The Chief End

"Lust is the craving of salt from a man who is dying of thirst."

                                                                                                 ~ Unknown

Dr. Stephen Hawking, a man who is no great supporter of the faith, once asked, 'Why does the Universe bother to exist?'
Dr. Adrian Rogers stated it another way: 'Why, I?'

It's the same question, asked by to vastly different people with incredibly opposite worldviews.

It is a good question; apart from the faith there is little rhyme or reason for the Universe, or you and I for that matter, to exist.

Centuries ago, the Church asked the same question in the Westminster Catechism (1646): 'What is the Chief End of Man?'
The answer: '...to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.'

In the ancient world, we find that what we know as OT Israel was the first ancient society to celebrate the glory of nature being the handiwork of God.
Nature was to be celebrated and enjoyed because God is to be celebrated and enjoyed.

I can readily find God throughout Creation; in the prancing of a whitetail deer across a field; in a new litter of foxes seeing light for the first time from their mother's den; the vast amount of life underneath the ocean which few ever see; even in the last shovel-full of snow being removed from my driveway as my back begins to ache.

Soon, Spring will soon dawn and the earth will awaken with new life.
The wild flowers which are now dormant, will rise forth from the ground;  this automatic reaction to the sun's light will be as if God has handcrafted each and every Lilly or Black-Eyed Susan.

Yet, a secular mind can witness the very same images from the world, year after year, and never see what I see.
In the secular mind, with all the seemingly 'valid' worldviews, claims and systems, a caring, involved God within His Creation is simply explained into non-existence. 

Thoughts of faith as an explanation are as useless as speaking French to an antelope.
Unless the antelope originates from Narnia, it simply won't understand.

Many are turned away from the faith because of what they seen in those who claim belief. Why wouldn't they?
Christians haven't exactly been the greatest examples of peace, love and virtue over the last 2,000 years.
But were we ever expected to be?

As I write these words, I am reminded that the Christian's role is not to argue a point or a worldview; we are not called to be lawyers who argue a case.
Instead, the Christian is called into the Kingdom as a witness; a witness doesn't argue, they simple tell what they have experienced.
Applied to the faith it means as Christians, we shouldn't tell people what the Christian life or walk is 'supposed to be;' but rather, we should speak of how it really is.

Quite possibly, so many are turned away from the faith because they can detect a sense of falsehood in our words.
Our very own experience is apt to betray us if we are not careful; truthfully, not all things are marigolds and maple syrup when a person accepts the faith of Christ.
Simply looking to the lives of the Apostles with all of them, save one, being martyred is enough evidence to tell us that the prosperity preachers on television in our time are sharing a false reality.

G.K. Chesterton once stated he viewed the world as a Cosmic Shipwreck.
In this analogy, a sailor may wake up and try to remember a civilization he once encountered; yet, he cannot recall it, even as he holds the relics from that place in his hands.

Using Chesterton's analogy, our world still bears the image of our Creator and still contains His purpose within it. 
Yet, His greatest creative work, that of crafting man in His own image, has become so separated from His Creator, that even when blessed by God's hand, man's fallenness acts as a drug within his eyes preventing him from seeing the reality of truth.

Moments of pleasure are instances of God's Paradise restored to Earth; yet, these things run a risk in our lives - as has been proven consistently.
Often, a believer will take away from God's glory and ascribe it to ourselves or something else.
Like the ancients, we are apt to turn God's good gifts into idols; yet, we do not call them idols anymore. 
We call them addictions.

Yet, rightly used, in their appropriate place, these things bring a joy to our lives because they are still God's gifts.
It may be a morning sunrise on the ocean or over a mountain crest; moonlight on new fallen snow; or even the majesty of a rainstorm - each of these things in their appropriate realm in life are great blessings by which we see the hand of the Creator.
Used  wrongly, the beauty of creation may become abused for seductive or lewd purposes, just as the wisdom of a physician can be abused to form addictions through prescriptions.

In actuality, while the Church as a whole and Christians individually, have not lived up to our own expectations before God, we have lived up to the expectations God has set before us in Scripture.
It would seem that if we stayed closer to what God's expectations are and strove for that ideal in our lives, instead of what is in our own minds, we would become the loudest propagandists of His triumphs within the world rather than a group of people who seem to be better at finger-wagging than grace-sharing.

For any Christian, the truth of the errors and sins of the Church as a whole is undeniable.
In truth, there is no need for you or I to defend the actions of the Church; the simple fact is that we are evidence of what is wrong with the world.

Yet there is a difference between the world and the Christian.

The Christian is a recovering sinner and knows it; even though we may be forgetful at times.

The great need of the Church, of Christians today, is to have modern-day Prophets stand up and tell the Body of Christ that we're not dead yet.
Certainly, our obituary has been written too early; for as long as we have breath within our lungs the task with in the world is not finished.

We need people to claim our heritage and steer our future based on what Christ expects of us as His servants, His family and His Church in the world.

When I was a child, Sunday School teachers and preachers in Evangelical churches often spoke with great passion concerning the Communist Threat of the Soviet Union.
It makes sense, the Soviets were our enemies, the arms race was going full throttle and a proven, vehement anti-Communist was the President of the United States and was standing up for Western Civilization.

The question often was posed, 'If the Russians invaded, if the Communists came to our town and they put a gun to your head, would you deny Christ?'
Interestingly enough, nobody ever questioned why the Soviets would invade a small mountain town in West Virginia or what the value of our area would be; we just assumed they were Godless and would search out Christians and torture them.

Today, Christians can substitute 'Communist' with 'Columbine' or 'Sandy Hook' or even 'ISIS,' but the meaning is still the same.
What if our way of life depended on how we believed and what we did with that belief?

Friend, it already does.

The Apostle John wrote that it is the individual Christian's responsibility to make known to the world the 'invisible things of God.'
This is primarily to be done through 'love,' the love of God being passed through the Christian to others in the world who do not know Him.
Yet, the first word that comes to mind concerning Christians is not 'love;' but that is the very thing by which Jesus said His true followers would be known.

The Gospel is still the 'Good News' of God.
The question for you and I is whether or not we are truly demonstrating to the world that we exist for the glory of God in this life and the next; in other words, does society as a whole or individual people get the message of God's love, joy and peace through our lives?
The answer to this tells us whether or not we are living up to God's expectation for our lives.

A good test → Are people glad to see you?

There's your answer.
Until next time, win one for the good guys.