Meaningful

“Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1:2

This verse is at the very beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes where the Teacher, commonly held to be Solomon, is trying to understand the meaning of life. As he goes through all the stages of our existence, he realizes that we are just here for a fleeting moment, just a vapor in the wind and that, ultimately, we are all nobodies. For the non-believer this is a very depressing thought because for the non-believer this holds true. Their lives are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. They work, they toil and try to earn money but to what avail? To give it to their children? Then what?

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie The Gladiator where Maximus says “Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity!” For Christians this holds true. The moment we accepted Jesus into our lives is the moment we started having eternal significance. One of the verses that I keep going back to and has actually become my life verse is;

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” 1Corinthians 15:58

This is an amazing promise for us! What we do in the Lord, that is, whatever we do in terms of Kingdom building, is not and never will be in vain. We are to stand firm and not let the problems of everyday life move or sway us off our course. We are to give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord. This word ‘fully’ in Greek is περισσεύω and means to be above a certain number, to be in abundance. In other words, we are not to give of ourselves but we are to give ourselves to the work of the Lord, we mustn’t hold anything back. Also the two words that are used here for work are the Greek words έργο and κόπος. The first word έργο implies creative work, which is what the Lord does; He creates. So when we give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, we are giving ourselves to His creative work. The second word κόπος implies hard work. As we join the Lord in His creative work we are toiling, that is, working hard to assist Him. At times we might even get discouraged because we’re not seeing the fruit of our labor, but it doesn’t matter. The promise is that whatever we do is not in vain. There was this man in Australia who, for 40 years, shared the gospel with 10 people a day, everyday. If he was sick one day or couldn’t make it another, he would make up for it on other days. The Lord started revealing this story to a pastor from England, over the course of 6 months, as he started meeting all these different people; pastors, missionaries, directors of major mission organizations – influential people, who had all been lead to the Lord by this one man in Australia. One day this pastor was in Australia and decided to find this man, he did and shared all of these different stories with him. The man was in tears and shared his side of the story. He had done this for 40 years yet had never seen or heard of anybody come to the Lord as a result of his efforts. That is dedication! He never saw the fruit of his labor, yet he stood firm and wasn’t moved, he simply believed. Two weeks after the pastor visited this man, he passed into glory.

Money comes and money goes but the Lord remains constant. As we build His Kingdom we are building and affecting people’s lives, who then will go on to build and affect another person’s life, who then will go on an affect another person and so on and so forth. Add an infinite amount of time to that equation and this ripple effect will echo throughout eternity.