{"id":256,"date":"2013-12-09T14:07:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T19:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/?p=256"},"modified":"2013-12-10T09:58:39","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T14:58:39","slug":"farsightedness-and-the-quest-for-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/2013\/12\/09\/farsightedness-and-the-quest-for-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Farsightedness And The Quest For Meaning…"},"content":{"rendered":"

“What’s the point of life?” One middle school student shouted out during a Wednesday night youth meeting. Astounded by the complexity of the question, I in turn asked, “Is there any meaning in life outside of Christ?” Though the room was mostly filled with chaos and screaming kids she sat back and pondered the great depth of my own complex question. As I left the church building that night and began to rethink that question, it caused me to break free from my own personal opinions and go back to the beginning of it all. After all, the only opinion that truly matters is God’s. Why was man created? For what purpose did Jesus come? Why am I currently doing what I’m doing? On and on the questions raced through my brain. I was brought to the point of realizing that indeed life is truly pointless without justification by faith in Jesus. A man named Charles Spurgeon once said this, “Now, remember, you will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else but Christ.”<\/strong> You see, way back at the beginning of time, man was created for relationship with God. As we know, mankind willfully<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Continue to pray for the tribes of Paraguay who have yet to hear of the point of life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

chose disobedience and separation from God rather than relationship and fellowship with Him. This choice impacted anyone and everyone who would ever come after them. Including you and I. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through\u00a0one man sin entered into the world, and\u00a0death through sin, and\u00a0so death spread to all men, because all sinned…”<\/em><\/strong> That choice that Adam and Eve made affected you and I in a very real very negative way. Growing up I used to struggle thinking, “How on earth could a man way back at the beginning of everything affect me?” But now it makes complete and perfect sense. Why? Because I make choices that impact people all the time! I’ve made choices that have impacted my wife and my kids negatively! It’s a fact of life. And it’s been happening ever since the beginning. Thank goodness, however, God decided to make a promise. In Genesis 3:15 we see God promising to send someone who would ultimately restore the relationship between mankind and God. We know Him as Jesus. All throughout the Old Testament men were looking forward to this “deliverer”, this man who would indeed free men from their sin. And Jesus ultimately did that. But it doesn’t count for everyone, it only counts for those that believe! Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not\u00a0ashamed of the gospel, for\u00a0it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the\u00a0Jew first and also to\u00a0the Greek.”<\/em><\/strong> The all time classic John 3:16 says, “For God so\u00a0loved the world, that He\u00a0gave His\u00a0only begotten Son, that whoever\u00a0believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”<\/em><\/strong> It only counts for those that believe! Then and only then do we have peace with God through faith as Romans 5:1 clearly states this saying, “Therefore, having been justified by faith,\u00a0we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…”<\/em><\/strong> Outside this glorious faith, life is truly pointless. The quest for meaning in life is literally 24\/7, 365. Mankind will always be searching for meaning and fulfillment, yet coming up short time and time again apart from the life of Christ. Oh, how I long to share this good news with the tribal men and women of Paraguay. But recently the Spirit of God has convicted me of my farsightedness. What I mean is that so often as a missionary preparing for the field we can’t wait to get there and share the gospel in a full fledged tribal context. But is that really what God desires? Absolutely! However, are we then exempt from sharing the gospel where we’re at currently? Absolutely not! When I look at the life of the apostle Paul, he was willing to share the gospel anywhere. Even in prison! Nowhere that I can think of in the Scriptures do we find him saying, “Once I get out of prison I’ll begin my work of sharing the gospel again.” Instead we find the opposite. He was willing to share the gospel with anyone he rubbed shoulders with in or out of prison. My farsightedness has previously caused me to miss out on opportunities like I had on Wednesday night. Thankfully, God is faithful and consistent. Recently He has given me new opportunities for discipleship with a teen, giving the gospel to a group of unreached middle school kids, and meeting with a girl at AWANA’s once a week to share the gospel with her as well. Aren’t you glad that we have a God who cares and desires to continue pursuing us even when we don’t want it? Miles Stanford in his book entitled, “The Complete Green Letters” once said this, “Only those who have sought to grow by effort and failed are in the position to realize that God is the aggressor in the realm of development.”<\/strong> God has a commitment to our transformation. And He desires our transformation into the image of His Son more than that we even do. After all, He’s the one who said in Romans 8:29 that he has a desire for every believer to be transformed. It says this, “For those whom He\u00a0foreknew, He also\u00a0predestined\u00a0to become\u00a0conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the\u00a0firstborn among many brethren…”<\/em><\/strong> Please continue to pray that we would be a light unto the world here and when we arrive in Paraguay. There are so many who do not know Him. Also, pray that the Lord would continue to place us in situations where we would have an opportunity to trust Him and share the gospel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What’s the point of life?” One middle school student shouted out during a Wednesday night youth meeting. Astounded by the complexity of the question, I in turn asked, “Is there any meaning in life outside of Christ?” Though the room was mostly filled with chaos and screaming kids she sat back and pondered the great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-haynes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}