True Happiness-Part 2

True Happiness-Part 2

 

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The Bible says seeking happiness is the fundamental bent and bias of our souls, and you'll never find happiness that way.  Jesus says that if you seek happiness it will always escape you. 

Is God committed to your happiness?  Absolutely and yet if you come to Him to make you happy you are coming to a false god.  If you say, "I'm interested in this Christianity and maybe I will come and bite on it if I can see that it will help me realize my goals and make me happy," you are not coming to God.  You are coming to a butler.  Either God exists, or He doesn't exist.  If He doesn't exist, you can't come to Him for happiness.  But if He does exist you have to realize that you must come to Him because He created you, and therefore He owns you.  To not come to Him and obey Him if He does exist would be an injustice.  So the only way to come to the real God rightly is to come to Him without conditions and say, "Forget happiness because I owe you everything." 

 

There's only two ways to come to God.  You can come to God on the basis of saying I owe you everything, and you owe me nothing.  The other way is on the basis of saying I'm going to come to you, but then you're going to owe me a lot.  The only way for you to know on what basis you have come is to see what happens in the bad seasons.  When things go wrong do you get upset and say what good did it do me to come to church and read my Bible?  That shows that you came to Him on the basis that I will do this and this, but then you owe me.  In other words, my number one priority is happiness, and I am using God as a way to get there as opposed to saying my number one priority is to serve God and if happiness happens that is great.

Here is the irony.  The less that you are concerned about your happiness and the more that you are concerned about God the happier that you will get.   Aim at heaven and get earth thrown in.  Aim at earth and you get neither.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

True Happiness-Part 1

True Happiness-Part 1

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

 

Happiness or "Blessed are" is found all through the Bible, and it can never be gotten directly.  It is always a by product of seeking something else more than happiness.  It never says when you see the word blessed that blessed is the one that seeks blessedness.  Blessedness is the one that seeks after something more than blessedness. 

 

Seek happiness or seek righteousness.  Which should you do?  If you seek righteousness you will get both.  If you seek happiness more than righteousness you will get neither.  The person that is happy is always the one that has stopped trying so hard to be happy and has sat down and said, "What am I living for"?  Jesus says in Matthew 6 that you who are worried should not have anxiety over these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.  He is saying that the reason that you are unhappy is that you have made something else your trust. 

 

Why is it that you sometimes cheat, lie, break your promises or break you own standards?  The normal and natural habit of our heart is that you believe in principles like honesty, purity and integrity, but sometimes you have to make an exception.  It means that there is one principle that is over all of the other principles, and that is that you've got to be happy.  Oh you believe in telling the truth, but not if you're going to have to lose your job over it because you wouldn't be happy.  You believe in doing this, but not if you're going to lost your girlfriend over it.  There is only one thing that you believe, and that is that the top priority that you are seeking is your happiness.  Everything else comes second and third.  The kingdom of God is great, but first seek happiness.  Honest is great, but first seek happiness.

 

Happiness is always a by product of seeking something else more than happiness.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining