Yesterday in my talk about heroes I mentioned that Jesus told us we have an enemy whose only purpose is to “steal and kill and destroy.” Did you click on the link to the verse where Jesus told us that? If not, take a look.

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.

Jesus said everything He did – the teaching, miracles, healing people, his horrific execution, and world changing resurrection – was for one reason only: to give people life.

That statement begs a question.

What is Life?

Only three little one syllable words, yet the question is huge. So big in fact that I’m not going to pretend to give a definitive answer to it. And I want to hear what you have to say about it. Go ahead and leave a comment at the end of this post with your thoughts.

At the same time, if this is really a blog of “practical life philosophy,” then we ought to look at the question of Life, eh?

Is life simply the sum of our biological function? I mean Jesus did heal a whole bunch of physical maladies. Even so, that seems like a pretty small view of the term. I’m sure the theologians would holler, “Wait! Wait! There’s more to life than that.”

The thing is we humans seem to somehow be “aware”. We know we exist, and yet we question that existence. What other living thing on this planet does that? Why are we different that way, then?

Why is it all of us deep down have a similar craving to be healthy, happy and rich? Is that what it means to be fully alive?

I recently had a conversation where I said that I believe communication is one of the fundamental keys to life. Because without communication there are no relationships. Without relationships life is pretty pointless.

But is Life simply the sum of our relationships? That may not be the whole enchilada, but I really think we are on to something now.

It makes sense in terms of what Jesus said about His motivations. Did he come to help us with our relationships? Was He kind of like a cosmic, all knowing version of Dr. Phil?

While that question is a bit simplistic, and may even be seen as blasphemous by some, I don’t think it is all that wide of the mark.

Read through the things that Jesus has to say. He is consistently beating the same drum. He talks almost exclusively about our relationships, both with God and with each other.

Jesus summed up what was most important to us this way:

Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Jesus said the Life He came to give was all about relationships.

That’s my take. Share yours. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Enjoy!

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We’ve got some train tracks near our house. There’s two sets actually. They are far enough away that you can ignore them pretty easily, but close enough that there is no problem hearing when a train comes by. They cross a road around the corner so the whistle is a give away. Sometimes when I’m outside and its quiet I can hear the bells on the crossing gate even before any train noise. If Gorgeous is around, I’ll try to impress her by saying, “Train’s coming.”

I’m not sure she’s impressed. But its got me thinking. How often do I do things that really bring no other value to the table other than my attempt to impress someone?

There’s a passage in Proverbs that one translation says this way:

Pride first, then the crash, but humility is precursor to honor.

Ooch!

How many of us are approval addicts? Looking to find our value in the opinions of others?

How many times are we thinking of some impressive fact to throw into the conversation rather than listing to what the other person is saying?

Here’s another interesting thing about trying to impress others.

It can actually hurt our performance and hold us back.

How so? Well if we are comparing ourselves to others and what they are doing as our standard, simply doing better than them in order to impress someone may in fact be less than our best effort.

The bottom line is that we can only really find any kind of fulfilling significance from God, not in impressing other people. It kind of takes the pressure off. Can you imagine God ever being impressed by anything we were to do? So we don’t have to try.

And the good thing is God values us already. We don’t have to impress Him. He’s done the heavy lifting for us already.

God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much (Colossians 1:13)

Enjoy!