Greetings!
For
over a year I've been engaging numerous young people in conversations about
God, church, and simply life in general. In the process one major theme
has repeatedly come up: Many young people are struggling to experience
joy in God. As a result some gave given up on God. Many say
their friends are depressed and struggle to find meaning and motivation in
life. I know there are various reasons for this, but I send out this
week's "thought" because it offers at least one
possible remedy for the problem. It's found in John Piper's book,
"When I Don't Desire God," the sequel to his
best-selling book "Desiring God - The Confessions of a Christian
Hedonist." Both books are well-worth reading if you have not
yet done so. Enjoy.
"One
of the greatest witnesses I know of to the power of regular disciplined reading
of the Bible for the sake of love-producing joy is George Mueller (1805-1898),
who is famous for founding orphanages in Bristol, England, and for depending on
God for meeting all his needs. He asked the very question this book is
asking: "In what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul?
How shall we learn to enjoy God? How shall we obtain such an all-sufficient
soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go of the things of
this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer: This happiness is to
be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed
Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ."
That's
what we have seen so far in this book: Happiness in God comes from seeing God
revealed to us in the face of Jesus Christ through the Scriptures.
Mueller says, "In them...we become acquainted with the character of God.
Our eyes are divinely opened to see what a lovely Being God is! And this
good, gracious, loving, heavenly Father is ours -- our portion for time and for
eternity." Knowing God is the key to being happy in God.
"The more we know God," says Mueller, "the happier we are...
When we became a little acquainted with God... our true happiness... commenced;
and the more we become acquainted with him, the more happy we become.
What will make us exceedingly happy in heaven? It will be the fuller
knowledge of God." Therefore the most crucial means of fighting for
joy in God is to immerse oneself in the Scriptures where we see God in Christ
most clearly.
When
Mueller was seventy-one years old, he spoke to younger believers: "Now...I
would give a few hints to my younger fellow-believers as to the way in which to
keep up spiritual enjoyment. It is absolutely needful... we should read
regularly through the Scriptures, consecutively, and not just pick out here and
there a chapter. If we do, we remain spiritual dwarfs. I tell you so
affectionately. For the first four years after my conversion I made no
progress, because I neglected the Bible. But when I regularly read on through
the whole Bible with reference to my own heart and soul, I directly made
progress. The my peace and joy continued more and more. Now I have been doing
this for 47 years. I have read through the Bible about 100 times and I always
find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my peace and joy have increased more and
more.
He
would live and read his Bible for another twenty-one years. But he never
changed his strategy for satisfaction in God. When he was seventy-six, he wrote
the same thing he had learned for over fifty years: "I saw more clearly
than ever, that the first and primary business to attend to every day was, to
have my soul happy in the Lord." And the means stayed the same:
"I saw that the most important hing I had to do was to give myself to the
reading of the word of God, and to meditation upon it... What is the food of
the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and... not the simple
reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds like water
runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and
applying it to our hearts.""
In
a society that tries to get us to question the uniqueness, validity, authority
and divine origin of the Scriptures as being "God-breathed" revelation
(II Timothy 3:16-17), it is not unusual to see people laying aside the priority
of Bible reading, Scriptural meditation and Bible memorization. Yet they
do it to their own peril and the impoverishment of their own soul. They rob
themselves of the possibility of the peace and joy that come from knowing God.
For as both Mueller and Piper note: "This happiness is to
be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures...." "Happiness
in God comes from seeing God revealed to us in the face of Jesus Christ through
the Scriptures...." "Knowing God is the key to being happy in
God." "The more we know God the happier we are."
Did
not Jesus essentially tell us the same thing regarding the soul-feeding and
soul-satisfying function of God's Word in the Scriptures? Is He not
looking out for our greatest good -- our spiritual happiness, contentment and
satisfaction in God -- when He says: "Man does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God." And as we know, by the word "live" he is not simply
speaking of physical life as opposed to death, He's speaking of being alive inwardly,
or thriving spiritually, of finding our
soul-sustaining nourishment in the Scriptures.
With
prayers that you may seek to feast more earnestly and consistently upon the
Word that was given to sustain your happiness in God, Pastor Jeff
