The End Of The Matter

September 3

Ecclesiastes 11-12

Psalm 101:5-8

Proverbs 21:27-28

Ephesians 2:11-22

The End Of The Matter

“The end of the matter, all that has been heard:  fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the end of the matter for all mankind.  For God will bring every work to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”  Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 LSB

Solomon summed up Ecclesiastes with one final truth: Fear God and keep His commandments.  After all of his contemplation and deliberation, the wisest man who ever lived concluded that the only thing worth pursuing in this life is God.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon outlined his journey to find the meaning of life.  He tried everything to fill the emptiness in his soul.  Unlike most people, he had the financial means and the power to do whatever he wanted and he did.  But at the end of his journey, he concluded that everything was meaningless apart from God.  We could finish this book utterly depressed and resign ourselves to live our days in futility.  But that is not the message God wants us to take from Solomon’s writings.  He wants us to understand that our lives are eternally significant.  What we do while we are here on Earth has huge implications.  It matters greatly.  If we spend our days pursuing wealth, power, pleasure and earthly rewards, it is inevitable that we will conclude that we don’t matter.  We live our lives and then we die and life goes on without us.  Our lives are but a blip on the timeline of humanity.  But the truth is not that nothing matters in the end, rather that everything matters in the end.  Every moment of our lives, the joys and the sorrows, our laughter and our tears, our failures and our successes all have meaning.  Because God is watching, everything matters.  It all has eternal value.  The decisions we make in our life determine our eternal destiny.  Our lives matter because we matter.  We are created by God, He loves us and He has a plan for our lives.  We can choose to follow that plan and have a life filled with purpose and meaning or we can choose to follow our own path that leads to disappointment, emptiness and ultimate destruction.   

One day, we will stand before God and give an account for how we spent our lives.  “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”  2 Corinthians 5:10 LSB     The final verse in Ecclesiastes gives the assurance that everything will come to light in the end, good or evil.  Nothing escapes God’s view.  Nothing is hidden from Him.  “For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”  Luke 8:17 LSB   How we spend our time in this life has eternal significance.  Our judgments or rewards are determined by our actions.  What are you pursuing?  Are you storing up treasures on Earth or are your treasures in Heaven?