Holiness is NOT About Happiness (Part 1)

While catching up with a friend one day, I’d learned news of a young lady whom we both knew. Throughout her life, men had let her down: First her dad, then boys she’d “fall in love with”, her Pastor, and maybe even God in her understanding of Him. Well, that day, I saw on her facebook that she's dating a woman (this is what prompted me to catch up with my friend in the first place). After giving some background info, my friend ended by saying, "If she's happy, I don't care."

"If she's happy, I don't care."

This may echo in the ears of those of you who grew up in the 70s (or if you watched the 70s documentary on the History Channel), for the whole hippie movement included “do whatever makes you happy”. And we see it all the time today, too, don't we? People still divorce because they’re not “happy” anymore (regardless of the effects on their kids); people cheat & fall in love claiming that that person makes them “happy” (regardless of the effects on their spouse and promises they’d made to God during their wedding)…Moses even broke God’s Law and allowed people to divorce due to their hardened hearts…they were no longer “happy”--all examples of sinful behaviors prompted by the selfish need of being temporarily “happy”. And I say “temporary” because “happiness” is actually just a temporary emotion that we receive when something happens for us.

So why do people do what they know is wrong for the sake of happiness? I think it’s because we do what makes us feel good. If you have a choice between being punched in the lip or kissed on the lips, which would you pick? The kiss, right?  In 1 Kings 20, there was a prophet who commanded a man to strike him. When the guy refused, the prophet cursed him for not obeying a direct command for the sake of the Kingdom of God (then a lion killed the guy the minute he left the prophet's presence. The Prophet then asked another man to strike him, and the guy hit him so hard it wounded the prophet). I’m sure he didn’t want to be struck in the first place, but it was for the sake of glorifying and obeying God that such was required.

Here’s an off-thought: you’ve babysat a child before, right?  Or for those of you who have kids (small through teen): what do you do when they misbehave? You put them into time-out, spank their bottoms, scold them, discipline, take something away, ground them, etc., right? But they're not happy anymore, are they? So then with children & youth, it’s not about “being happy”, but about correcting their behavior, right? So why then is it that when adults do something "wrong", we (especially as Christians) give an opinion, let it go, and often even decide to be happy for them ourselves, “because they're happy"? In other words, why do we discipline children & youth when they misbehave, but ignore adults when they misbehave, especially when it’s sin? (Read 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 for Paul’s response to this)

As Christians, we are called by God Himself to live a holy life…different from others in the world. Jesus said that to be His disciple, we must first deny ourselves. Doing so often means to deny what we would normally do to make ourselves “happy”, and to instead do what would Glorify God (and this will in turn increase our JOY). In other words, shed our selfishness and put on the selflessness that Jesus demonstrated on the cross.

I’ve often said, “Your feelings will betray you.” Why? Because how we feel will often help decide our next action. In fact, Satan often uses our feelings to lure us into sin, for temptation is a “feeling” of desire, and our feelings towards the desire often decide on how we will respond to it. If we “feel” that it will be OK (even if it’s really not), then we’ll do it. Therefore, I say that we must never…NEVER decide on an action based on our feelings…NEVER…until we’ve tested the spirit from which it came.  And we can do this by asking ourselves, “How will this affect me”, “How will this affect others”, and “Will this glorify God and please Him, or will it go against God and just please me?”