And that means that not many of us are as wise as we think we are.

There is a sense in which all people are looking for peace with God until they finally come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.  But it is not a conscious search.  We know that something is wrong, something is missing from our lives, but we cannot figure out what it is.

Many of go through decades of human existence, looking for answers that we never really find.  We may look for the missing pieces in science or mysticism, in traditions, religion, philosophy, myths, drug-induced experiences, in money-making schemes, in sexual gratification, in personal relationships with other people, or even in death itself.

We may feel strongly, at times that we are getting close.  When we work hard at building good relationships with other people, for example, we may find some good friendships and some measure of real love.  This, we think to ourselves, must be what I’ve been looking for!  But then we soon learn that all such relationships will come to an end, or at least suffer some periods of time where we understand that human affection, alone is not the big answer.

Work is another good place to look.  By working hard, we can accomplish so much good in this world that we may soon believe that work is everything that is missing from so many human lives.  But work alone is nothing without peace and love and real joy.

Many of the things we do in our pursuits of meaning and fulfillment are truly worthwhile and even necessary things.  We do need to feed the hungry, or at least enable them to feed themselves.  We do need to protect the children from needless and thoughtless evil.  We need to stop destroying the environment.  We need to love others and to be loved back.  We need music and dancing and laughter and good health.

So why would wise men, or wise anybody, seek Jesus?  What can Jesus offer that we cannot find someplace else?

Jesus is the Author of life itself.  The kind of life that Jesus gives us is a life abundant and eternal.  It is life both infinite (beyond all measurement) and life than never ends.  More than that, it is life with genuine meaning and understanding.  It is real life, in other words.  It is life with all the missing pieces put back in place.
The universe does not exist without God.  He is the author, the designer, the creator and keeper.  Likewise, with human beings, God made us to be and to live a certain way.  When we chose to embrace a lie instead of truth (we did this in Adam and Eve, way back at the very beginning of our world), we lost the fullness of the spiritual dimension God had intended for us to have.  he created humans as complete beings, and intended for us to be truly spiritual, even as God is Spirit.

Without Christ, many of us are aware of a spiritual emptiness, a missing dimension to our existence.  But the silly so-called “spiritual” activities we usually embrace in this world are nothing at all but sham.  Real life, in all its fullness only comes out from God through the Lord Jesus Christ.  it is by the Spirit of the Lord God (the Holy Spirit) that we begin to really know spiritual reality.

If I sound a little redundant, it is on purpose.  In our culture we speak so often and say so much about things we have never experienced that to point away from such things (and to the real) I feel it necessary to say “real” reality, and genuine truth, and complete fulfillment. In other words, not the shiny glass glittery things, but the real treasures of the Eternal God, the riches of His kindness and mercies that is offered to everyone.

Wise human beings, whether they be tiny children or passionate teens or mature men and women, or even old and well educated, gray-haired people, all truly wise human beings seek the Lord.  Wisdom involves and includes a level of understanding that goes beyond advertised specials and popular sentiment.  Wisdom comes from both true insight and a measure of testing to see if things are what they claim to be.  We often associate wisdom with age, but some children can demonstrate remarkable insight into truth and reality.

We do not all yield to wisdom at the same age, or as a result of hearing or seeing the same things.  For most of us, genuine wisdom comes with great difficulty, after all our own preferred and cherished ideas have been finally proven false and laid to rest.  And for some, it never seems to arrive at all.

Wise human beings will seek Jesus.  They will not be satisfied with superstitions and  hearsay.  They will not stop at religion or some other tradition.  They will not be content to follow other people, or even some very special man or woman.  They will continue on until they have found the truth that is Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the true light, after all, that has come into the world to light up the way for all who will seek and find God.

Jesus is the Lord who saves us.  He died to take away our sins.  He beat down and destroyed the power of death.  He opened the gate of heaven for all who will go in.

Jesus is what the whole world needs and what many are seeking this very day.  Jesus is the answer, the Big Answer that makes the whole universe fall into place.  Jesus is what you and I were once missing.

If you are still looking, then seek Jesus.  He is ready to give you all that has been missing from your life. Religion and all that goes with it will never take you where you want to go.  Not in this life or in the next.  You need Jesus.

Jim