If you cooked down life to the greatest single desire of every human being and named it……..it would be happiness. Seems pretty straightforward……..and yet so many of us struggle with happiness. So many people suffer because they are not happy. They spend their resources going down one path or another……only to find that it wasn’t there. I’m almost 70 years old. I’ve seen a lot of happiness and a lot of unhappiness…….and here is what I’ve learned.

Happiness is not an immediate destination. You can’t go there. You can’t will yourself to be happy. You can’t achieve it directly by action or thought. Happiness, it turns out, is a secondary destination. Paradoxically, you become happy by doing something else. Ironically, the only way to reach this particular destination………is by going somewhere else. But where?

You become happy by doing what you were designed to do. You become happy by doing the work that you were created to do. This work is hard wired into your soul…….it is written on your heart. Any attempt to deny it or circumvent it will interfere with your happiness. Your only hope for true lasting happiness……..is to do the work that you were created for.

So…….how do you go about this? Here are some do’s and don’ts………wisdom from a guy who has been around the block.

Don’t spend your time angry. You were not created to be angry. Every minute that you spend angry is a minute subtracted from your life. The number of minutes that you have is finite……every minute spent angry is wasted forever and cannot be retrieved. It is not possible to be angry and happy at the same time. People will say that you are naive…….generally, these people are unhappy.

Don’t worry too much. Ration your time spent worrying. Things will threaten you and your loved ones. It is perfectly appropriate to worry about some of these threats……but not all of them. Worry can lead you to make changes that will improve your world. So…….it is OK to worry about things that you can change for the better. Don’t waste your energy worrying about things that you cannot change.

Don’t concentrate on stuff. No matter how much or how little you have, there are people with half as much who are happy. Stuff isn’t inherently bad…….it just isn’t the path to happiness. Stuff is a distraction. Stuff is a waste of your resources. It is a waste of your limited time.

Build relationships. We were created for relationship……some of us more so than others. There are two primary classes of relationship…….relationship with God and relationship with our fellow man. In its highest form, relationship is expressed as love. It should come as no surprise that the two greatest commands in the Bible are…… love God……love your neighbor. Because……this is what you were created for………in fact……..this is the only thing that you were created for. From a practical perspective…….how do you go about this? Worship the guy who created you, God……and care for your fellow man. Anything that you do that does not directly or indirectly manifest care and love for God or your fellow man is a distraction that will not make you happy.

And there it is…….love God……love and care for your fellow man…….don’t be angry……don’t worry much……especially about stuff.

I have chosen my epitaph:

A man’s wealth is not measured by the things he has accumulated…….but rather…….by the people he has accumulated

Here lies a wealthy man.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

David, ESV

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus, ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Jesus, ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Paul, ESV

OK, maybe hate is a bit strong.

I profoundly dislike starlings…….profoundly.

They are ugly.
Their song is annoying.
They make a mess.
They nest under my chimney cap.
They have invaded my bird feeder to the detriment of the birds that I like.
And to top it off…….they don’t even belong here. They were introduced.

Starlings are the Brussel sprouts of the bird world.

I’m sitting at my breakfast table watching them gorge themselves at my bird feeder.

If I were in charge here…….they’d be gone……poof.

And that is the entire point of this post.

I am not in charge here.

God is God………and I am not.

The guy who created me……..also created the starlings.

This all seems so obvious…….you must wonder why I bothered with it.

The truth is that the failure to recognize this obvious reality is quite possibly the single greatest failure of mankind………and, considering the eclectic list of our failures, that is a bold statement.

Just about everything that we mess up can be tracked back to our failure to subordinate ourselves to our creator and his rules for living. Can you imagine a world where everyone followed the top 12 of God’s rules all day every day?

Love God
Love your neighbor
Have no other gods
No idols
Honor God’s name
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Rest on Sunday

But we just won’t do that.

Why?

Because we want to be the boss. We want to make the decisions. We want the power.
Because we hate it when God tells us to do something that we don’t want to do.
Because we hate it when God tells us not to do something that we really enjoy……something that we want.

We constantly critique God’s handiwork.
The notion is that we have a better idea…….that we could do a better job of running things. The evidence, of course, says that we are not very good at running the planet. Fact is…..we have poisoned it. But, that doesn’t matter one bit. We want to be in charge……..we want the power.

Don’t think that you are guilty of this? When was the last time that you complained about the weather?

So, instead of subordinating ourselves to God, we try a “workaround”. There are several popular choices:

Deny God…….there is no creator, we are a giant biochemical accident….and we can do whatever we please.

Ignore God…..intellectually we concede that he’s real; but, we just don’t listen to him……..ever.

Put God in a box……we isolate him and let him out for an hour or two on Sunday morning. This feels good…….pious……..and we still get to do as we please for the rest of the week.

Customize God…….we start with God as his Bible describes him……….then we add the traits that we like and we delete the traits that we dislike. We do this over and over until we have a God who conforms to our appetites……..a god who doesn’t interfere with us. We keep him current by adding and deleting traits as the demands of our culture evolve. In essence, we create God in our own image…….or, perhaps, in the image of our culture. But, you have to wonder……..when you do meet the real God…..your creator…….will the God who created you recognize the God that you have created…….or will he say, “I don’t know you……and I haven’t a clue as to who this god of yours is…….leave”.

Which takes me back to the starlings.

I can exercise my prerogative as the ruler of the cosmos and make all of the starlings dissappear……….poof.

