Skip to main content

Joy in Things and Joy in God, by Pastor Charlie

By


Joy in Things and Joy in God

By Pastor Charlie


Have you ever been super excited to get some new thing? Have you ever noticed that when you get that thing, your joy starts out high but then quickly fades so that you soon find yourself thinking about the next new thing? Why does this happen to us? Augustine, the famed fifth century church leader, helps us understand. His words are a bit hard to read but it’ll be well worth the effort to do so. I encourage you to read slowly and carefully.

For there is this great difference between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eternity. An eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with greater ardor when it is in possession than while it is still an object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it comparatively worthless when he finds it of less value than he thought. On the contrary, however high the value any man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he will find it, when it comes into his possession, of higher value still (On Christian Doctrine, book 1, chapter 38). 

So the reason our joy begins to fade from the moment we get something new is because that thing cannot fill up the need for joy that’s deep inside our souls. Our need for joy is very deep and not easily satisfied, and those who try to satisfy it with temporal things will be sorely disappointed. And as one thing after another is shown not to satisfy their souls, their desire for joy will increase but their ability to have joy will actually decrease.

On the other hand, those who seek to satisfy their souls with eternal things find that the exact opposite dynamic comes into play. As Augustine so well said, the imagination of fellowship with Jesus is in truth less joyful than Jesus himself because Jesus himself is infinitely more glorious than our ability to imagine him. So those who seek their joy in God find that their actual joy, and their capacity for joy, incrementally increase overtime. They will of course suffer, and they will not always feel superficially happy, but over time their joy will increase and increase as they learn, one experience at a time, that God in all his glory is truly satisfying.

So the lesson for us is this—let us seek our joy in God. As we do, we’ll find that our joy in “things” actually increases because we’ll learn how to enjoy them without asking too much of them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sermon Questions - April 10, 2016

By
Exiled in Faithfulness 1 Samuel 26:1-27:12 April 10, 2016 Study Questions 1.       Read 1 Samuel 26:1-5. Why did the Ziphites betray David? Had they done this before? How did Saul respond and why? How did David learn of Saul’s location and what did he do? 2.     Read 1 Samuel 26:6-16. What did David first do? What did Abishai encourage him to do? How did David respond? What did David assert about Saul’s future? What did David then do and why did his plan work? 3.      Once the plan was executed, who did David call out to and why? Of what did David accuse him? Was David right? 4.      Read 1 Samuel 26:17-25. How did Saul know it was David speaking? Specifically, what did David say to Saul? How did Saul respond? What did he promise? 5.        Read 1 Samuel 27:1-4. Despite Saul’s words, what did David think about his future? Why did he decide to flee to the Philistines and where in pa...
Post a Comment
Read more