The Shocking Secret of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness?

For Jesus, the pursuit of earthly happiness is itself an alien concept. For him, you haven’t found anything to live for until you have found something to die for.

Matthew 16:25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.

The pursuit of happiness is as hollow and pathetic as making drug-induced highs your reason for living.

The Bible makes a stupendous claim. Expressed poetically, here it is:

Isaiah 55:1-2 Come, everyone who thirsts . . . Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

But there’s a catch. Here’s a few picturesque ways the Bible words it:

Joshua 24:15  . . . choose today whom you will serve . . .

1 John 2:15  . . . If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him.

Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. . . .

Our real god, said C. S. Lewis, is whatever our minds drift to whenever we have nothing in particular to think about. The most critical thing in the universe is that we love the true God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Whatever in our lives fills that place is our god. Whatever is in practical reality the love of our life – our greatest passion – is our god. Our god is whatever we look to for fun, happiness, security, fulfillment. There is only room for one in that position. We cannot serve both God and money (Luke 16:13) or God and pleasure or God popularity and or God and “success” or God and . . .

Here’s another way of identifying who your god really is: who do you look to as your most significant source of security? Who do you honestly regard as your most reliable provider of safety and provision of your physical and emotional needs: God, or a combination of the government, your marriage partner, your current source of income and your doctor? In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to look to God daily for the provision of our everyday needs. Do we do this, or deep down do we feel our financial provision comes from our business or employer? What makes us feel safe: locks, law enforcement, or God?

We are not to pursue love, peace, fulfillment, or anything other than God himself. We must willingly sacrifice everything – comfort, success, marriage, children, our very lives – for him.

Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple.

We will never get away with using God as our means of getting the love of our lives – whether that be money, ease, happiness, security, health, sex, romance, popularity, or whatever. No! He must be the love of our life. And if he isn’t, then whatever we substitute for him will let us down – badly. Of those whose “god is their stomach” (their sensual desires) Philippians 3:19 says “their destiny is destruction.”

Whereas Jesus told us to store up our treasure in heaven, we want our treasure on earth plus basic fire insurance.

To enjoy supernatural contentment takes both an act of God and our cooperation. If a content, drug-free person is to remain that way, he must refuse to let himself experiment with drugs. Otherwise, he will soon find himself enslaved. Ironically, for a drug addict to be freed from the degrading, life-controlling craving he must initially resolve to endure far more craving than he would otherwise suffer – the craving of withdrawal. What is true for drugs is just as true for selfish ambition, greed, pride, willfulness, seeking popularity, love of pleasure, ease, and so on. God longs to miraculously satisfy us but for this to happen we must get serious about giving up all the things we feel drawn to.

For us to experience true contentment we must be willing to embrace – at least temporarily – deprivation and torment for the glory of God. We must deny ourselves. To save our lives we must lose them. We are either a slave to sin, or a slave to God (Romans 6:22). To reign with Christ, we must be willing to suffer with Christ. To have treasure in heaven, we must sacrifice treasure on earth.

2 Corinthians 4:18 while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

For us to investigate this further the simplest way God has provided is to look at the Old Testament. The Bible’s record of God’s judgments in Old Testament times, insists the New Testament, is divinely provided as a warning for us who live in the New Testament era.

1 Corinthians 10:1,5-11 Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea . . . However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. . . . Let us not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell. Let us not test Christ, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents. Don’t grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come. (Emphasis mine).

Romans 15:4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning . . .

Adam and Eve refused to be content with Paradise and being able to eat from every tree but one. They were not even content to be human. They wanted to be “like God,” even though they were warned that it would kill them.

Though supernaturally fed by manna, the Children of Israel refused to be content with it but claimed they had been better off as slaves in Egypt (Numbers 11:3-6,18-20).

Levites had access to holy things that were denied other Israelites, but not content with this, some tried to claim the priesthood for themselves and in so doing incurred God’s wrath (Numbers 16:8-11,31-33).

Not content with God as their king, the Israelites wanted a human king like other nations (1 Samuel 8:5-8).

David and Solomon were unwilling to settle for even multiple wives; they had to have forbidden women. In David’s case, it was a married woman (2 Samuel 12:8-10). For his son, it was pagan women (1 Kings 11:1-6). His predecessor, Saul was not content to be anointed king, he wanted to usurp Samuel’s priestly authority and by so doing lost the privilege of heading a royal dynasty (1 Samuel 13:8-14). Near the end of his life, he was not content with God’s refusal to speak to him and he consulted a witch.

Kings, in particular, fell for this because power turned them into spoilt brats. To grow accustomed to always getting whatever one wants is spiritually dangerous.

King Asa was not content with having the Lord of host as his ally, he turned to political alliances for protection (2 Chronicles 16:7-9).

Uzziah was a good king, and yet we read:

2 Chronicles 26:16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, so that he did corruptly, and he trespassed against the Lord his God; for he went into the Lord’s temple to burn incense on the altar of incense. (Full Story).

As true as the above is, there is another side that I dare not neglect to mention, lest I knowingly distort divine revelation or leave you with a wrong impression: we must not let ourselves be content with less than God’s best.

Though God had promised Abraham a miracle baby, the man famous for his faith wanted to settle for Ishmael.

Genesis 17:17-18 Then Abraham fell on his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to him who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?” Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!”

Upon entering the promised land, the Israelites incurred God’s displeasure time and again by being content with only partial victory. Spiritually, we see the same thing in our own lives and often find ourselves content to live in partial defeat or moving in less of the power of God than he wants for us.

Jesus repeatedly pleaded that we seek so that we might find and ask in order that we might have. It was those who sought him and asked for healing who received it. Even when obviously sick people asked for Jesus’ help, he did not automatically heal them, but queried whether it was healing that they sought. Even for the basic necessities of life, Jesus told us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” not just assume that we will automatically end up with all that God wants us to have.

At first, the fact that there are things we must not be content with seems a confusing contradiction to what we have found in the rest of the Bible, but it isn’t. In the list of biblical examples of, what is involved is not self-centered ambition, but the glory of God; not an entanglement with the rat race of the world, but basic needs.

In both lists, we see the importance of dying to self and fully complying with God’s call on one’s life. Sometimes that calling can seem frustratingly restrictive and sometimes it can seem terrifyingly enormous, but God’s call upon our life is always stamped with the mind-bogging wisdom and love of our Infinite Lord. There is ultimately nothing more secure, exciting and fulfilling.

© 2008, Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.com  Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.