The Real Meaning of Life

Once again, we find Isaiah prophesying the warning the people what the consequences of their actions will be if they don’t turn back to God. Jonah was lucky, it didn’t take much to change the hearts of the people of Ninevah, but to those Isaiah is warning, they are definitely a “stiff necked” rebellious group.

Again, you can read these chapters, these prophesies, and they are pretty redundant. The poetic words are just slightly different because it is the same message over and over.

One thing that struck out at me is when Isaiah talked about God’s “remnant people”. In theology, they use the term “remnant church”, but I don’t think church has much to do with it. When Jesus walked the earth, there were no Baptists, or Methodists, or Presbyterians, or Churches of Christ, or Mormons, or any other religion except for the Jews. And after Christ came with his message, he made it clear than anyone could follow Him, Jew or Gentile, and thus the movement of the followers of Christ, i.e. “Christians” was established.

So if there is no one “remnant church”, who are God’s remnant “people” mentioned in Isaiah Chapter 28, Verse 5? Well, that’s what we need to hope we learn. One thing I do believe, is that you are not one of God’s remnant people if you are only faithful because you fear hell, which if you follow my blog, you know I don’t believe in hell.

I keep going back to the comparison between us and our Heavenly Father and us and our earthly father. Does your earthly father want you to love and obey him, or does he want you to be afraid of him? Does your earthly father only want a child that follows the rules without any love, or does he also want the child to love and respect him? It’s no different than God.

God wants you to follow His commands, but He wants your love even more. And if you truly love Him, you’ll follow His commands naturally because you will NOT want to hurt Him. It’s like I have previously compared to adultery; you remain faithful to your spouse out of love and a desire not to hurt them, not because you’re afraid of getting caught and ending up in a divorce. If you are unfaithful, then sure there is no way you can truly love your spouse. It’s the same with God; if you truly love Him, you’ll obey His commands because you love Him. Even Jesus said it, “If you love Me, keep My commands.”

That is the first key to Salvation, loving God and not fearing Him. You cannot be saved by works, but you can surely lose your Salvation over works. If the only reason you’re kind to people or give to the poor is to earn a jewel in your crown, you’re missing the point. Those are the works that will not save you. God isn’t keeping a tally of your tax-deductible donations, He’s looking at the heart to see if you truly care about others and love them as Jesus would love them. So even if you do wonderful and great things, it will do you no good if you’re doing them for the wrong reasons.

God knows we are sinners. He knows that sin was introduced into the world and that we are born unto sin. We can’t help it. Even if we try to be perfect, we will never achieve it. But if when we sin, we acknowledge that, confess to God and ask for forgiveness, well, His Mercy endureth forever.

Salvation isn’t found in the church, it is found in a true and sincere love for God.