The meaning to life - great subject. I think a few of the folks that responded hit it right on the head. But here's another related question from another angle: Do all humans have the ability to achieve purpose & meaning in life? Is there a connection there amongst all people?
I struggled with despair for some time in my 20s, until my early 30s when I found myself married with two kids and no understanding of true love. That was the lowest point of my life. During a painful separation, I found out what love really was, because it was imparted to me from God. God is love you know. And from there I eventually found meaning & purpose.
A wise man once said "Relationships are the only thing that we are going to take with us into heaven". I believe this, and this is the meaning I found in life. And that is why I am thoroughly convinced in the message and teaching about Jesus Christ. Everything fits, and everything makes sense for me know. But there was a time that it didn't make any sense. But then I found FAITH. Faith in the age old scriptures that talk about God. This is what I learned, and believe. God created the first man Adam in his perfect love. He loved Adam so much he gave him dominion over all the works of his hands. There was perfect fellowship between them. To complete Adam, he created Eve, and joined them together in marraige, and the two became "one flesh" in holy marraige. God gave them a commandment to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth, and set them in the garden. God had only one rule for Adam, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, or he would surely die. Adam screwed up through the temptation that followed, and from there sin entered into the world, and this has been what is wrong with the world, and why we struggle with these questions. Sin is responsible for the downfall of man, sickness, disease, strife, violence, wars etc. etc. But God was not content to leave it this way. He required punishment for this sin, however, and this punishment had to come in the form of blood. The scripture states "there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood". God, therefore, sacrificed an animal and make coverings for Adam & Eve, so they would no longer be naked & ashamed. Hence, the first shedding of blood as payment for sin. (Hebrews 9:22, Leviticus 17:11).
This is where some people differ. They fail to take into account the need for the blood to pay for sin. For centuries, as outlined in the Old Testament, the blood of goats, bulls, and other animals were sacrificed on the alter for payment for various sins. But these sacrifies could never completely take away sin, they only acted as temporary measures. The reason? That which was sacrificed was imperfect. Therefore, God, as he had planned from the beginning of time, provided a man to shed his blood for the sins of the whole world, once for all. This man had to be completely free of sin in order to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. That man was Jesus Christ. And the reason that he was able to become the perfect sacrifice was that he was the Son of God, born of the Holy Spirit, and not of the seed of man.
Any other doctrine that teaches any other way to God cannot satisfy the requirements of the blood, and is false. This is why Jesus Christ, through his atoning sacrifice, is THE WAY, THE ONLY WAY, and why his words that echoed "I am the way, the truth & the life, no man comes to the father except through me" is the great crescendo of all that is meaning & purpose in life.
