Doesn’t God just want me to be happy?
That is a question a lot of people have wondered about and some have answered the question themselves, rather than looking to God for the answer. Think about that for a minute. We all have heard that God loves us, so it stands to reason that if God loves us, He would want us to be happy. The the things I do to be happy, it would seem that God would be alright with that right, as long as I am not hurting nobody, and after all God loves us and wants my happiness, right? Beloveth, it is true that God loves us. In fact, His love for us is so deep, it is so great, that our human minds cannot comprehend the depths of His love in its fullness. I am reminded of something God on the sixth day of Creation. God said,
6 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;.. Genesis 1:26
Of all the creatures God created, He chose only to make only one in His image, mankind. The crown of the Creation of God was man, and so even though you read where God said after each of the previous five days of Creation that what He had created was good, it was only after man was created on the sixth day of Creation that God said what He created,.. was indeed very good.
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day….( Genesis 1:31)
Here was man created in God’ image, who had God’ character. A chip off the old block as we use to say. Now God had created a human being who could love as God loves, and reason like God reasons, and fellowship with God like God wanted. Here was man who wanted to walk with God and one who understood who his Creator was as no other creature on the earth could. Here was a human being who could show mercy and do justly and speak truth and show compassion. Here was one who was made righteous in character because God is righteous. Like God they were created to live eternally with God. Here was one who could create things because God gave man that ability. Even to this day we see man creating things unimaginable years ago whether its cars, space ships, beautiful houses and buildings to whole cities. That ability to create came from God. More important than that ability to create though is the God like character that God created us in. God is holy. Throughout the Scriptures you will see God reminding man of that.
Then God says this to both Adam and Eve, in Genesis, chapter 1, verses 27-28,
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”…( Genesis 1:27-28)
Think about that a minute. God told them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”. God’s original intention for man was to fill the earth so that, don’t miss this,..everywhere God looked across the face of the whole earth, ..God would see an image of Himself because as we have seen,.. man was created in the image of God. That image of God in man got distorted and corrupted by Adam and Eve’s sin. When God created them, God gave them a free will because He wanted them to have the ability to choose to obey Him. When they chose to disobey God as Genesis chapter 3 tells us, they became infected with a deadly disease called sin. Once sin entered into their lives now, they were destined to die, and because God is a righteous God, He had to render a just judgement to them. What made Adam and Eve’s sin so deadly was it is passed along through them to everyone who has ever lived on this earth, with the exception of Jesus Christ. What Adam and Eve passed along to us is a sin nature. It is a desire to be independent from God and do what I want without God interfering till we need Him. It is a desire to have God conform to my way of thinking and living rather than me seeking God and desiring Him and His thoughts and ways. This sin nature so corrupted the God like character in all mankind that God had this to say about us all as He look from Heaven at us all,
2 God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.3 Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt;..There is none who does good,..No, not one..( Psalms 53:2-3)
Now you have man capable of stealing, lying, murder, deception, pride, arrogance, rebellion against anything God has to say about how he lives. What you have now is a complete distortion of the man who God created in His image. That’s what you see when you turn on the news every night and you wonder how could he, or she do something like that? Man,. who God created in His image,. has become so arrogant that he questions in his heart whether or not he is a sinner as God clearly said we all are. God’s desire beloveth is that you and I be restored to that original image of Himself so that you and I can live eternally with Him. It is that,. that God is working His personal plan out in your life and my life to bring about. God’s plan to do that involves people He puts in your life. It involves circumstances He allows to come about in your life, good and bad. It may involve dreams, decisions He suffers you to make right and wrong ones. All these things are designed to lead you to understand that you and I and everybody else are a distorted image of Him, which means we are all sinners. Listen, if you are successful in life that’s great, nothing wrong with that. If you are blessed to have achieved things in life that is awesome. God has nothing against success, or the happiness that comes with that if it’s done justly, but you can be happy and die and be eternally lost forever. That’s why your happiness is not God’s priority. God’s priority is that you become again like He originally designed you and I to be holy,..like Himself. God and only God, can do that in you I,.. and God does that through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. It is through believing in His Son Jesus Christ that God does that. See my post, “What does it really mean to believe in Jesus Christ” to get God’s view of what that really means, because it doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody. It is critically important to believe in Jesus Christ the way God said believe in Him. If you have not yet seen a need to turn to Jesus Christ you can know this for sure,. Everything God is doing is designed to help you see that need. He says, “today is the acceptable day”. When God says, “today” He is talking about the day you realize in your heart, God is speaking to me today through His word, or this circumstance. I call you beloveth because God calls you beloved, because He loves you. Tomorrow beloveth, is not promised to any of us.