Getting Job-ed
You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy;
at your right hand are eternal pleasures. Psalm 16:11 CSB
Goodness, how easy it could be to just blow over this verse in the Bible just because it sounds so churchy it could be white noise! Think of the implications: in God’s presence, there is infinite joy and pleasures forever! A joy that is infinitely more than anything or anyone else could provide. Pleasures that last forever, not just a few minutes, or even years. Our joy is so extremely limited now, we can only enjoy and experience something to a certain point and then we quickly grow unsatisfied again, and then off to the next thing/experience to bring us joy. Pleasures we know last for a time, then we move on to wanting something else, something more. The thing is, Christianity often tries to suppress that desire in us to want to be infinitely joyful and have pleasure forever, however, is that what God is calling us to do?
God is calling us to not suppress our drive to be abundantly joyful and have pleasures forever but to rather have it in the One that can rightfully fulfill that desire. God is calling us to something more- calling us to Himself. We tend to boil Christianity down to a few “do’s” and “don’t” that we forget that this is largely about being satisfied with something that is of infinite worth.
Are you lacking something?
Look at the verbiage of Romans 3:23, 1:22-23 CSB and Greek Interlinear:
For all have sinned and lack (fall short) the glory of God… Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images…
The issue here is not that we just did something bad by breaking one of the “do’s” or “don’t” and then God punished us. The point here is that we had something beautiful in our hands and we exchanged it for anything and everything else. We had the most satisfying Being in the universe and we exchanged Him for garbage. This was our issue in the garden of Eden (Genesis 1-3), this is our issue today.
Conclusion
No doubt, following Jesus does mean giving up and sacrificing. But to what end? Just to feel more sad and depressed in the long run? No! It’s in pursuing a deeper, eternal joy. This will be a painful joy also (2 Corinthians 6:10), but and infinite joy and with pleasures forever! I encourage you to take a look at the resources from DesiringGod.org, this has been such a huge asset to me in my walk with Christ.
-Austin
