Wednesday, August 21, 2024
The Way of Obedience
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. (Philippians 3:7 NLT)
When people think about the way of following Jesus Christ, the way of obedience, many of them foresee misery and restrictions. Most nonbelievers view the Christian life as one of gloom and, worst of all, boredom.
They tend to see Christianity as a list of all the things they shouldn’t do: drinking, smoking, partying, and sex outside of marriage. In a nutshell, they think the life of a Christian is no fun.
Before I was a Christian, I felt that way. I thought Christians lived the most boring lives on earth, always going to church and Bible studies and prayer meetings. It sounded about as appealing as having liver for dinner.
But a person’s priorities change when they put their faith in Christ. And they find that as a Christian the opposite is really true. Christians have found that the holy way—the godly way, the way of obedience—is, in reality, the happy way.
We see this illustrated in the parable of the Prodigal Son, a story about a young man who left his father’s house trying to find happiness, attempting to gain fulfillment from the things he thought would make him happy.
Based on his actions, apparently he thought that nice clothes, fine food, and big parties would make him happy. Yet it’s noteworthy that when he came back to his father’s house, he realized that everything he was looking for in life was there all along.
When the Prodigal Son finally returned, what did the father do? He said, “Bring the finest robe” and “We must celebrate with a feast” (Luke 15:22, 23). He gave his son fine clothes and fine food.
Everything that the young man wanted in life could be found in a relationship with his father.
Often as Christians we talk about what we gave up to follow Jesus Christ. But what did we really give up? For some, it’s addiction to drugs or alcohol. For most, it’s guilt, emptiness, and loneliness. And of course, there’s that ever-present fear of death.
Thus, we could agree with the words of the apostle Paul, who said, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8 NLT).
Happiness is always connected to holiness. But happiness is not something that we should seek outright. Rather, we find happiness as a result of seeking holiness. That is why, even when our Declaration of Independence includes the phrase “the pursuit of Happiness,” pursuing happiness—in and of itself—is generally a futile search.
Philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote, “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” And another wrote, “There are two sources of unhappiness in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.”
We find that to be true as well. Everything we need in life to be happy, everything we need to be fulfilled, is found in a relationship with God, our heavenly Father.
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