Well of course we have with the passage of time. We’ve gotten older. We have a lot more technological innovations changing the way we work and play. We’ve learned new things. Yes, of course all these have changed our physical appearance and the manner in which we live. All this is natural with the passage of years, but I’m looking at more than this. I’m thinking of the change that has taken place at the core of our being. An inward change.
When I say “we’ve” changed I’m looking in the collective sense of society as a whole, the nature of the world in which we live in this third millennium. Individually we are called by our Lord to observe our world and guide our own lives by Holy Scripture as we are guided by the Holy Spirit. This is where we enter into a spiritual battleground, recognizing the changed nature of our world yet seeking to guide our selves and our family by the values and nature of our Lord Jesus.
Living in this vastly changed world we now occupy is what I’ve been writing about in my book Not For This Life Only and in these Observations on my website: Life-Has-Meaning.com. I am an old retired Lutheran pastor. What I write about is more than just an older person not being able to get used to “modern” ways. Of course there is that too, but the changes I refer to are fundamental to the nature of life itself.
In the Introduction to my book I referenced Dr. Peter Kreef’s statement that “We are the first civilization that does not know why we exist. …. The essence of modernity is the abandoning of [a] religious foundation.” Both Dr. Kreef and Dr. Carl Trueman, in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self have traced the changes and acceptance of “truths” over past hundreds of years that have culminated in our accepting of what we see today as the “truth” of who we are as human beings. It is these so called truths that are contrary to the people God made us to be. Dr. Trueman refers to the modern self as Expressive Individualism.
Dr. Trueman said this term, coined by an American sociologist in the 1990s, refers to “the way we think about ourselves in modern society, the normative notion of the self, is one where our inner feelings are critical to our identity, critical to who we are; our ability to express those inner feelings is therefore essential to what we might dub as ‘social authenticity.’” This has opened the Pandora’s Box of societies sexual attitudes and political policies which are contrary to who God declares that we were created to be. Guided by our inner feelings and not by God’s truth is an acceptance of the devil’s taunt, “You will not die. Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
Our meaning, our nature, comes not from how we feel about ourselves inside, but who our God created us to be, and who our Lord Jesus redeemed by His precious blood. We are created male or female in the very image of God and made God’s redeemed child through faith in Christ. This is who you are by God’s pure grace apart from any inner feelings you have about yourself. You are loved with an everlasting love beyond anything you feel or think of yourself. Hold to this truth and live each day in its meaning. For in our Lord God your life does have meaning.