What does life mean to you? It's fascinating to observe people’s responses to this question. They are, as you might suspect, many and varied. For some, life is most about friends, for others finance, and for some simply a matter of surviving. And these are just a few possibilities. My own psychological research suggested at least 40 different basic orientations in this respect. That’s why Jesus’ message is so necessary. God knows, not only the many ways in which we may seek to make life work, but also their redundancy. Yes, we may be blessed by family, friends, finances, and many other things, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. In fact, the Bible says that “God gives us all things richly to enjoy!” But He also knows that none of these things can ever fully address the hunger of our hearts and the thirst of our soul. He knows that none of these temporal things can provide any blessing in eternity. He knows that, as the hymn writer once wrote, ‘the arm of flesh will fail us,’ and that no amount of worldly wealth or blessing can fully deliver us from suffering or guarantee our eternal wellbeing. There’s no possession we can take beyond the grave. Hence Jesus’ message to repent and return. It’s as though He is saying, “I know your disappointment and disillusion. I know your pain, your grief, and your loss, and I am here to lift you on to higher ground. You will never be fully satisfied by the things of this world, but this world is not all there is. I have come from another world, a better world, and I am ready to grant you citizenship of that world, if you will receive it.”