Life

We were made by God. He is our Creator, Father, Lord, and King. God is life, love, and truth—the very source of all life. Yet we rejected Him and became orphans, runaways, prodigals, like a branch disconnected from its vine. Separated from Him, we became disconnected from life, truth, and love itself. We searched for these things within ourselves, in the world, and in others, but they cannot truly be found there apart from God. Because He made us, we are capable of thinking, loving, and longing for meaning, yet without Him we cannot fulfill these things rightly, for we were made to live by Him.

Sin

There is a heart within all of us that wants to live for ourselves. This desire caused us to reject God. Through our sin, we create rebellion, join the rebellion of others, and lead others into rebellion as well—against God, truth, love, and all that is holy. In doing so, we corrupted God’s design for life and exchanged it for a cancerous way of living that spreads decay, division, and death through all creation.

Death

The evidence of our disconnection from God is seen in the unrest within us all. We cannot find peace with one another, nor can we find peace within ourselves. We seek from ourselves and from others what only God can give, and the result is sin, division, conflict, wars, and death. We are branches disconnected from the vine; sin courses through us, causing us to wither, and that withering reveals our inevitable death.

Invitation

God has done everything to pursue us and invite us back home. Through His Word, through the prophets, the saints of old, and through His chosen people, Israel, He continually reached out to us. Then Jesus came into the midst of our broken world and revealed the kingdom of God through His life, love, grace, and truth. He lived the perfect life we could never live, bore the penalty for our sins against the Father, and made a way for us to return home to God. Jesus invites us to come home to the Father through Him.

The Promise

The story we have written with our lives—the record of all our sins against the Father and against one another—will be taken upon Jesus. In exchange, the perfect and sinless life that Jesus lived will be credited to us. God promises that if we believe in what Jesus has done, repent, and turn toward Him, we will be welcomed into His family. Through Christ, the door home is opened, and He Himself leads us back to the Father. God promises us a new heart and gives us His Spirit to help us, so that we will no longer remain lost in rebellion. We are sealed by the Spirit and sustained by Jesus Christ to the very end, until we enter our final glory with God in Heaven.

The choice now is ours: to keep seeking life in this world and within ourselves, or to return home to the Father and find true life.

After decades of searching for the meaning of life and whether God exists, I had to ask myself: why would I look to humanity—including myself—for the final answer? If my soul is truly at stake, why would I place my trust in people who are limited, broken, and easily deceived?

As human beings, we often make decisions through the lens of our desires, misconceptions, wounds, pride, and limited understanding. Our perspective is small, and our judgment is flawed. So why would I place my life in the hands of what is finite when I could place it in the hands of the One who is infinite?

If we rely on the broken world as our ultimate authority, we will eventually fall into deception. The world is divided, confused, and, as Scripture says, under the influence of the enemy. Just look at what the world produces apart from God: hatred, greed, pride, corruption, emptiness, division, violence, and endless confusion. Why would I trust a fallen world to give me the answer to eternal life?

Take a single day on social media or YouTube and search for anything about Christianity, God, or religion, and you can quickly fall into a rabbit hole that pulls you deeper and deeper. Debates rage back and forth. People claim to explain the Bible with certainty, while others contradict them with equal confidence. Many are chasing views, subscribers, and attention, so sensationalism often takes the place of truth.

And it does not stop there. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are an estimated 45,000 to 49,000 Christian denominations worldwide. There are countless theologians, apologists, and historians people look to for answers—men like James the Just, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, Martin Luther, and John Newton. Add to this the countless beliefs and religions in the world, and many people are left asking: What is a person supposed to believe?

Everywhere you look, people argue back and forth—sometimes angrily, sometimes sarcastically, sometimes stubbornly. Many speak in ways the average person can barely understand, using what feels like a different language entirely—what I call “Christianese.” At times, it no longer seems like the goal is to help people find faith or truth, but to prove who is smarter or more knowledgeable. You can even see it in the titles of videos: “So-and-so destroys so-and-so,” as if faith has become less about seeking God and more about winning arguments. There are two problems that have arisen from what I have noticed.

