What's Life?

What's life? Some say it's good friends, money in your pocket, popularity, partying, having as much fun as you can for as long as you can. Is that all there is to life?

One summary of life is: "Here today, gone tomorrow!" A popular advertisement says this: "You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can." A bumper sticker summed up life negatively in this way: "Life's a bummer at best, and then you die." A really bitter answer to this question is: "Life is a terminal disease."

What else this life is, it is short. One book describes life this way: "It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away" (James 4:14). But that same book, the Bible, introduces a Man who says that He came into this world that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly (John 10:10). This Man is Jesus Christ.

This is not religion. This is about a real person, the Son of God, who came to give you real life, eternal life-both in heaven after you die and right now. He gives a love, peace and joy that is far better and longer lasting than anything this world can give.

Open your eyes for a minute. Look around you. Look deep within yourself. Fun and games, wealth and success, sex and drugs don't last. Neither does quitting nor rebelling. They don't fill the emptiness inside. They only create more. They don't add up to a good life. In fact, they destroy it. But look at these promises in the Bible, and see what Jesus Christ has to offer-

• New life: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life" (John 5:24).
• True love: "In this the love of God was manifest towards us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).
• Lasting peace: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).
• True love: "You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).

Have you ever heard of this new life? Don't be satisfied with temporary substitutes for the real thing. Find real fulfillment in the new life that Jesus Christ can give you. It starts the moment you confess your sins and give your old life over to Him, the moment you accept Him as Savior.

Want to find this new life? Get a Bible and begin reading the Gospel of John. Really get into it. Give yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the next time you're confronted with the question. "What's life?" you'll be living the best answer of all.