Except for the church teaching God desires our happiness (which is not the same as "blessed" since Jesus said "blessed" are those have qualities that match those of God such as suffering, not generally a mark of happiness) most of this is true but if this is what a person embraces as the sole motive of God, they are not going to remain following Jesus for long. His goal is not that we feel personal happiness in our life and well-being. His goal is that we learn to love Him and love others as we love ourselves. The above message appeals right to the selfishness we can embrace and feeds it. It would be like telling a new groom that his wife is there to meet his needs and help him through life leaving out the bit that he will called upon to do the same for her, laying aside his selfish desires at time.First of all He wouldn't be much of a God if He didn't want that for us-and eternity with Him in heaven might be a bit of a grind. The Church has always taught this, related at least to 1 Cor 2:9. Also, look up the word beatitude and its etymology; the church has also taught that God wishes to share in His own beatitude/happiness. He's a good God, His glory is a reflection not of an aloof superiority but flows from the goodness and love that He is-and inherently wants to share. What we have to understand is that God is infinitely, ineffably good and loves man lavishly and wants the very best for him-always has; God's on our side while enmity came from us, not Him, even as He allows us the freedom to wallow in our selfish, prideful foolishness, eternally if we wish. Anyway, Jesus came as a suffering servant, remember, and when we see Him we see God.
I have lost two children and am no strange to the above. The above is true but rather surfacey.
Well, the church never preached personal happiness is God's life goal for us. That is actually deeply selfish. But yes, many make choices based on obtaining personal happiness at the expense of the happiness of others. IT is true but the chruch does not teach it as a valid goal in life.
Don't you see that the above is completely selfish? Wanting what is good and right for ourselves (no matter what it costs others) is completely selfish.
I know of this catchy phrase and it is not how God works. One needs to add what we let go of, our selfish pursuit for our own happiness, and let God tell work on us to love the happiness of others as much as our own.
Why do you think selfish pursuit of personal happiness at the expense of the happiness is the teaching of the church and yet say at the end the opposite? (Some of us do know it as well as God desires us to, btw.)
He who turns away from evil for fear of punishment is better than he who does evil fearing no punishment at all. If a man has ever been truly discipled or punished by God, he would know the foolishness of the above statement. It sounds lofty and noble but the human heart is such that punishment is a motivation that teaches a man to do good. Eventually he will do good for other reasons but at least he is still doing good along the way. Waiting for the right motive to do good will embed doing evil all along the way quite nicely.
Sometimes a little common sense suffices. If you obey the Lord's commandments, you get life.
Way too simple? Where did the Lord tell us life was complicated?
It might vex me till the Lord calmed me down, but the real trouble begins when we start experiencing the consequences of our sin.
The Lord is a great God, quite capable of teaching us how to be happy.
Once you repent of your sin, you are forgiven and have a clear conscience.
He didn’t need to do so. Everyone knows it’s complicated without being told. He didn’t tell us to eat or breathe or sleep either. Doesn’t mean we fail to do these things. God doesn’t tell us the obvious. He teaches that which is not so obvious unless you have the mind of Christ (think like He does.)
Except he has no desire to do that which we selfishly pursue without any help. His stated goal is to teach us to want the happiness of others as much as we naturally want our own.
It is written Yahweh created all things SIMPLE. MAN came up with many devices (sinful and complicated)
The Lord wants us to obey a few commandments. I don't consider that complicated, though.