Debates and knowledge are important, but somewhere along the way, they became the priority. I do not know which came first—people wanting to be convinced through intellectual arguments, or Christians believing they could convince others primarily through knowledge—but faith was never meant to rest on knowledge alone. God has called us to more than simply winning arguments or proving points.

Yes, people have come to faith through intellectual understanding. But people have also come to faith through something as simple as a church pizza party. That does not mean either should become the center of Christianity. Knowledge by itself is not enough. Satan has knowledge. The demons know who God is, yet their knowledge did not lead them to love or follow Him—it led them to rebellion.

Even Paul the Apostle was once a deeply studied man of Scripture, yet his knowledge led him to persecute Christians before his encounter with Christ. Nicodemus was also highly educated in Scripture, yet his learning led him into religious tradition to the point that Jesus told him he must be “born again.” Knowledge can inform a person, but it cannot by itself transform the heart.

Scripture also makes clear that arguments alone are not the clearest witness to God. Jesus emphasized transformed lives, love, holiness, humility, and obedience as evidence of God’s reality and work.

Jesus said:

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” — Gospel of John 13:35

And:

“You will recognize them by their fruits.” — Gospel of Matthew 7:16

Several biblical warnings:

• Knowledge without love becomes prideful,
• religious speech without transformed character,
• defending truth while failing to embody it,
• winning arguments while losing the witness.

1 Corinthians says:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

And Epistle of James strongly criticizes a faith that exists mainly in words without visible action.

We are called to preach the Word and to know the Word; those things matter deeply. But we are also called to live the Word. God called us to be salt and light, to bear fruit, and to love one another through His love working in us.

When we truly live like Christ—when we forgive, remain humble, live content, seek first the Kingdom instead of the world, and stand fearless even when everything around us is falling apart—people take notice. That is when our words become more than words. That is when Christ is seen within us. And when people see Him in us, what we say begins to carry weight.

This is the power of God on display: not merely argued about, but lived out.

We are living in a world where the light of Christ is growing dim. Many Christians have compromised the call to be fully surrendered to Him, believing that people can mainly be won through arguments, debates, and knowledge alone. But endless information does not always lead people to the truth. In fact, I once heard it said that the easiest way to keep people from the truth is not to hide it, but to drown it in endless noise and information. That is exactly what the enemy has done.

The voice of God is being buried beneath countless opinions, arguments, distractions, and confusion. Yet none of that changes the truth itself. You and I must stop looking to the world for answers only God can give. That is the very cycle the enemy wants us trapped in—a never-ending circle of confusion, human reasoning, and broken understanding. Instead, we must go to the One who can truly answer us: God Himself.

God will answer the person who genuinely wants to know the truth. But that raises the real question: do we truly want the truth, even if it costs us our pride, our desires, our worldview, or our control?

The message of the Bible has always pointed to the same reality: humanity cannot save itself by living for itself. True life is found only in God. But to receive that life, a person must be willing to surrender—to stop placing ultimate trust in themselves, in the world, or in other people, and instead place everything into God’s hands. It is often there, in surrender, that God begins to reveal Himself.

Knowledge of God’s Word is vital, but it is truly understood only when the Spirit brings it to life within us. And when that truth becomes alive in a person, the world can see its power. This happens not merely through human understanding, but through Jesus Himself—convincing us, transforming us, and revealing the truth to us.

You want knowledge, and God desires that you grow in knowledge. But in the end, we are meant to reason with Him—so that we come to know and embrace the truth as it truly is.

There is something within me—and within all of us—that stands opposed to God. Whatever stands opposed to God is evil, and every human being carries it. This is part of why the nonbeliever rejects God, and part of why even the Christian struggles to live the abundant life Christ speaks of. If you do not believe me, consider this.

In the Gospel of John 15:5, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

In simple terms, this passage is telling us that our lives are meant to be about God.

And what that means is this: a branch cannot live apart from the vine. It is not designed to. In the same way, we are not designed to live apart from God. God did not come to us so that He could simply be part of our lives, nor did He come merely to invite us to be part of His as an addition. He came so that we could have life—because He is life.

So as a branch lives from the vine, we are to live from God. We are to live for Him. To glorify Him through submission, through turning from sin, through obedience, and through following His commands. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. Apart from Him, the branch dies. We are to be about God.

And when I say “rooted,” I mean saved. We do not do these things in order to be saved—we do them because we have been saved.

