Are you confronted with an empty feeling and unfulfilled even after you've done things that you thought would bring satisfaction

We all want to find fulfillment and meaning in our lives. We want to know that we matter. We may seek purpose by pursuing more money, more power, and more pleasure. We tend to long for the acceptance and respect of others. We strive to be self-reliant, worry about our self-esteem, and try to build our self-confidence as we go through life. However, the most powerful, wealthy, and famous people in the world are still striving for more and holding tenaciously to what they have. No one who lives like this has ever been able to claim true and lasting fulfillment, because we will all one day die and leave everything behind: Our loved ones, our things, and even our bodies.

Jesus said what sounds like a curious statement: That “whoever wants to save their life with lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) He meant that we must give up our lofty, self-centered and false opinion of ourselves and admit we need Him to save us, because we do. It is why He came. His was a rescue mission, and He succeeded! A little over 2,000 years ago, God took the punishment that we deserve for our sin and placed it all on Jesus on the cross. Then Jesus, who was without sin and who is God in the flesh, defeated death itself and rose from the grave! He calls us to repent - to confess and turn from our sin and transfer our trust from ourselves to Him. Once we accept this truth, we find true and eternal fulfillment.

We do matter, more than anything else in all the universe, because God loves us and made a way to restore us to a loving relationship with Himself. We can look to ourselves and place our hope in the fleeting promises of the world, or we can deny ourselves and place our trust in Jesus. Sooner or later we will have to face our human frailty and the world will let us down. Jesus never will!