The Pursuit of God or the Pursuit of Happiness?

The Pursuit of God or the Pursuit of Happiness? The pursuit of God The reason I wanted to write this short paper is to share with you my own personal struggle to find the simple love for Christ I had at the beginning (Rev 1:4). It was such a consuming love that anything by comparison just could not even come close to bringing me the love, joy and peace I had when Jesus was my all in all. Since that time in 1976 when I became a Christian sitting in a small jail cell with 13 other men, I was the happiest I thought I could ever be. The happiness and joy I had though was not something I looked for it was the fruit of a new life born again to pursue God, happiness just came. AW Tozer aptly states this experience that I had Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow. We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me," said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him," and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the out working of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: "Thy right hand upholdeth me." But then something gradually happened to me as it happens to so many Christians over the years as we grow we try to find out what it really means to be a “Disciple of Christ” I mean really follow him. In Matthew 11:29, 30 Jesus says; Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” AW Tozer in The Pursuit of God says; “How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him. In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray. "Oh God, show me Thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God When Jesus called us to leave everything and follow Him, what did he mean? Although in many ways how we work that out individually because we are all different individuals in different situations. For Peter it was a call to leave his family fishing business. And the call to leave is as different as we are. The gospel as taught by Paul and practiced in the community was not merely an in individual affair based on personal beliefs. The gospel bound believers to God as well as to one another, this is real Discipleship. Love, Joy, Peace and happiness with purpose of life is the same to everyone who answers the call. It is a call to Christ “The One” the beloved of the Father Gods only Son sent to call each one of us to Himself. He did not just call us to a new set of rules. As Tozer said above; “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the out working of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: "Thy right hand upholdeth me." I have, as I am sure many of you have, been bombarded with sermons from our Pastors and numerous Christian conference speakers, that the problem of true happiness comes from the fact that we are just not serving as the Scripture says we should .This has caused many Christians untold heartache, feelings of worthlessness and disparity because they can’t just drop everything and run off to India. The 2nd guilt trip laid on many of us by well-meaning Pastors in our Churches (in most cases I believe) is to guilt their congregations to following a pattern of Discipleship that the Church staff has determined is what the Bible means when it calls us to follow Christ and “serve”. Each church has carefully crafted slogans and signs that promote this as Biblical Christianity and to join their Church by trusting Christ joining the Church and then follow the program as it’s been laid out. These Churches usually promote small groups as the core of what it means to become part of their fellowship. When the concept of small groups within churches first started it was meant to do several things; 1. Create small gatherings of believers from the larger Church to build friendships. 2. To create an intimate atmosphere of worship in which everyone could become more focused on Christ and expressing our love to Him through songs, Psalms and Hymns. The focus was on the true intimate worship rather than how we worshiped. 3. The other core elements were teaching through the Bible. Prayer was meant to be limited to each other’s lives; it was not a corporate prayer meeting. The idea was to from, house to house follow the example of the early Church in Acts 2:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved (ESV). Gradually over time, the small group meeting lost its intended meaning. What happened is the meeting became more important than the reasons for meeting. The small group meeting has become just another program in almost every church. The small group has replaced everything from Sunday school class to Wednesday night traditional prayer meeting. The original intention of being a place for intimate fellowship and expression of worship has just somehow been lost and it’s just become another program, and the program has become the ends not the means. My intention here is not to be critical of the church, but actually show that the church much like Israel gradually lost its meaning as a people of God. As a people of God today we also seemed to have lost the real purpose God intended by the creation of the Church amidst a vast array of human inventions So what did Jesus mean when He told us to come follow Him, to love Him more than our immediate family and friends, more than our work but most of all more than our very own lives? I believe the answer is as simple as Jesus meant it to be “my yoke is easy”. The real problem comes from one simple desire that we all face daily, both consciously and unconsciously. We all have a desire to be happy. Happiness is the cult of the World. I fear that rather than the Church effecting the world the world has affected the Church. I John 5:17, 20 says; Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. The pursuit of Happiness I wish I could take the credit for this simple idea regarding the pursuit of happiness but I can’t. The thought just came to me this past weekend as I once again sat feeling guilty that my life as a Christian seemed to evade me. And I also felt that somehow I had lost the meaning of, what it means to truly be a real Disciple, one who follows Christ with the goal of becoming like him. It was then that my thoughts somehow went back to something Dr. Larry Crab said in his book “Effective Biblical Counseling”. It’s a rather lengthy quote from the chapter, “The Goal of Counseling”. I believe that Dr. Crab has profoundly described the real root problem that has affected humanity since the fall. Unfortunately this problem faces each of us who follow Christ as well. All we have to do is look at so many of the Christian books today, The Christians secret of Happiness; Be all You Can Be; All We’re Meant to Be; The Total Woman, The fulfilled Women, and now one of the most popular Christian leaders to day Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen has one of the fastest growing Churches in America today. His books have been on some of the Top selling books in America many times, Your Best Life Now 7 steps to Living at Your Full Potential; It’s Your Time; Every Day a Friday: How to be Happier 7 days a Week. I’d like to say it’s not my intention to point the finger at Joel Osteen or anyone one person. I just wanted to demonstrate rather the idea that both the World and the Church have become obsessed with being happy as its goal in life. All you have to do is go to any book store and look under the self-help and you will see hundreds of books all with the goal of making us happier and more fulfilled. On happiness Dr. Crab says; Many of us place top priority not on becoming Christ like in the middle of our problems but on finding happiness. I want to be happy but the paradoxical truth is that I will never be happy if I am concerned primarily with becoming happy. My overriding goal must be in every circumstance to respond biblically, to put the Lord first, to seek behave as He would want me to. The wonderful truth is that as we devote all our energies to the task of becoming what Christ wants us to be, He fills us with joy unspeakable and peace far surpassing what the world offers. I must firmly and consciously by an act of my will reject the goal of becoming happy and adopt the goal of becoming more like the Lord. The result will be happiness for me as I learn to dwell at Gods right hand in fellowship with Christ. Our modern emphasis on personal wholeness, human potential, and freedom to be ourselves has quietly shifted us away from a burning concern for becoming more like the Lord to a more primary interest in our development as persons which, we are implicitly promised will lead to our happiness. How much of our life when we look at it in retrospect is given to the pursuit of personal peace and happiness. Most of the preaching in many churches today focuses on such topics as, having a happy marriage, being a fulfilled Christian or how to be all you can be. The bigger problem I think has been not so much the pursuit of happiness as a Christian, but in preaching a false Gospel with the goal of finding happiness and fulfillment or wealth and success in life. If we start out by preaching a self-serving gospel that lacks the meaning of true repentance of sin and desiring to be right with and know Him and have him as all we need, then the transition from looking to Christ because he can make you happy in life, to a church that continues this concept of being happy and having it all is natural. So in fact we have a false gospel and a church full of potentially members who are unsaved who have been taught the reason they needed Christ was because he has all the answers they need to be healthy wealthy and happy. Ray