A "revelation", if you must.
And I got it listening to a preacher I don't think is particularly amazing, although he is on point with the Gospel and that's what matters. (Having said that, I probably shouldn't name him. He's on CSN, if that helps.)
He talked about an ad he'd seen for a fellow who specializes in helping people through their "bad UFO abduction experiences". (Re-read that if you need to, so we can continue. Got it? Okay.) This wahoo apparently will hold seminars and counseling sessions for anyone willing to come work with him or hear him tell his own tale of seeing a "little man with a big head carrying a washboard" outside his house when he was five, or of being abducted himself, as best he can recall, when he was eleven. Part of his sales pitch, apparently, is that everyone in the world wants to know what the meaning of life is, and are we alone, and what happens after we die; he, of course, feels privileged to have found the answer to all three questions before he was even a teenager, and he's glad to share that knowledge with you.
For a price, of course. And that's what got me thinking.
See, there's no end to the number of people who ARE trying to find out the answers to one or all of those three questions, most usually the classic one about the meaning of life, to which Douglas Adams famously spoofed in his Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series that after seven and a half million years, the smartest computer in the universe, named Deep Thought, came up with the answer to.
The answer, not to spoil the mystery for you or anything, is forty-two.
The creators of the computer then asked what exactly that was the answer TO, and Deep Thought told them that they'd have to invent an even bigger computer to find out the actual question to the meaning of life. There's a story running around the computer programming world right now, by the way, that says that we need to remember that Adams was a crack computer programmer, especially in ASCII (as such people in the 80s all were), and in ASCII, 42 was the representation of an asterisk (*), which was the placeholder symbol for "whatever you want it to be" - thus, the meaning of life was really "whatever you want it to be". But I digress.
The meaning of life is so sought after because unless you're a Christian, it's not at all readily apparent. Why do we live at all? Why are we born, why do we die? (And, to quote Adams again, "Why do we spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?")
To a believer in Christ, of course, the answer is obvious.
We are born, live, and die to glorify our Creator, the Lord God in Heaven above. Our lives are to be examples lived to exemplify His Glory, and we are to strive to live as Christlike a life as we are able to in this flawed flesh we ride around in. In doing so, we are to help set an example for the non-Believer to examine and (hopefully) motivate him or her to ask what we have that they don't which gives us such peace of mind, such joy from within despite our circumstances (WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON we do not get to live perfect lives down here on earth! If we were filled with joy living perfect lives, who would ever ask us such a question? Of COURSE we're joyful! Nothing bad ever happens to us!), and in that moment we are given the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with that person, and if all goes right the Holy Spirit guides them towards a saving grace themselves.
Every moment of our saved lives as Christians should be lived for that purpose. And without that purpose, I've no doubt that life itself is indeed a mystery to all of those around us with any brains worth salvaging. Are we supposed to do good deeds? (Not in and of themselves, though that's a good start.) Is it, He who dies with the most toys wins? Money? Power? Fame? (No, no, no, and no.) Acquire intellect? (Nope. I tried that. It generally shows you more reasons to be depressed.) No wonder the majority of religions have to come up with some external purpose for living! If you don't have the actual answer, you've got to make something else up, AND get your money up front in case they don't come back.
Which brings me back to the topic at the top: The guy selling the UFO seminar.
Isn't it amazing that everyone who wants to share with you their idea of "the meaning of life" or "what's on the other side?" requires your money first? Even the TV evangelists, for the most part, seem to require your credit card number.
Except for true Christianity.
There are Bibles to be had for free in any hotel room in the country. Alternatively, just about any church or mission in the world will find you one for free if you need one - heck, write to me in the comments and I'll send you one if you need it! You can wander into any Christian church in the country for free - let the bucket go around without your "clink"; they won't throw you out - and then any good preacher worth his salt will tell you about the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and offer to help you make a saving commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ right then and there. You don't need six easy payments of $19.95 to qualify. You don't need PayPal. You don't even need two copper coins to rub together as the poor woman in Mark 12 or Luke 21 contributed at the synagogue.
You just need to come with an open mind, an open heart, and an understanding that you are an imperfect person in need of salvation. You (and I, and every other human being who ever lived save one) are a sinner. We violate God's laws every single day, most of the time without malice or forethought. But no matter how hard we try on our own, we will not be able to prevent doing so - and even one sin bars us from God's holiness in Heaven. Our sins must be paid for. THAT is one of the things which we are searching for in this life, unknowingly, until we come to Christ. Because Christ is the one Man Who lived that sinless life, and so He is the One Man Who had the ability to pay the price for our sin, having no price required of Him.
But in order to accept that immeasurable favor He did for us, we must do ONE THING: Accept His Lordship as God, which shouldn't be difficult, because by raising from the dead on the third day He proved that He IS God. All we have to do is acknowledge actual TRUTH (not "fake news" - news witnessed by hundreds of first century Israelites) and submit to His Lordship. We are not only granted eternal life in Heaven after this pile of flesh has worn out (rather than eternal existence in Hell - already an amazing deal), but we also get the Holy Spirit, the third member of God Himself, along for the ride wherever we go from that moment on.
All of this is free. No pastor could charge for it, even if he wanted to.
So, if anyone thinks that you should give them money for anything they claim as eternal knowledge or some such thing?
THERE'S your "fake news". That's a sure sign they're false prophets, destined to be condemned to Hell when their time comes.
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