“For my determined purpose is that I may . . . progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly” (Philippians 3:10 AMP).
Happiness is found in getting to know God a little bit better every day. In Philippians 3:10, Paul said, “For my determined purpose is that I may . . . progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly” (AMP). Paul became “deeply and intimately acquainted” with God because he had a relationship with him and took the time to get to know him. You don’t become “deeply and intimately acquainted” with God by accident. As Paul says, it’s a “determined purpose.” It’s something you have to do something about. You have to invest your time in it. Make time for God! If you set aside 10 or 15 minutes of focused time with God each morning, you’ll begin “understanding the wonders” of God with greater clarity. And you’ll begin to experience greater happiness in your life.
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Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8 NLT).
Have you noticed how easily you can lose your joy over some little thing? It’s usually the small irritations that cause you to lose your happiness. Somebody cuts you off in the middle of the road when you’re trying to make a turn, and you lose your happiness. You’re having a bad hair day or the clothes you put on don’t fit anymore, and you lose your happiness. It’s the little things that sometimes affect us the most, yet they don’t really matter. Paul says in Philippians 3:7, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done” (NLT). What was the most important thing to you before you began following Jesus Christ? Work? Career? Making money? Maybe it was getting a date. Maybe it was being popular. Maybe it was having security or being famous. Paul says all those things don’t matter anymore compared to the joy of knowing Jesus. You have to ask yourself about everything: How much will this matter in 100 years? How much of what I’m worrying about right now is going to matter tomorrow? It’s probably not going to matter tomorrow, much less for eternity. You can choose to live in light of eternity: “Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8 NLT). Every day when you get up, remind yourself what counts—and what doesn’t. “I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9 NLT).
Legalism will rob you of happiness. It’s the attitude that you have to prove your love to God, which means you have to make sure you do everything exactly right. It’s thinking you have to follow rules and regulations and restrictions in order to prove yourself worthy. One of the consequences of being legalistic is that we then force the same expectations on others, thinking they also have to prove their worth to God. Legalism will suck your life dry of happiness. It sucks churches dry of happiness. Everybody’s just there out of duty or guilt. How do you know when you’re being legalistic? It’s when you’re judgmental of other people. How do you know when you’re living by grace? It’s when you’re gracious to others. People who live by grace often find it easier to forgive because they recognize that God continues to forgive them. When you finally realize there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more, it is one of the most liberating feelings in the world. And it is a key to happiness. Every day, remind yourself of God’s grace, and relax in it. “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV).
Here’s some good news: Your brain stores everything. But it’s also bad news: Your brain stores everything. Your brain can’t distinguish between what’s imaginary and what’s real. It takes in both truth and lies. You have stored all kinds of garbage in your brain. And whether you realize it or not, often you base your decisions upon that garbage. When you were a child, adults said things you believed without question because they were authority figures. Maybe they said you weren’t good enough or you wouldn’t amount to anything in life. They were lies then, and they’re lies now. But you believed them anyway! You need to change the soundtrack that’s playing in your mind. Instead of playing something based on lies, you need to play the truth of God’s Word. Romans 12:2 says, “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (NLT). How do you change the way you think? You play a soundtrack of truth. Ask God to heal your memories. Tell God, “I need you to heal these memories of rejection, sin, resentment, guilt, and abuse. They hurt. Please heal me.” Fill your mind with God’s Word. The more truth you put in your mind, the more lies you push out. Instead of spending all your time watching television, on social media, or listening to music, fill your mind with God’s Word. God’s Word says you’re lovable (John 3:16), capable (2 Peter 1:3), valuable (Luke 12:6), forgivable (Psalm 103:12), and usable (Ephesians 4:12). “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me” (Psalm 77:1 ESV).
