Fearlessly Courageous

Fearlessly Courageous

Desk of Dennis Piller

1/27/2021

Happiness and the Christian Walk

Blaise Pascal who died in 1662 wrote a famous work called Pensees. Read deeply into this and let it be a steppingstone for you: “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of other avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves”. It makes me think of those who serve unselfishly and find real joy in it. Of course, there will always be those who do it for the reward and for notoriety. It’s an attitude. A complete paradigm shift. He said, even suicides are seeking happiness. They are seeking relief from their pain. Escape towards freedom from and or pursuit of happiness or joy. That happiness/joy is like finding a rock in the quicksand when you are up to your neck in self-indulgence and contemporary concepts of meaning. How can something be so hard and evasive in thought and yet with some deeper thought be so obvious? Delighting in God is not a preferred or option in life. It is a “Joyful Duty”, and should be our single passion. When you hear the phrase the Glory of God, what comes to mind? For me, it’s worship. An urgency to praise God. Something so powerful that it moves my heart and soul.

I could see the world’s view might be self-exaltation – Narcissism.

But if we try and display the excellence of God, without Joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. If we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not deploy it to others, we deceive ourselves. Because the mark of God is enthralled joy… Love cannot help but overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. A wasted life is one without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the Joy of all peoples. Is 43 6-7 He said, “ I created ALL for my glory”. 1 Cor 10:31 “Do ALL things for the glory of God”. It doesn’t mean to add more glory to God. That is impossible. Instead, he calls us to magnify him like the Hubble space telescope. It allows us to see something so vast… so beyond our ability to see and comprehend… but that telescope allows us to see enough of his splendor, majesty, and vastness that it literally blows us away. We see enough to know that we know that my God is THE GOD! Johnathon Edwards said, “God’s purpose for my life was that I have passion for God’s glory and that I have passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion”. As we revel in God the overflow of Joy in our life is its result. It’s like when we fell in love the first time. Everything was to show them our love and bestow on them all the tenderness and thoughtfulness we could muster because we were in such a joyous state… we just couldn’t help it. Love Overflowed…