Solomon had a lot of questions. This daily devotional looks at what we gain from our relationship with God.
Nuggets
- Our purpose in life is to restore our relationships with God, which is not considered a miserable task.
- God controls everything according to His plan.
- God is all about putting eternity in our hearts as His #1 priority is our spiritual condition.
Devotions in The Meaning of Life series
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Keep Them Occupied
“What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied” (Ecc. 3: 9-10 CSB)
Our purpose in life is to restore our relationships with God, which is not considered a miserable task.
Solomon was really tripping on the concept that God is trying to keep us occupied. Remember, he said that back in Ecclesiastes 1: 13: “… God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied” (CSB).
I guess we have to cut the boy some slack. Don’t we all ask the question at some point or other in our lives? What really is the purpose of my life?
Dalby pointed out “the suggestion, however, is not merely that of physical death, but of the death of hope, the defeat of honest purpose, the fruitlessness of unselfish effort.” That speaks of utter despondency.
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We want our lives to have some sort of meaning. We want to be of service to others.
Now apply that to our relationship with God. When we doubt our relationship with God, that can be good or bad.
We shouldn’t doubt God. We should be rock solid in knowing Who He is and what He has done for us.
Doubts do pop up when we don’t know God, and we should. Doubts pop up when we aren’t following Him as we should. They are how He moves us to where He wants us to be.
The problem is we want all of our questions answered. That isn’t going to happen.
Dalby put it this way. He wrote, “Not even St. Paul, not even Christ Himself, answers all our questions; but Christianity does give us the certainty that all is well with those who trust in God and do right, and the last word of wisdom as well as of faith is, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ They also serve who only stand and wait. God is with us as He was with our fathers, and our ways of serving Him are as acceptable as theirs, in our hearts are true and our lives pure and earnest.”
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Appropriate Time
“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end” (Ecc. 3: 11 CSB)
God controls everything according to His plan.
The King James Version translated this as beauty. “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time …” (Ecc. 3: 11 KJV). Many of us think of the beautiful world when we think of what God has made beautiful. Peabody reminded us of the beauty in literature, music, art, and architecture.
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Beecher argued that beauty is associated with self-denial as shown by the example of Jesus. He wrote, “… if you introduce [beauty] to the conscience, it draws the conscience upward; if you introduce it into morals, it elevates those morals …”
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In the last devotion, we talked about time. Solomon is still carrying on that theme in verse 11.
God has His timetable. One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29: 11. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29: 11 ESV).
Everything is tied up in that verse. God has plans for our well-being. This includes our health, happiness, comfort, and safety just to name a few.
God is in control of all of that.
Nowhere in God’s plan is it designed for evil. Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes.
On the contrary, God’s purposes for us are good. Good, in the biblical sense, is the workings of God within His people. The good He wants in us is salvation.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
This is the way God puts eternity in our hearts.
Eternity in Our Hearts
God is all about putting eternity in our hearts as His #1 priority is our spiritual condition.
The Homilies noted that, because we have eternity in our hearts, disciples have a disconnect with this world. We see how empty this world is.
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We also see how unstable the world really is. This instability — while it is around us — does not surround us because our Rock does.
We long to see God. True, there are times that our physical nature wars with our spiritual nature on this.
Hopefully, we can agree with Paul. “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1: 21 CSB).
But we have to remember. The Homilist was right when he said “the character of the human world is to man what he makes of it.”
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Elaine-speak. We see the world as we are. If I am a liar, I think everyone is lying to me. We can flip that around. If I am a good person, I can see the good in others.
Stalker interpreted a theme of the Book of Ecclesiastes as one Paul later picked up. “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3: 2 KJV).
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To read a devotion in the On Things Above series, click on the button below.
Ooo, baby. Solomon doesn’t have much faith in us. Gladden wrote, “The writer of Ecclesiastes argues that man is no better than the beasts; he could scarcely have noted the capacity for progress which man possesses in such a marked degree, and which the beasts do not possess. … Stagnation and decay may indeed overtake tribes and peoples, but only when they forsake the ideals of humanity and turn aside to the worship of that which is beneath them.”
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No better than beasts. Forsaking the ideals of humanity. Worshiping that which is beneath us.
Hmmmm. I wonder what worldview people would think if they would hear Solomon accusing them of that today.
We have to look to God. He comes to us individually to call us to salvation. It isn’t a family save. It isn’t a denomination save or a national save.
It is a Tom save, a Sally save, and an Elaine save.
I thought the last part of the verse was interesting. “… but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end” (Ecc. 3: 11 CSB).
What popped into my mind was beginning of what to end of what? We know God had no beginning and will have no end.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We do know, however, this earth did have a beginning and will have an end.
- “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1: 1 CSB).
- “Then I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them” (Rev. 20: 11 CSB).
Either way, there is an in-between time. During that time, God will be working.
Oh, yeah. You and I are sleeping. God isn’t. He’s working.
We’re fretting. God is silent. He is working.
One more time. (I know. My nickname is Broken Record.) Jones wrote, “By His Holy Spirit, and by various Christian ministries, He is ever working for the salvation of men from sin.”
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Making the Connections
So, what do we gain?
- A relationship with God
- His love
- His protection
- His provision
- All of His other promises
- Eternal life
Isn’t that enough?
How Do We Apply This?
- Yes, we are supposed to look backwards and remember, but that doesn’t mean we are supposed to take our eyes off of looking forward and up. We have to keep focused on God.
- We need to put our trust in God, especially when He asks us to follow His plan for our lives.
- We have to look to things above, not this world.
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Father God. You are an amazing God. You are Sovereign God, yet we gain so much from our relationship with You. Help us to grow to be more like You every day. Amen.
Programming Note
I have one more devotion in this grouping on the Sunday Morning Bible Study series lesson. Then, I am going to take a break for a couple of days.
I ended up in the emergency room this morning. No, it wasn’t a seizure. It was a migraine. It felt like my head was going to explode.
I’ve had migraines since I was 9 years old. But I’ve had the fake kind — my arm goes numb, my leg goes numb, I can’t walk, I can’t talk, I can’t see.
I’ve only had the real pain one other time.
Ooo, baby. Never like this. Did I have it this time!
So, I am going to take it easy for a three-day weekend. Then I’ll be back — same bat time, same bat channel.
What do you think?
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