Where do you find your Happiness/Joy?

This is the final instalment in my series entitled The Heart of the Matter.

The heart seeks what it thinks will make it happiest.

Jesus covered happiness in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:2-12). Here, the word ‘blessed’ can also be interpreted or translated as ‘happy’.

Greek philosophers spent a lot of time thinking about the human quest for happiness. According to their highest wisdom, happiness requires virtue as well as other good things like wealth, kinship, status, and peace. But, rather than saying those with money, power, friends or fame are happy, Jesus effectively said “Fortunate are the unfortunate” - the poor, meek, mourning and beaten. We are to become humble and not be self-serving in order to find happiness. True happiness is in Jesus, as loyalty to Him offers nothing less than inheritance of the kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:33 “Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Righteous means to be in right standing with God. You get this by believing in Jesus and confessing and repenting from your sin.

Chase after God like he chased after you, and He will give you what you need, as well as placing you in right standing with Him, for all eternity! Do you want to gamble with your eternity?

Material Things

Luke 12: 15, 22-23, 28. “Then He said to them “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ “Then Jesus said to His disciples: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,…how much more will He clothe you?”

Luke 12:33,34 “…Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail….For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.

Psalm 37:4 “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Fear

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” God is love (1 John 4:16) and we have God’s Spirit in us, so we should not fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Per Micah 6:8, Jesus requires of us 3 simple things:

a) Do/make Justice. Use our influence and resources to reshape our communities so the poor and oppressed have a fighting chance.

b) Love Kindness.

c) Walk Humbly with your God.

(Gospel Revolution)

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” The heart is our source of behavior. Change the heart, change the behavior.

a) The heart always pursues happiness. If the heart thinks that sinning will result ultimately in more happiness than not sinning, then it will pull towards sin. The great news is that, if we keep the Gospel in front of our heart, it will choose the Gospel over sin every time. Per Augustine, “as Christ is the only source of deep and lasting happiness, the true pursuit of happiness will always end up with Christ. The heart is so constituted that the only way to dispose of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new affection. The Gospel drives sin out of you by displacing it as your heart’s desire. Gospel in, sin out. He is happy who possess God. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

Inner voyages of self-discovery result in a haze, with our thinking distorted instead of clarified, because, if you look inward long enough, you will find yourself to be unreliable as your inner compass needle keeps swinging to a new north as you change and contradict yourself over time. “The heart is deceitful above all else.” The heart seeks what it thinks will make it happiest, and this changes all the time as the thing sought is found to be less than fully satisfying ad infinitum.

Don’t attach your significance to your address: make God your identity and substance.

We need to realise that God’s goodness is not linked to our circumstances. Why? It shakes our faith in God when things go wrong, as our happiness sometimes becomes proof that God is good, as He moves bad things away from us.

As you put your hope and trust in wealth instead of in God, you will be disappointed because money eventually runs out or is diminished or lost and is not enough for changed lifestyles and circumstances. This proves that happiness can be fleeting, whereas joy is lasting.

Nehemiah 8: 10 “The joy of the Lord is my strength (solace/refuge)”.

Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I shall thank Him and praise Him.”

(Core 52 chapter 9)

Should we determine what is right by what feels right? No. If we use happiness as our measure of morality, we may end up hurting ourselves, as adrenaline rush activities like skydiving that create feeling of euphoria can end up in disaster.

Obedience to God fosters our happiness, because, as we follow God’s instructions for life we experience more of His joy and peace.

When God conceived your brain, He lubricated the synapses with three specific chemicals of happiness. They are the happy juices of your brain.

Oxytocin is the chemical that gives a sense of comfort. It’s released through a handshake or a hug. It creates a sense of safety and trust.

Dopamine is the chemical of adventure. It’s released when your mind is buzzing with activity and creative energy.

Serotonin is the chemical of respect. It’s released when someone asks your opinion, treats you with respect, or applauds your performance.

These chemicals are both highly addictive and short-lived. This might seem crazy.

But, God gave you these insatiable cravings for a reason – He craves your happiness. His design drives you towards it. That said, God didn’t create you to remain in a long-term state of happiness. Rather, He designed you for brief moments of happiness that require repetition. Why? Because happiness is dependent on persistent habits that release the mini-bursts of chemicals. As a result, God’s design leads to long-term habits that build positive communities.

Other than these three chemicals, there are three other sources of happiness: Genetics, circumstances and choices.

