A Pastor’s Perspective

“Gain Jesus = True Wealth and Happiness” by Mike Hill, pastor of Calvary Chapel Aberdeen        

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     They say money can buy happiness.  Howard Hughes was the richest man with the poorest soul devoid of happiness.  To the viewing public, his life was a dream come true existence with achievements that included Hollywood writer and director; he designed, built, and piloted a plane that set new speed records in aviation; and had more money than a person could possibly imagine—even by today’s standard.  Yet, the last decades of his earthly life were spent in a drug-induced state through his addictions to painkillers in a self-imposed, prison-like existence, obsessed with a fear of germs.  How amazingly accurate are Christ’s words when He declared, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).  Deceptively, we may feel smug and think, “Yeah, that verse definitely fits for ol’ billionaire Hughes” but stop short in considering its personal application.  One may protest, “Wait a minute!  How can that passage apply to me?  I haven’t gained the world like Howard Hughes!”  We may not be as rich or peculiar as he was, but whenever we attempt to satisfy our deep need for God with temporal earthly pleasures, we’ll come up spiritually bankrupt like Hughes.

     Within each one of us is a thirst for God—a thirst that only Jesus may satisfy.  If you try to satisfy that thirst with what the world offers, you’ll come up parched (John 4:13).  Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14 NKJV).  No, money cannot provide genuine happiness and richness of soul.  True spiritual wealth and joy is the by-product of a relationship with Jesus. I like how John Ortberg describes the source of joy in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted.  He writes, “We will not understand God until we understand this about him: ‘God is the happiest being in the universe.’  God also knows sorrow.  Jesus is remembered, among other things, as ‘a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.’  But the sorrow of God, like the anger of God, is his temporary response to a fallen world.  That sorrow will be banished forever from his heart on the day the world is set right.  Joy is God’s basic character.  Joy is his eternal destiny…As products of God’s creation, creatures made in his image, we are to reflect God’s fierce joy in life.” 

     God is not some cosmic kill-joy who wants to torment our souls and snuff out our happiness.  We do that to ourselves when we attempt to discover life and meaning in money, things, pleasure, or people apart from tapping into the joy of the Lord.  Ortberg explains, “The problem with people, according to Jesus, is not that we are too happy for God’s taste, but that we are not happy enough…After teaching on the need for obedience, Jesus told his friends that his aim was that they should be filled with joy, but not just any kind of joy:  ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.’”  Are you trying to gain the world like Howard Hughes or seeking to gain all that Jesus has for you?  Two approaches to life that lead to two different results.  Only one will produce true wealth and happiness.