accept Him into our lives.
This is why authentic Christians seem different from the world. For our gaze is not fixated on Earthly things, but on Christ alone.
