Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

The Declaration of Independence guarantees 3 things. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you notice anything different about the last item? No one is guaranteed happiness. We only have the right to pursue it. And we pursue it. There are 2 major areas that we are told to find happiness: Culture & Religion.

Cutlure says find happiness in people, money, possessions, fame, sexuality, television, etc....
If you look at the life of Solomon, you will find a man who had all of these things. He was the wisest man of all time, had more money than any person ever, and had 1,000 women at his service. He seemed to have had everything that culture says is important. What did Solomon think of all this? He writes in the book of Ecclesiastes, "Meaningless, Meaningless, It's All Meaningless."

What???

He had it all and says it was meaningless. I did not make him happy. It can't fill your soul.

We often think that if we can achieve/obtain certain things we will be happy, such as:
If I could only get that degree, then I'd be happy.
If I could only marry that girl/boy, then I'd be happy.
If I could only get that job, then I'd be happy.
If I could only have this car, then I'd be happy.
If I could only..................

What happens when we don't get those things? Will we become bitter? Or question God?

Or what happens when you do get that thing and it doesn't make you happy?


Religion: We are also told to find happiness in religion.

Some look to Oprah and her form of spiritualism.

Some look to "Christian" leaders for happiness. And where do we find the happiest preachers? Is it on Christian television? Is it the televangelist? Who's the happiest preacher? That would be Joel Osteen. The problem with many of these preachers, and Joel, is that they say happiness is found in the same place as the culture. They say that Christians will not be poor, will not be sick, will not have strained relations. They say that everyone will like you. Everything will be great. The problem with this view is that it excludes the God we worship. Jesus was poor, homeless, victimized, and had strained relationships. We worhsip a man that was murdered.

For those of us living in the real world, we know that life can be hard. People die, people are starving, and life is hard. We know that happiness can not be found in culture or spiritualism. It must be found in Jesus.

If you read the first two verses from Ch. 1 of Philippians, you will notice 2 important words. Servants & Saints. Everyone who is a Christian is a saint. It doesn't take much for me to convince you that you want to be a saint. The other word is a little harder to commit to. The word servant litterally means slave. Paul is telling us that our joy comes not from culture and is not of ourselves. Rather, happiness comes from Jesus, the cross, and in serving Him. I am joyful because I am His. I am joyful not because of what I have done, but because of what He has done for me.

PS.....Thanks for all the plaid. It looke like we were filming a Western!

To make Him famous,

Daniel