Satisfaction: The pursuit of happiness

Truth: People want to be happy, satisfied, and experience pleasure.

But most people's means to this end is WEAK.

Examples:

• I sought pleasure in soccer, and athletics--convincing myself that praise because of success would satisfy my craving to be known
• I witness friends drinking night after night to the point of sickness
• I witness friends smoking, getting high and enjoying that
• I hear people frustrated that they have not made out with anyone for X amount of time, and it has been "too long."... "I just wanna make out with someone!"
• I see people pursue happiness in academic success, "worshiping" their goals to a point where they cut off even friends from their life
• I have witnessed people become so in love with their meals, and food that their life is dictated by restaurants and "snack times"
• I have seen in myself, an attitude of idolizing friendships or role models to the point of extreme disappointment when that person fails me (which is a given!)
• I have witnessed people's display of extreme patriotism, investing all--or none--of their trust in a national figure...pledging allegiance first and foremost to this country
• I have seen the love of money consume people: buying, spending--this feeds almost each of these other things: food, clothing, beauty
• Sex... in any form: out of marriage, with a guy, or a girl, over the internet... people are experimenting more and more. More $$ is spent on pornography each year than Pro baseball, football and basketball combined
  
• I grew up with hundreds of girls who seek to be "beautiful" in their appearance--including myself--buying the right brands, having the right hair cut, being tan, and being skinny.
• American dream: get a job, have a family, get a dog, retire... then move to Florida and collect sea shells
  

These are just a few examples of our common pursuit of happiness. Yet each one is WEAK.

"Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”--C.S. Lewis

We are far too easily pleased with these weak actions to satisfy our craving for enjoyment.

>>ONLY GOD HAS THE CAPACITY TO SATISFY US<<>>We EXIST to "GLORIFY GOD BY ENJOYING HIM FOREVER" (Piper)<< When you come to see JESUS CHRIST as the treasure that He actually is, all of these previously stated things that we all pursue to please us... seem like "dung".

Why drink muddy, toxin infested water as your only nourishment--that will surely lead to death

when you are OFFERED THE MOST PURE, SATISFYING, NEVER ENDING FOUNTAIN OF CLEAR WATER for your ENJOYMENT--that gives you life?

Why make mud pies in a slum when you're offered a holiday at the sea?

Jesus Christ is serious about your happiness, and that is why He died on the cross to pay the penalty for Sin--so that, you may know true joy and total satisfaction.

He is not a temporary "numbing" sensation, like getting drunk or getting high, HE IS ETERNALLY GOD, the "bread of life"... if you drink the water he gives you will "never thirst again."

He doesn't get boring. Knowing Him only gets more exciting--if it doesn't--it is not a reflection on Him, but on us--the half-hearted creatures...fooling about with all these other created things that we think will make us happy.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

ENJOY GOD. to do so, IS INDEED THE HIGHEST PLEASURE.

Philippians 1:19-23

it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

When Jesus Christ is your treasure, DEATH IS GAIN. This world and its "pleasures" fade in comparison to the enjoyment found in Jesus Christ.

Turn from "weak" attempts to satisfy yourself--and enjoy God forever!

Hedonism

he·do·nism (noun):
1 : the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life
2 : a way of life based on or suggesting the principles of hedonism

"say imma hedonist>>i seek my pleasure>>hey man look around>>cats seekin their pleasure>>seeking joy>>seekin satisfaction.>>well, us too.>>but the difference is>>we seekin to be satisfied in the Lord alone,>>cuz not only is He far greater,>>but He's glorified in that."
--Trip Lee

"What Is Christian Hedonism?
My shortest summary of Christian Hedonism is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
We all make a god out of what we take the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him.
By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God. " --Pastor John Piper

Trip Lee


Lecrae




Don't Waste Your Life.

Sara Grace

the calmer of the seas

"The Calmer of the sea Here in this room with me So gently welcoming The weakest things in me You are the blood over The door of my heart What pain You spared me from How could I know it all? Oh Jesus, You became what was my deepest shame That at Your very name My calloused heart would change How could You, oh perfect One Love me, when I have done nothing that's worthy of My freedom You have won?" --Bethany Dillon, "Let your light shine down"

The God of the Bible, the one True God, here--with me? The depths of my heart have been so aching over divisions on doctrines. And how graciously, yet firmly God has revealed to me the importance of standing on the Word alone... and the necessity of division.

"God gives good press to doctrine... In God’s book, knowing his Son and believing true things about him is liberty. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). God’s self-revelation in the Bible is not a wax nose. Paul calls it “the standard of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17). It’s a standard, a yardstick, a pattern. You measure truth by it. Elsewhere he calls it “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and the “pattern of the soundwords” and “the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:13-14). It does not change. Our everlasting salvation is determined by whether we believe it: “Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9). Depart from the doctrine, and you depart from Christ. Or, better, keep watch over your doctrine and “you will save . . . yourself” (1 Timothy 4:16). " --Desiring God Ministries

It is therefore much needed that we pursue the Truth, and right-thinking in the Word relentlessly--so that as ideas of man or even doctrines of a church or school of thought arise that declare to be of the Bible...we measure it by the Truth...holding it up to the entire Word, and examining it by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The quest for joy is found so fundamentally in the truths of Scripture--and that is why we must have right thinking about all the Bible teaches. And what could be better or of more value than this? That by doing so, God is most glorified in us because of Jesus Christ--who is the centerpiece of the Bible--because of his death for sinners, and his ressurection--which is "history's only essential message (CJ Mahaney)."

Ephesians 4:25-27 "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." along with Ephesians 4:1-16 has continually led me to stand firm, striving to speak truth in love--yet how slow of a student I am!

He can calm the seas--he can surely calm my heart. God says, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). What stillness and peace comes even in the midst of struggle, loneliness, or longing when the Absolute Sovereignty of God is so clearly evident in all of Scripture.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him" (John Piper). May Paul's heart be my prayer: "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. NOT THAT I HAVE ALREADY OBTAINED THIS OR AM ALREADY PERFECT, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:8-14).

Grace Abounds,
Sara