Dear searching soul

Dear searching soul,

Perhaps you are looking at the bright Christmas lights strung across the busiest shopping street of your city, or enjoying the malls decked out in Christmas decorations, or watching people hurrying around with arms full of wrapped presents for their loved ones, or listening to upbeat Christmas songs being played everywhere you go, or seeing supermarkets taking orders for turkeys and honey baked hams and Christmas log cakes.

Perhaps you’re enjoying the experience of it all, and you like the feeling that you are “experiencing Christmas”.

But perhaps there is a little part of you that is also wondering: Is there actually something real behind the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season? Behind the smiles and the glittering Christmas trees and cheery songs, is there a real meaning to Christmas?

Yes.

The decorations and the songs and the Christmas trees and the food are great – I love all of them because they herald the approach of Christmas and I love Christmas. But the “something real” behind it all is found in the Bible. And it’s a very simple message:

God loves us. But we are inherently sinful and hence cannot dwell in the same place as the Holy God.

So God sent His son Jesus to earth in human form, so that Jesus could take the punishment for our sins. A perfect, sinless sacrifice was needed, and Jesus was the only one who would ever fit the bill. Without Jesus, there would be no way for us to find our own way back to God, because God is completely holy and there is no way that we could ever be that by our own efforts.

Because Jesus died in our place, on our behalf, we now have a way of being reconciled with God. The Bible tells us that God “gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

And the Bible further explains in John 17:3 - “this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

When we believe in Jesus and choose to enter into a relationship with Him, therefore, we find that the door to knowing God becomes open to us. And I’ve personally found that in that relationship is found the true meaning of life. The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that God has “set eternity in the human heart”. This means that humans were made with a natural restlessness, a natural desire to search for their purpose in life, their place in eternity. No one teaches us to have that searching soul. God put that desire in all of us.

The Bible further tells us in Isaiah 43:7 that we were created for God’s glory. So we can search all we like, and try to find fulfilment in all kinds of things (e.g. wealth, success, friends, family), but ultimately, we find our true purpose when we find God. In that relationship is inner peace, strength, true joy, rest for the soul, a sense of belonging and a sense of finally being who we were made to be.

So, to the soul who is searching for “something more” or “something real” this Christmas, I pray that you will look to the real meaning of Christmas, and try Jesus.

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How does one accept Jesus?

• Acknowledge that we are sinful (i.e. have done wrong things in our lives) and that by our own efforts, it is impossible for us to save ourselves.
• Acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and that only He can save us.
• Believe that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, and that by His death, because He died on our behalf, we can receive forgiveness for our own sins.
• Ask Jesus to be our personal Lord and Saviour, and to help us to start living a life which honours Him.

If you can do this and tell this to Jesus, and mean it, you have just started your life as a member of God’s family. Do find a church or someone who is a believer in Jesus, so that they can help you to grow in your knowledge of Jesus.

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