The Search for Significance

24 The Search For Significancewould make her know good from evil like GodHimself.How subtly Satan twisted God's truth into history'smost believed lie! The God of love said toAdam, "You are My image bearer, My companionruler, the reflection of My glory," but Satan distortedthe message to say, "You are somethingother than that, something more. Eat the fruit andyou'll find out!"Being deceived, Eve traded the truth of Godfor the lie of the serpent. One of the tragic implicationsof this event is that mankind lost hissecure status with God and began to struggle withfeelings of arrogance, inadequacy, and despair,valuing the opinions of others more than the truthof God. This has robbed man of his true selfworthand has put him on a continual, but fruitless,search for significance through his successand the approval of others.In one form or another, Satan's lie still thrivestoday. For example, humanism, the central philosophyof our schools and society, teaches thatman is above all else, that he alone is the centerof meaning. Teaching that man has meaning totallyapart from God, humanism leaves morality,justice, and behavior to the discretion of"enlightened" man and encourages people to worshipman and nature rather than God. Livingwithout God's divine truth, humanity sinks lowerand lower in depravity, blindly following a philosophythat intends to heighten the dignity ofman, but instead lowers us to the level of animals.Rather than spiritual and emotional people, wehave been classified as merely natural phenomenaof time plus chance, no different than rocks, animals,or clouds. The apostle Paul described thisfoolish and demeaning perspective of man inRomans 1:20-25:

The Saving Solution vs. Satan's Snare 25"For since the creation of the worldHis invisible attributes, His eternal powerand divine nature, have been clearly seen,being understood through what has beenmade, so that they are without excuse.For even though they knew God, they didnot honor Him as God, or give thanks; butthey became futile in their speculations,and their foolish hearts were darkened.Professing to be wise, they became fools,and exchanged the glory of the incorruptibleGod for an image in the form ofcorruptible man and of birds and fourfootedanimals and crawling creatures.Therefore God gave them over in the lustsof their hearts to impurity, that theirbodies might be dishonored among them.For they exchanged the truth of God fora lie, and worshiped and served thecreature rather than the Creator, who isblessed forever. Amen."In the beginning, God declared that man wascreated to reign with Him; however, man rejectedGod's truth and chose instead to believe Satan'slie. Today, man continues to reject God's truthand offer of salvation through Jesus Christ Hechooses instead to trust in his success and theopinions of others to give him a sense of selfworth,though the Scriptures clearly teach thatman apart from Christ is enslaved to sin and condemnedto an eternity in hell.After the Fall, man has failed to turn to Godfor the truth about himself. Instead he haslooked to others to meet his inescapable need forself-worth. "I am what others say I am," he hasreasoned. "I will find my value in their opinions ofme." Isn't it amazing that we turn to others whohave a perspective as limited and darkened as ourown to discover our worth! Rather than relying onGod's steady, uplifting reassurance of who we are,