Have you ever dropped a soda bottle and then opened it right after? What usually happens? It makes a mess! The worst possible response to hidden wounds in your life is to clam up. It’s like shaking a soda bottle. One day, you’ll just explode! Bottling up your hidden wounds will wear you out. The Bible says, “When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long” (Psalm 32:3 NCV). You’ll never get over your hidden wounds until you face your feelings head-on by admitting them to God, yourself, and another person. Many people try to move past their pain by admitting it to God and themselves, but then they skip the third part of the equation. It will never work. Admitting your pain to others is absolutely essential to your healing. Getting better depends on it: “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16a NIV). You don’t have to confess to a preacher, an elder, or a therapist to obey James 5:16 (although you can). You just need a friend you can trust. If you use all your emotional energy trying to cover up the past, you’ll have little left for today. Open up about your hidden pain to someone. Tell that person what hurts. By confessing your hidden pain to God, yourself, and another person, you’ll likely find the energy you’ve been living without for so long. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing. “Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God . . . Then face the world again, firm and courageous. Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more” (Job 11:13, 15-16 GNT).
You can’t heal the most pervasive, costly wounds in your life by focusing on your past. To defeat those giants, you need to look ahead. Do you try to find healing by looking in your rearview mirror? When you do this, you’re more likely to crash than heal. Focusing on whatever happened in your past that’s making you seek healing won’t lead you in the right direction. In the story of Job, we discover how to get rid of painful memories and move on with our lives: “Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God . . . Then face the world again, firm and courageous. Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more” (Job 11:13, 15-16 GNT). First, put your heart right. You do what’s right—no matter what the other person has done to you. Forgiveness is always the right choice. Second, reach out to God. Invite Jesus into every “room” in the house of your heart. You may have invited him into the front room (accepted Jesus and were baptized) but not the other rooms in your heart. Third, face the world again. Don’t hide in a shell or withdraw to avoid getting hurt again. Move forward. Learn to live again. Your past is not your future. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, the people you’ve done it with, or how long you’ve done it. Throughout Scripture, God forgave murderers, adulterers, and slackers, and he used them to do his work in the world. You, too, have a great future ahead of you. Put your heart right, reach out to God, and face the world again. And then let God do something incredible through you. "Put your trust in the LORD your God, and you will stand your ground. Believe what his prophets tell you, and you will succeed” (2 Chronicles 20:20 GNT).
When you focus on your problems instead of trusting God, you’re going to end up exhausted. And you’re going to be defeated because God didn’t design you to fight your battles alone. You don’t have the power you need to face every problem in your own strength. You need God’s power. You can’t focus on your problems and focus on God at the same time. You’ve got to shift your focus to who God is and what he’s promised to do for you. Life is full of experiences that test you, drain you, and wipe you out. When you are worn out, that’s when you’re ready to say to God, “I’m sorry. I can’t handle this situation, and I’ve tried everything. I need to give it to you because it’s bigger than me.” So, what should you do when you are overwhelmed? You stand strong. Standing strong is an attitude of quiet confidence in the character of God. You will be successful when you put your trust in what he says to you through his Word and the Holy Spirit. When you get with God, you’ll never have to give up ground because you are standing strong. When the burden is overwhelming, you may be tempted to cave in under the pressure. God doesn’t want you to back down from difficult situations. He doesn’t want you to sacrifice your integrity. God wants you to trust him through the challenges and learn from them. If you run, you’ll miss out on learning from God. And chances are, you’ll need to repeat that lesson. God is committed to your success. But you need to focus on him and trust him and his Word if you want to stand your ground. “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV). "Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones; whoever is dishonest in small matters will be dishonest in large ones” (Luke 16:10 GNT).
