Who am I and Why am I here

HAVE YOU EVER GAZED AT THE night sky and stood in awe at the infinite distances of space? Facing the universe it’s not hard to feel tiny and insignificant Am I just one more drop in the vast ocean of humanity’s evolution? After my short life span will I just disappear like a morning mist and be forgotten by future generations? Am I simply one more runner in an endless and aimless relay race? Is there any reason, any purpose for my existence? Does reason, anybody out there care about me? WHO AM I AND WHERE IS MY LIFE GOING?

King David felt the same way three thousand years ago as you do now. “When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have made, what is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8) David’s son, King Solomon, was a brilliant thinker who expressed the search of all men for meaning. He tried to find significance in pursuing learning, art, architecture, gardening, natural history, music, humour, drink, and women. At the end, he cried in despair “Everything is just emptiness.” (Ecclesiastes 12) He was well ahead of his time, discovering that without God, man has a real identity crisis. But before you pack your rucksack and take off to ‘find yourself’, let’s see what the Bible has to say about who we are and what our ultimate purpose is.
No Monkey Business Man came into existence by the creative design of a powerful and loving God. (Look up Genesis 1.27; 2.7 and Colossians 1.16) Man was complete, in no need of improvement by evolutionary or other means. Everything God made, including the animal and vegetable kingdoms, was ‘very good’. (Genesis 1.31)

Although all creation reflects the beauty of God’s design, man is clearly unique in several ways. The fact that you are reading this leaflet indicates that you are a being capable of rational thought. (If you ever see a monkey reading this, drop me a line. Better still, get him to drop me a line). Also, you are capable of understanding, of thinking about who you are. As far as we know, budgies or buffaloes aren’t bothered by such questions. You are able to appreciate beauty and the higher gifts such as music and painting. Thinking about these things and asking questions about life is evidence that we are as different from animals as animals are from vegetables.

Hey! I’m Somebody

But just what is the difference? And what exactly is so special about man that God should ‘crown him with glory and honour’? (Psalm 8.5) God made man the crown of His creation and invested him with a dignity enjoyed by no other creature. (Genesis 1.28-29) Our specialness does not come from the achievements of humanity down through the ages, but from the exciting purpose that God made us for. Even though God created galaxies, still He cares for each of us personally. Even before we were born, He knew us and formed us and mapped out His great plans for us. (Read Psalm 139.13-16) You are not a chance product of random evolution; you are the special creation of a God who made you for Himself, and He has plans for those who accept His loving rule that are beyond our wildest imaginations. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2.9) you’re still looking up into the sky, are you beginning to feel a little less insignificant?

First of all, then, man was created to be God’s REPRESENTATIVE on earth. God gave him the exciting task of dominion over this earthly art of God’s kingdom. ‘You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.’ (See Psalm 8.6 and Genesis 1.28) For man and woman was truly wonderful as they lived in a kingdom under God’s rule. As God’s representatives, men and women are more than gardeners or gamekeepers. God’s plan is that we should know His love and friendship personally. In those days after creation, man’s relationship with God was unspoilt and uninterrupted. For all those who will accept His rule in their lives, it will be like this again. Really. But more on this later.

Spitting Image

Not only was man to be God’s representative on earth, he was also to be God’s REFLECTION. “So God created man in his own image. Male and female he ” created them.” (Genesis 1.27) This is what makes man truly significant and special in the universe. But what does it mean to say man is created in God’s image? Well, it doesn’t mean that God somehow looks like a man. God was not created in man’s image – it was the other way round. “God is not a man … ” (Numbers 23.19). “God is spirit … ” (John 4.24) and is not limited by physical boundaries as we are. But man is also a spiritual being. “May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5.23) Our likeness to God is personal and spiritual, not physical.

We are like God personally in that we can think intelligently (although not always correctly); we can feel deeply love, joy, peace, anger; and we can choose freely how we will act. In other words, like God, we have a mind, emotions and will.

God made us not only to represent Him on earth, and to reflect His character, but that we might enjoy a RELATIONSHIP with Him forever. Each of us has a ‘God-shaped vacuum’ in our hearts that can only be filled in a right relationship with Jesus, because ‘all things were created by him and for him.’ (Colossians 1.16) God singled us out of all creation to cherish us, and to lavish His love on us. ‘He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with SINGING.’ (Zephania 3:17)

In this kind of intimate love relationship with the Father, it is natural to reflect back to God in worship all the honour and praise due to him. And as any child who rests secure in its Father’s love, we will want to be like him, a witness in the world of his character, loving what he loves and opposing everything that stands against him. This is what it means when the Bible says our purpose is to glorify God. (Isaiah 43:7)

Can you imagine any higher calling, than any nobler purpose, any greater destiny than actually bringing glory to God, and what is more, giving pleasure to God as our lives display his eternal majesty and holiness? Isn’t it difficult to understand how anyone could wait a moment longer in lives of emptiness and pain?

So What’s Wrong?

Yet looking at the world about us – wars, famines, irreparable damage to the environment – it does not seem as if man is attaining his high calling. What has gone wrong? GK Chesterton said, “Whatever else is and is not, this one thing is certain, man is not what he was meant to be.”

Our understanding of God has been twisted by sin, and there is widespread confusion about His majesty and His holiness and His loveliness. Yet He loves us deeply, and so Jesus came to us, “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3) to show us the Father, to take away the sin that destroyed our relationship with God, and to give us abundant life. (John 10:10) No fairy tale compares to the reality to which that new life leads when Jesus comes to bring the total fulfilment of God’s magnificent coming age. But that’s not the end, it’s just the beginning.

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