Leo Tolstoy published his "Confession" in Russia in 1882.  He writes: "My question - that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide - was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder. It was a question without an answer to which one cannot live, as I had found by experience. It was: "What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?" Differently expressed, the question is: "Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?" It can also be expressed thus: "Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?"

Elizabeth Elliot informed us students at KC '83 that "there was nothing worth living for, unless it's worth dying for." The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Philippi reminds us of the only thing worth living for: Jesus Christ. He writes: "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). How about you? How would you complete the sentence: For me to live is...

Jesus emphasizes the life-giving purpose of His coming: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).  Who is they in this sentence? Jesus' sheep who are threatened by the thief who comes to kill, steal and destroy. What is the eternal, abundant life that the good shepherd gives to His sheep? That we "may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [He] has sent" (John 17:3).