It’s common today to hear people say, “What you do in your private life is nobody’s business.” Well, that isn’t really true. What you do in your private life—behind closed doors or out of view of other people—builds and reveals your true character. And God sees it just as clearly as the things you do in public. In fact, the small, unseen things you do are the seeds to God’s public blessing on your life. You cannot compartmentalize your life and say, “I have integrity in my public life, just not in my private life.” I bet you could make a list right now of public figures that have tried to live this way, only to have their private indiscretions lead to public scandal and personal downfall. No matter what they say, any leader who is not faithful in small matters will not be faithful in large matters. This principle is nothing new. Jesus said, “If you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what belongs to you?” (Luke 16:12 GNT). For centuries, everybody who learned a skill, trade, or vocation learned it through an apprenticeship. If you were going to be a mechanic, you apprenticed to another mechanic and served in that person’s business before you started your own. As the apprentice, you had to be responsible with your master’s business before you were entrusted with your own. This principle of apprenticeship applies to every area of your life. It applies to how you handle other people’s money, how you handle other people’s possessions, and even how you handle other people’s ministry before God gives you your own. If someone loans you a car, how well do you take care of it? If a family lets you stay in their house for vacation, do you treat it as well as you treat your own home? When no one is watching at your job, do you work diligently? God is watching and testing your integrity. You show that you can be trusted with the big things by being faithful in the small things. “Nevertheless. when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8b ESV).
We live in an increasingly faithless world. It is a secular world of shifting values and growing egocentrism. If Jesus came back today, how many people of faith would he find? And would you be one of them? The Bible makes it clear that God is looking for faithful people. In 2 Chronicles 16:9 it says, “For the eyes of the Lord search back and forth across the whole earth, looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward him, so that he can show his great power in helping them” (TLB). God is seeking faithful people because he wants to bless them. He wants to show his love through his great power. Our faithfulness is the key to unlocking his blessing in our lives. Jesus said, “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29 NIV). God wants to pour blessings into all areas of your life—your family, your career, your finances, your health, your relationships. This blessing may not look like we expect it to, but God is working it out in our lives nonetheless. And he will do it according to the level of your faith. If you have great faith, you will have great blessing. If you have a little faith, you will receive a little blessing. But if you have no faith, God’s blessing will not be in your life. Sadly, faithful people who really trust God and live for Christ day in and day out are hard to find. The Bible says, “Everyone talks about how loyal and faithful he is, but just try to find someone who really is!” (Proverbs 20:6 GNT). When sin entered the world with Adam and Eve, we were all corrupted. None of us does what is right all the time. But faith is the key to victory. The greater our faith, the more victory we will experience in our lives. “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.” (1 John 5:4 ESV) “His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, and I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. (Matt 25:21 ESV).
We never really own anything during our brief time on earth. God just loans it to us while we’re here. The Bible says, “The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; the earth and all who live on it are his” (Psalm 24:1 GNT). The first job God gave humans was to manage and take care of God’s “stuff” on earth. This role has never been rescinded. It is a part of our purpose today. Everything we enjoy is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands. Years ago, a couple was allowed to use a beachfront home in Hawaii for a vacation. They were told, “Use it just like it’s yours,” so they did! They swam in the pool, ate the food in the refrigerator, used the bath towels and dishes, and even jumped on the beds in fun! But they knew all along that it wasn’t really theirs, so they took special care of everything. They enjoyed the benefits of using the home without owning it. They were responsible stewards of the gift they had been given. Jesus often referred to life as a trust and told many stories to illustrate our responsibility toward God. In the story of the talents, a businessman evaluates each servant’s responsibility and rewards them accordingly. He says, “His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, and I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. (Matt 25:21 ESV). At the end of your life on earth, you will be evaluated and rewarded according to how well you handled what God entrusted to you. That means everything you do—even simple daily chores—has eternal implications. If you treat everything as a trust, God promises three rewards in eternity. First, you will be given God’s affirmation: He will say, “Good job! Well done!” Next, you will receive a promotion and be given greater responsibility in eternity: “I will put you in charge of many things.” Then you will be honored with a celebration: “Come and share your Master’s happiness.” There will be no greater joy, and it is available to every faithful steward of God’s gifts. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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