A NOTE FROM PASTOR MARGE
What does it profit a person to gain the entire world, yet forfeit their soul? In other words, would you really be successful and powerful if you gained everything that this world has to offer but the consequence would be the death of your soul?
Our culture’s definition of success and power is very different from God’s definition. Imagine if you woke up every day and were walking in step with the reason why you are here on this Earth, that is to glorify God. And not only were you glorifying God but that you were finding more joy in glorifying Him than in anything else in this entire world. That would be pretty cool, right?
Today, we’ll be exploring Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2. These chapters in this challenging Old Testament book are all about King Solomon’s success quest. Solomon goes on a journey to discover if anything in this life can give him ultimate meaning and purpose, and do you know what he learns? I hate to ruin the ending, but Solomon discovers that everything under the sun is like a cloud or vapor. That it’s here for just a moment and in the next, it’s gone. That life under the sun is vanity of vanities. Everything is vanity!
And so, we read and we read and we read about the meaningless of life in Ecclesiastes and when all hope seems to be lost, we arrive at the end of Chapter 2. There, we discover that it is God that gives us true and everlasting meaning in purpose to life. It’s God that put eternity into our hearts. No wonder nothing in this world can fully satisfy us other than our Everlasting and Eternal God!
If we’re being honest with ourselves, we have all at one point or another gone on our own “success quests” only to come out the other end feeling dissatisfied and lost. It’s only when we surrender our entire lives to Jesus Christ that we can truly and fully be satisfied. It’s only when we surrender our lives to the Lordship of Christ that we receive the power of God, the power of His Holy Spirit and therefore we will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It’s by the power of our surrendering to God that we are credited everlasting and eternal meaning and significance.
Marge