God is not something we place at the top of a list of priorities. We ourselves, apart from God, are not even on the list in the way we tend to think. We are called to deny ourselves completely and to live by His Spirit, not our own. To abandon independence. To live fully dependent on God. To live for Him, by His ways, under His leading, for His glory.

God’s Word was not given merely so we could learn how to live our “best life.” It was not written simply to make us more successful, more fulfilled, or even just better spouses, parents, friends, or people. And while following God’s wisdom does shape those areas, that is not the ultimate purpose of Scripture.

The Bible was not given so life could stay centered on us while God helps improve it from the side. It was given to show us that God Himself is better, sufficient, and worthy of our entire lives.

There are people who may outwardly prosper by following principles found in Scripture, yet still remain far from God. So the goal of Scripture is not simply moral improvement or a better life. It is reconciliation with God Himself.

The Bible was written so that we would come to know God, walk with God, follow God, and be about God. It teaches us to live in His ways so that every part of our lives points back to Him and brings Him glory.

Throughout Scripture, we are repeatedly shown that the Christian life is a kind of battle. Paul uses this language often. In Second Timothy 2:3–4, in Ephesians 6:11–17, in Philippians 2:25, and in Second Corinthians 10:3–5, we see the imagery of warfare used to describe what it means to follow Christ.

And a soldier—if he truly believes in the cause he serves—does not live centered on himself. He sets aside personal life: desires, preferences, opinions, ambitions, even comfort. He allows himself to be trained, shaped, and disciplined for the mission before him. He learns to submit, to follow orders, and to trust his commanding authority. He no longer directs his own steps, but yields himself to the purpose he has committed to serve.

In the same way, if a Christian truly believes in God, they are willing to set aside their personal life—desires, preferences, opinions, ambitions, even comfort. They are willing to be shaped, pruned, and trained by God in the disciplines of faith. They learn to submit, to follow, to trust God’s authority. They stop directing their own steps and begin yielding themselves fully to His purpose.

The soldier must be all about the mission.

And what many do not realize is that being God’s “soldier,” in this sense, is one of the ways He forms us into the image of Christ. And if we are being formed into the image of Christ, then we are being formed into who we were truly created to be—people who reflect God in character, love, and purpose.

From that place, we do not lose ourselves. We become what we were meant to be. We grow into better sons, daughters, parents, friends, and people—not by centering everything on ourselves, but by centering our lives on Him. That is the direction that leads to true life, regardless of what this world brings.

A soldier who is focused on the mission, disciplined in training, attentive to instruction, and committed to obedience becomes effective and strong. But a soldier in the middle of battle who becomes focused on himself instead of the mission becomes vulnerable. He becomes easily overcome. He becomes a casualty of distraction. In the same way, many Christians struggle because they remain focused on themselves instead of fully stepping into the call of belonging to God.

In the end, the call of the Christian is to give God all the glory and to live wholly for Him with everything we are. Our opinions, ideas, thoughts, desires, and longings are meant to be laid down before Him in exchange for His will and His way.

Yet this is where something within us resists. Because surrender can feel like loss. It can feel like we are becoming less important—as if our lives no longer matter, not even in the background.

And so we begin to resist that idea.

We begin to want a version of faith where God affirms our desires, validates our plans, and supports our sense of control. We want to feel that we still hold the steering wheel, even if God is present beside us.

But there lies the tension. Because the truth is, we do not hold that place.

Anything we build apart from God cannot hold the weight of what we are trying to make it. And anything that pulls us away from Him pulls us away from the life we were created for.

So ask yourself this: if God is truly God—omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, fully sufficient, perfectly wise, and full of love—then what exactly do we lack in Him?

What could we add to Him that He does not already possess?

What insight could we offer that He has not already known from eternity?

What place do our opinions hold before perfect wisdom?

It is like someone with no understanding of painting or music standing before a master and insisting they can improve the lesson. It does not elevate the student—it only reveals misunderstanding. In the same way, what do we think we can add to God?

And so the question remains.

Can you accept this reality?

Can you lay down yourself—your plans, your desires, your control—and give it all to Him?

Can you give Him all the glory in every part of your life?

Can you truly be all about God?