What Are You Living For?
Brett Clapham

At the end of your life, what that you lived for would have mattered? Would any of it have been worth living for? Looking around, there is so much false value, and the world offers such enticing and attractive things. Yet, in the end, all of it, is worthless. At the end of your life are you going to look back and realise that it was an utter and complete waste? Do you want to find out, at the end of it all, that not only was it pointless, meaningless and purposeless, but that your entire life was absolutely abhorrent to the only One for Whom it was meant? The God of the universe, the Creator of your soul is the only One worth living for.

What is going to count for you at Judgment Day? What is going to be for your advantage? What is going to back you up? Will your friends? Will you family? Will anything stand by you? What are you actually living for that is worth your life?

We were made by an awesome Conquerer, an all-powerful holy and righteous King. He made every human being, and He, rightfully, made us to worship Him. It is rightful because He can do with what He made whatever He wants. That is the right of being Creator. So what did He do? He gave us authority over the entire earth and loved us and provides for us. He is the very Sustainer of our beings.

But we wretchedly rebelled against this great and holy God. We decided to tell Him to “stuff off” and leave us alone. That's exactly why the world is how it is today – not because of lack of education, or any other rubbish, made-up excuse. The reason is simple for the state of the world: we hate Almighty God. But He is holy, and He is impartial, fair and just. That is why there is hell. Screw all the trash imagining that God is loving and that's it. God is Love, and He is holy. He is the rightful King of kings and Lord of lords. He alone is seated on the throne of the universe. Not you. Not me. He alone is the One Who deserves all glory. Not you. Not me. He made us to worship Him – not a boring waste of time, nor a mindless act of slavery, but that's why He gave us free will, to worship Him for all that He is, for His goodness, and His blessings, which we obliviously experience every day.

We said to God, “stuff you” and we decided to live our own lives our way, to worship ourselves, to run life our way. But we can't!!!!!!! He made it so that He is our life, or otherwise we have no life. We told God to leave us alone, and one day He will – in hell. Hell is eternal separation from God, all goodness, love, mercy, compassion, all goodness – separation from His glorious Majesty.

Even before the creation of the world, God decreed that He would send His one and only Son, Jesus Christ to die for us. God is One God, but Three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So when we talk about God sending His only Son, we understand that it was the will of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit for this to take place. There was total agreement. We cannot fully comprehend the Trinity for God is infinite, and we are finite. But we know that He is one God and Three Persons, each Person fully God.

So, even before man was created, before man could even rebel, God knew that man would sin, and it was then that the LORD God Almighty decided to send the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, to die the death that we deserve and to suffer the eternal condemnation that we have earned for ourselves. It was then, from eternity, that the LORD God Almighty loved us, and He loved us so much, as to suffer His own wrath in His Son, on our behalf. The very One Who we have sinned against is the very One Who decided, out of His awesome holy love, to receive the fullness of His own wrath for us! When we have sinned against Him, hated Him, told Him to get lost, worshiped idols, prostituted ourselves to rubbish false gods, whether money, or sport, or other people – when we have heaped on ourselves all this wrath that we deserve, He still loved us, even before creation when He knew we would do all these vile things!

To know how awesome His love is, we must know how seriously offensive sin is. God cannot forgive sin. He is holy and that means that He actually cannot forgive sin, but can only punish it. There is no other way. He would cease to be God if He tolerated sin. He would cease to be God if He was not just. He hates sin. And we are sinners.

We, we, crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. Who do you think it was? Was it the Jews? They shouted against Him. Was it the Romans? They put Him on the cross. These people did these things, but truthfully, it was me. It was me, me, me, self-centered, pitiful, disgusting, wretched, sinful man. And man goes on rebelling today, worse off and more depraved than ever. But God loved us so much as to send His own Son – He didn't have another – He sent His own Son, to infinitely humble Himself, to be flogged, beaten, hated, pierced with thorns, ridiculed, mocked, utterly forsaken and punished, to be absolutely soaked through and immersed by the wrath of the Living God – which we rightfully deserve. He went through hell to make us right with Him. How seriously does God take sin! How much He hates it and how much He must love us to endure His very own wrath for us! We cannot understand what Jesus went through, all for the sake of love.

If there were any other way, then why the flip would Jesus Christ have died? Why would He have suffered the most terrible and horrific death ever, all for us?

Slaves, foreigners, and non-persons were crucified. We treated the Living God as a slave, a foreigner, a non-person. We hated, despised, and rejected Him. And all He ever did was love us. All He did was warn us about the coming wrath of His Majesty, which He took for us – for us!

We'd be pretty hopeless to hope in a dead man, but He's not dead – Jesus Christ is risen. He conquered death and sin for ever. He is seated at the right hand of God the Father , and He is highly exalted, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and He will return one day, in glory, to judge every human to ever have walked on the earth. He will judge with absolute justice.

And now, after all He's done, don't you think that He would be so much more infinitely angry if, after taking the wrath due for us, we continue to, and die, rejecting Him? Salvation is definitely not automatic. Don't you know that we have rebelled against Him far too long? And He said that if we do not forsake everything, deny ourselves (because we are inherently evil), and follow Him, then we cannot be His disciples. Jesus Christ must be your ALL in all. What is there besides Him? What is worth living for? He demands your all, and how can you possibly expect Him to save you completely if you do not give yourself completely to Him?

You must appropriate His sacrifice for yourself. You must make it your own. You must repent, otherwise you must pay for your sins yourself. Someone has to pay for your sins. Jesus Christ has done it already, but you are only saved if you are in Him. And what does it mean to be in Him? Do you not know that Jesus Christ is the only one worth living for? There is nothing else worth living for. What? What is there?

To be in Jesus Christ is to be sold out for Him, to live with Him as your God. He said that the most important command was to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. How can you possibly love Him with your whole self if He is not the reason that you live? He loves you so much. How much wrath are you heaping upon yourself when you continue to reject Him? And don't wait until you are old and ready to die. What if you die now? You will stand alone before God. And when He sees that you have all this sin to pay for – and you can never pay for it fully – He will one day judge you and send you to hell for all eternity to pay for your sins for ever, because you can never fully pay for them, so great they are.

This is it. There is no more time to waste on useless, rubbish things. There is no way to earn your way into heaven. Jesus Christ is the only Way. There is no other. Jesus Christ is the only Way. One day you will stand before God, alone. Will you be in Christ, or will you be on your own? Will you be welcomed into heaven, or will you be cast into the fiery lake of burning sulphur?

Now is the time. What are doing not choosing? Jesus went as far as He possibly could go for you, especially you. There was absolutely no further that He could have gone.

Jesus Christ is here. Where are you? Repent or perish.