![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/ikvot-meshicha22.jpg?resize=143%2C154&ssl=1\")
Our actions invariably reveal what we are believing about the nature of reality. We will live what we believe… Put the other way around, what we believe will determine what we do. Nearly all of our conscious intentions are future-directed. We assume that the future will resemble the past, and therefore we make our plans and set our agendas. And yet to what end? What is the purpose of our lives? Where are your actions taking you? Where are you going?<\/p>\n
Questions like these concern your personal philosophy of life. Every person makes choices based on their vision and expectation of a future good. Every person therefore lives by a creed that speaks toward the future…. Sadly, many people live for the immediate moments of life: cheap thrills, fast food, and mindless entertainment. “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:23). Others may enjoy fine art, reading, and learning – hoping thereby to improve themselves. Most people live in order to love others, friends and family… But apart from God, none of these otherwise good things will ultimately satisfy our hearts. \u201cDisordered love\u201d comes from setting the heart\u2019s affections on the transitory, the ephemeral, and the unabiding; but God has set eternity within our hearts (Eccl 3:11). The Lord has \u201cwired\u201d us to experience discontent when our heart\u2019s deepest need goes unmet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On a larger scale, philosophers have asked whether life itself – all of it – has any meaning or purpose. \u201cWhy is there something rather than nothing – and for what reason?\u201d Is the universe essentially a random set of events, or is there some overarching purpose and design to everything? Is history linear or cyclical? Does it have a goal or destination, or is this entirely unknowable to us? Are human beings \u201cevolving\u201d – and if so, into what? Is there a spiritual dimension to reality, or is everything causally determined by matter and motion? Do we have \u201cfree will\u201d or are we entirely conditioned to do what we do? Various answers have proposed to deal with these questions over time, including mythological polytheism (e.g., Zoroastrianism, Egyptian\/Greek mythology, animism, paganism), cyclical impersonalism (e.g., Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, reincarnationism, Stoicism), various types of materialism (e.g., scientific naturalism, pragmatism, evolutionism, nihilism), humanism (Buddhism, secular humanism, atheistic existentialism), romantic idealism (Marxism, Hegelianism), mysticism (theosophy, new age thinking, popular Kabbalah), and so on…<\/p>\n
The traditional Jewish view of history may be called (for lack of a better term) \u201cmonotheistic personalism.\u201d There is one Supreme God who is the personal Creator and Ruler of all that exists. God is both immanent (sustaining creation) and transcendent (above creation). This God has a Name (YHVH), a mind, a character, and a purposive will that imbues all of creation. God is LORD over all time and space, the King of Glory, who is Master of all possible worlds. Since God knows and providentially controls everything, human history is a controlled process that leads to a certain destination. History is therefore progressive and eschatological – leading to a future goal, namely, the establishment of Zion (the \u201cCity of God\u201d) as the restoration and fulfillment of the lost paradise of Eden. The relationship between humankind and God will be fully restored in the coming theocratic utopia called \u201cheavenly Jerusalem.\u201d This is heaven, the place where suffering, pain, and death will be forever swept away, and wherein we shall live forever in sacred fellowship as God\u2019s beloved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/isa25-8a-analysis.gif?resize=579%2C512&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n