A Strategy for Joy-filled Living

You may have noticed that in this chapter and in the previous three we’ve been talking a lot about life change. God does want to transform us to become more like his Son. But let’s not make the mistake of pursuing life change in place of pursuing Jesus Christ. Our focus must be on Jesus Christ. Our goal is deeper relationship with him. Life change is what results from our relationship with him. As we draw near to him, we cannot remain unchanged! (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Many of us have confused our relationship with Christ with lifestyle by a moral or biblical code. The older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) made this mistake. He thought his father merely wanted obedience, when his father really wanted his love. (His love would’ve resulted in his obedience too.)

If you’ve had children you may have experienced the disappointment of a child reluctantly obeying your wishes—not out of love—but out of fear of consequences. That’s not how we want our children to live! We want them to obey us out of love, knowing that we have their good in mind. God is the same way. He doesn’t want reluctant or fearful obedience. He wants our trust and love resulting in a joyful obedience.

Others of us have replaced knowing God (relationally) with knowing about God. We’ve measured our maturity by our Bible knowledge. In John 5, Jesus addressed a group of people who had this tendency. He openly acknowledged that they “diligently studied the Scriptures.” But he exposed their error saying, “You have never heard [my Father’s] voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you.” (John 5:37-39) Instead we must come to the Scriptures with a longing to meet with God and know him better.

So as we look at these three actions of the strategy for a joy-filled life (Capture, Choose and Cultivate) focus on moving closer to God. Draw near to him. Press into him. Let us all agree with the Apostle Paul when he said, “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 and become one with him.” (Philippians 3:8-9 NLT)

©2009 Rob Fischer