What On Earth Am I Here For

“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”

1 Peter 4:8



If you are like most people you have pondered the thought at some point in your life, “what on earth am I here for?” The answer is less complicated than you might think but it will mean you will have to read the Bible to find the answer. There is an interesting acrostic for the word Bible, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. To understand why each of us is here we first must understand the heart of God and what His purpose and plan are. After all, the Bible says we all were created for His good pleasure, He made us and not we ourselves.

Im John 3:16 we find the most simple and yet most theologically complex passage in all the Bible. It says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The heart of God is love, the motivation of God is love for the simple fact the Bible says, “God is love.” Jesus said the greatest commandment is love and the truest expression of our belief in God is love. Jesus said if we love Him we will keep His commandments, and He said that those who have been forgiven much, love much. Jesus even went as far as to say that the demarcation of the Christian life is love and that love is what reveals to the world that you and I love God and are His disciples.

So, the acrostic is true regarding the Bible. The Word of God is to be our basic instructions before leaving earth and the basic instructions are this. God is not preparing us to leave the world. He is teaching us how to love the world. Let me repeat that, “God is not preparing us to leave the world. He is teaching us how to love the world.” My favorite chapter in the entire Bible is 2 Corinthians 5. I could teach this one chapter the rest of my life and never fully comprehend it nor search its depths. In a nut shell, Jesus was born into this world to reconcile us back to God. You and I are in this world to reconcile people back to Jesus. God so loved the world and His desire is that you and I love it too.

Maybe you have heard the expression, “They were so heavenly minded they were of no earthly good.” When you and I become heavenly minded we become invaluable to this earth because then and only then do we get God’s heart for the world in which we live. God is love, it’s His very nature and therefore everything He does He does in love. That’s the goal of the Christian life, to love this world so much that everything we do is marked by love. Not selfishness but sacrifice, not my own needs but motivated by the needs of others the same way Jesus was.

Living is loving and loving sets us free! Loving is satisfying as 1 Corinthians 13:2-8 reminds us, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” We may fail to love but don’t forget, love never fails!  


“Do everything in love.”

1 Corinthians 16:14

I LOVE YOU!

Michael Osthimer

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