Or

I can subordinate myself to my creator……my God. And that includes living with the starlings……..his starlings.

God is God……..and I am not.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Paul talking about Jesus, ESV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus, talking about subordinating yourself to God, ESV

Before I develop this, let me say that I don’t know the answer……..for you. But, I worry about the possibility that some people who identify as Christians may be worshipping an idol.

I’m not saying that you have a golden calf stashed in your attic.

I’m not claiming that the things that you value highly have become idols……..like your Avon bottle collection.

What I’m getting at is a bit more nefarious.

A great many Christians pick through the Bible……they accept parts of it and reject other parts. If you peel off the layers, what it comes down to is this:

They reject those parts of the Bible that they do not approve of. In essence they give themselves a line item veto on the written word of God.

The most obvious example is sexual intercourse between two men or two women. The Old testament repeatedly says that this is wrong. The new testament does not refute this. Yet, many Christians condone it.

We kill 3,000 children every day on the altar of women’s rights……….and many Christians condone it.

We tell children in grade school that they can change their sex…….and many Christians condone it.

Let me be clear that this post is not about homosexuality, abortion, or transgender issues.

What I’m getting at is that when you veto a part of the Bible, you change the character of the God whom you worship. I doubt that small changes matter……. does he have a beard?……..what color is his skin?……..is he even a he? But, in an extreme case , is it possible that you have redefined God so much ……..in order to make him meet with your approval …….in order to bring him into compliance with your appetites………that you have fundamentally changed his identity…….his character? Is it possible that you have redefined your God to the point where the God of the Bible wouldn’t recognize himself?

I think that this would take a lot adding and subtracting from the Bible. But; clearly, if you add and subtract until you wind up with a red guy with horns who demands child sacrifice, then you have created and you are worshipping an idol. But where is the line? I worry that this is a slippery slope. Every year that goes by, we add new ideas to our culture in the name of tolerance. Many of these new……woke……ideas don’t line up well with the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to reject just a little more of the Bible. Many of these new ideas require us to redefine God just a little more than we already have.

Are we Christians slowly building an idol…….worshipping an idol………that we have constructed to meet our approval……..to satisfy our appetites?

Are you worshipping the God who created you……..or are you worshipping a God that you have created?

And worshipping a God that you have created………is a good working definition……of an idol.

Would the God of the Bible…….our creator………recognize the God we are worshipping?

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God”.

God, ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, ESV

Faith vs. Works

I have struggled with this for a long time. Clearly the Bible teaches that THE requirement for entering paradise is to accept God’s grace….that is, to accept Christ as your saviour. But, the example of “good works” is everywhere, especially in James. How do you reconcile this?

Or

Can somebody who has accepted Christ but has no “good works” be saved?

To begin with…….what do I mean by good works?

Good works are practical everyday acts of love for our fellow man…….they typically involve sacrifice:

Financially supporting the church.
Praying for friends……..and strangers.
Feeding and clothing the poor.
Visiting those in the hospital…….and prison.
Helping the elderly and the ill.
Any small act of kindness to a stranger.

The Boy Scouts include this in their code: “Do a Good Turn Daily”

On the face of it, faith vs. works is tough. First off…..there are Christians who, because of their situation and resources, can’t perform much in the way of “good works”. Let me be clear…..I’m not talking about them. I believe that God can sort this out.

I’m talking about the Christian who has accepted Christ as his saviour but doesn’t help his fellow man, doesn’t support the church financially, doesn’t attend services, and routinely disregards Christ’s teaching. This is the Christian who occasionally “talks the talk”, usually for an hour on Sunday morning but for the rest of the week doesn’t “walk the walk”. This is the person, whom, if you encounter him on Wednesday afternoon, you might not recognise him as a Christian. This is the person with a fish sticker on his trunk who cuts you off in traffic and then gives you the finger. What about him?

I think that the key question here is sincerity. Your faith must be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ as your saviour MUST be sincere. Your acceptance of Christ’s gift of salvation can’t be some kind of cosmic slight of hand………a trick you plan to use to sneak into paradise while nobody is looking. If your faith is sincere, you can’t help but do the good works that are within your power. That may mean building a billion dollar mission ministry. It may mean sitting in your wheelchair and praying for somebody else.

So…….what about “works”? Can you be saved without good works? Sure. Otherwise heaven would be inaccessible to many people who, because of physical/mental/emotional limitations, can’t perform “good works”. For most of us, however, works are a critical indicator of salvation. If you have no good works, you have to question whether your acceptance of Christ was sincere. If your salvation has not led you to do good works, then it is quite possible that you have lied to both yourself and to Christ. We humans are very good at this.

The presence or absence of “good works”, then, is an internal barometer of the sincerity of your faith. If you lack “good works”, then you need to re-examine your faith. You need to ask yourself, “Am I just paying lip service to God………or is my faith real?”

This, by the way, does not work the other way. Works are not an external measure of faith. We are not to judge our neighbor’s faith by counting up and cataloging his works. Especially, we are not to compare our works with our neighbors works in order to judge who is going to get a front row seat in paradise.

Faith is what gets you into paradise…………Works are simply your personal barometer for measuring the sincerity of your faith.

BTW

Have you ever wondered………..what was the greatest example of “good works”?

The crucifixion of Christ.

How’s that for a benchmark to compare your “good works” to?

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James, NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Paul, NIV