In a world and culture in which people and human nature more than ever before seem to be devoted to going to any lengths to make ourselves happy any way we can, I have learned over the years two wild, beautiful, and infinitely rewarding truths about the Lord God almighty and happiness.
First, no happiness based on the fleeting pleasures of this life compares to the joy of the Lord, a personal forever relationship with Him, and living wholly and humbly for Him and no longer living for self.
Second, when we truly come to know God in intimate fellowship with Him, being totally devoted to Him, being filled with and led by His Holy Spirit, spending time in His presence and studying and living by the Bible, and falling ever more in love with Him, a lifestyle of obedience to God and of hence making God happy is no longer solely and most importantly about we “SHOULD” obey God and make Him happy. That goes without saying.
It also is about WANTING to make God happy as a result of His unfathomable love for us and our responsive exceeding, ever-growing love for Him! A truly intimate, ever-deepening personal relationship with the Lord should bear the fruit of our hungering and thirsting to love and obey God. To make God happy!
When He is our first love, as He should be, when Jesus is #1 in our hearts and lives as He should be, then we should find ourselves yearning in our love for and devotion to Him to bring joy, pleasure, and happiness to the Lord!
When after some years of being really selfish and sloppy when it came to obedience to God as I continued to live an extremely self-centered life I started to take obedience really seriously, I considered obedience more of an obligation than anything. As though I SHOULD obey the Lord because He is Lord. And this is absolutely true! We absolutely SHOULD obey God because He is Lord!
But then I came to discover the more I have grown in my extreme love for the Lord, the more I have desired to love, honor, please, praise, worship, adore, sing to, spend time with, be totally devoted to, serve, glorify, obey, and bring pleasure, joy, and happiness to – the Lord!
My growing love for the Lord has resulted in an increasing desire to make Him happy! Love, love, love is now at the root of what is now a desperate desire to make the Lord – the love of my life – happy!
Which brings me to this. Does this make God happy? Is not this question something we should consider day by day in how we live our lives? In what we think, say, and do? Should we not question whether our very lifestyle is pleasing to God? Whether it brings Him happiness? Does it make God happy when we think this, say that, or do such and such?
Our human nature is such we are prone to thinking, saying, and doing what brings us fleshly fleeting happiness. But as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we should no longer live for self. We should live for the Lord Jesus Christ. And God’s happiness, and our pleasing and honoring Him, this should be at the forefront of our hearts and lives.
Jesus should be #1 in our hearts and lives – always and forever, AMEN!
“and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Corinthians 5:15 NKJV
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Rev. 4:11 KJV
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6 NKJV