1 Peter 1:17-20 And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.”

18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.

The symptoms of the empty life: depression, anxiety, loneliness, unforgiveness, hurt and a lack of purpose, that's the life this world has to offer you. A sad commentary on the empty life this world has to offer to those that are without Jesus is summed up by scientist Carl Sagan:

In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

That's a sad way to deal with the emptiness that we all feel, the world doesn't have adequate answers to the difficult questions that you have about life, purpose and forgiveness for our sins.

When Jesus came to earth he found a world full of empty people, the government of Israel had been overthrown, the Roman government and the religious leaders were oppressing the people, they all seemed to be like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

Jesus saved me from the empty life of sin

Romans 8:31-32  What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?  32  Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won't He also give us everything else?

The good news is that God is a fair and impartial judge and the truth of the gospel is proof that he is also merciful. Christ paid a high price to redeem us from our hopeless, empty existence that we had before we came to know him. The sin nature that we inherited from our ancestors is powerless against what Christ has done for us.

We have a lot of potential in Jesus, he has a fulfilling life in mind for every one of us, but we can all experience emptiness when we allow worldly pressures and pleasures to get a foothold in our life. We need to spend time with God and allow the gospel to saturate our minds so that we won't fall for the lies that Satan tries to throw at us to take our eyes off of our source of joy.

I need to make the time to draw near to God so that I will remember how well he has treated me. (Psalm 103:10-11)