The joy of being a Christian is not that God has secured what I want

 

The gospel doesn’t provide a sanctified form of humanism where I can live exclusively for myself. Rather, the gospel provides a new sanctified way of living beyond myself for God by His grace.

 

Today we sing, preach, write, and pray in a direction that moves us away from a world filled with God’s glory, existing for God, and towards a world filled with man’s glory, existing for man. God’s glory is in my glory, to make me happy, to make me flourish, to answer all my prayers, to fulfill all my dreams. God is re-fashioned in my image, that is, whatever I want for myself is surely a reflection of what God wants for me, what God has destined, called, and equipped me for attaining.

 

But man is created in God’s image. Whatever God wants for man is to be reflected in man wanting God – first, last, most. My glory is to receive, to rejoice in, and to reflect God’s glory. To share in his glory is to exult in his glory filling the whole earth!

 

The joy of being a Christian is not that God has secured everything I want from him, but that God has secured me for himself in Jesus Christ.

 

My ultimate happiness is now found in something that transcends this world and its material benefits: God's kingdom and will. It’s not that I can’t, shouldn't or don’t enjoy this world’s benefits, but that they are not the end of the world’s existence, the goal of God’s creation, the apex of man’s salvation.