Some people are genetically wired to be more perky than others, and some more pessimistic by nature. Most of us try to change our circumstances to improve our happiness, but this only truly accounts for a small portion of happiness. People are apparently happy or sad depending on the choices they make. While genetics accounts for 50% of the variability in happiness, circumstances account for only 10% - leaving a whopping 40% of our happiness to the choices we make.

The truth of the matter is that our relationships account for the bulk of our happiness.

Psalm 1 reveals that step 1 (v1) to lasting happiness is to choose companions that lead to healthy choices. Step 2 (v2) is to increase dopamine, the discovery chemical, which you do by reading, delighting in and meditating on scripture. Research has shown that, the more we meditate on a positive thought, the larger it grows, and we release the dopamine that determines happiness. Step 3 is serotonin, the chemical of significance. Being helpful is the key to releasing serotonin. The process is defined in verse 3. Simple acts of kindness will be just as effective as winning an Olympic Gold medal in giving you the chemical rush of happiness.

Satan loves to humiliate us when things go wrong in our lives, such that we struggle to see a way out of the situation or our despair.

Culture says that freedom refuses all constraints. Culture says we should be free to do whatever we want, but the reality is that we thrive in certain environments and break down in others. A sailboat moves efficiently when the sails are trimmed correctly for the wind. Embrace the fundamental rules that make things work properly.

Culture says that I am my own master. No other master is as worthy or as liberating as He is. Don’t avoid commitment, because then your master is flexibility. Listen to Christ because He made us and He rescued us in what He did on the cross.

Culture advises that everything is relative, but Christ advises that His truth is absolute. When non-believers accuse us of being narrow-minded as believers, we must remember that each of us has our own view of reality, and hence each of us can be considered narrow-minded.

We are not to live according to the desires we find inside ourselves or according to the world, otherwise we will die of discouragement, or of exhaustion. We are to live according to the desires that the Spirit of God gives us, by simply being sons and daughters, not stars.

Our lives are supposed to be made up of loving people and using things, not the other way around.

Do not play in Satan’s back yard by giving in to temptations, however small, because he will lead you to destruction. Don't taunt your enemy, Satan. Rationalising sin makes us weak.

Don't be like Samson who assumed God's strength would remain in him no matter what, and he didn't notice God's strength leaving him.

The Bible teaches us that everything that exists is designed to point to something beyond itself, i.e. the Creator. We tend to focus on the created thing instead of on the Creator. We get caught up in the ‘cul-de-sac of stupidity’, chasing things and putting them in positions they were never meant to be, thus never quite feeling satisfied, because the big lie is the devil saying that more of that same thing is going to solve our problem.

Something has to change in your heart before you can start living a satisfied life. The key to change is to desire something else more.

Your soul will find satisfaction in being validated by God, living for His glory, with His love, forgiveness, grace and mercy over your weakness, so you are able to enjoy His gifts the way He intended you to. You will find that Jesus is enough for true satisfaction, through knowledge of your future secured in heaven for eternity by God’s grace.

Climbing steps leads to exhaustion and frustration as you seem to get nowhere. 'One step forward, two steps back’. Trying to ‘balance the scales’ or ‘life by religious laws’ is unfulfilling and virtually impossible. Salvation is found by getting off the ladder and realising that you will never please God fully. Approach God spiritually bankrupt and receive salvation and fulfilment. This is the essence of grace: God making a way outside of our failed attempts to receive salvation.

Climbing off the ladder and coming to the foot of the cross empowers us to lead better lives, blossoming under the sunshine of grace. Strive to live to please the Father instead of how to do the right thing according to society.

When you live on the ladder everybody becomes a competitor to you, as you compete to get ahead and higher up on the ladder. When we know we are already on the top step of the ladder through Jesus, it frees us up to enjoy everyone around us fully for exactly who they are.

Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship. Jesus did not come to ruin your life, but to make and save it. Seek the empowering reality of the Spirit's presence in your life.

When we experience God’s love, it changes our desire so that we want to know Him more rather than follow our old bad habits. It is a love that is growing more and more in knowledge and depth of insight that enables you to experience God’s wisdom and guidance, and to discern the correct things to do.

We never have to be afraid of other people's rejection because we have the greatest acceptance we could ever have in Christ.

Proverbs 10: 22 & 28 “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it. The prospect of the righteous is joy,but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing.” You will find joy if you are in right standing with God (righteous).

Romans 3:22 “This righteousness is given through faith in[a] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile”

John 15:11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Your joy is made complete in your relationship with Jesus.