The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

Is it possible that the Christian’s secret of a happy life is a both a major doctrine and a much neglected truth? It’s not only possible, it’s true.

Recently I heard a talk about the Christian’s adoption in Christ, and how this truth is often neglected. The speaker quoted J.I. Packer’s comments about this, and the truth of what he had to say resonated in me. It made me dust off my copy of Knowing God, and reread this section on adoption.

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God…

It is a strange fact that the truth of adoption has been little regarded in Christian history…Do I know my own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Saviour is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time that your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this is the Christian’s secret of –a happy life? –yes, certainly, but we have something both higher and profounder to say. This is the Christian’s secret of a Christian life, and of a God-honouring life: and these are the aspect of the situation that really matter. May this secret become fully yours, and fully mine. (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pp. 182, 207-208).

Later that week I was trying to encourage a brother who had experienced one crisis after another in recent days: the death of a loved one, major surgery and an unhappy living situation. I quoted Packer’s words. I am a child of God. God is my Father… This truth encouraged my friend just as it encouraged me. This simple confession of the wondrous truth of who we are in Christ was deeply encouraging and life changing.

It speaks to how the Savior has answered the greatest question of all, the question of identity. Who we are is ultimately not defined by our earthly parents, our race, our sins, others' opinions of us, our status, our social class or by the brands of products we use, regardless of what the world tries to tell us. Our Identity is not defined by our wealth or poverty, nor by our education or lack of it. It is not determined by our accomplishments or by our lack of them. Our identity is not so much a matter of who created us, but who has redeemed us. Christ has made us children of God. We are not so by birth or by nature but we are by so by redemption.

The philosopher Rene Descartes is credited with saying "I think, therefore I am." The Christian has much more solid ground for his or her being. I AM, therefore I am.

Packer and the friend who pointed me to him reminded me of this great truth, which I have used to “preach the Gospel to myself.” Packer inspired me to write my own confession. I use it in the morning when I get up, and in the evening when I go to bed to remind myself of who I am in Christ. May it be a help to you:

I Am His and He is Mine

God is my Father. He loves me and he chose me before he created the world. In love he sent Jesus Christ into the world to redeem me.

Jesus is my Savior. He died for my sins and rose triumphant from the grave. He purchased my forgiveness and made me right with the Father. He makes me free to not sin. He defeated the Devil, overcame the world and sent the Holy Spirit into the world for me.

The Holy Spirit is my Counselor and Comforter. He lives and reigns in me and gives me eternal abundant life. He leads me into all truth and enables me to follow Christ. He keeps me and sustains me.

I am not my own nor do I belong to this world. I belong to my gracious Father and to my faithful Savior. I am part of God’s family, the Church. Heaven is my home and my eternal destiny because I am a child of God. I was bought with a price.

The Meaning of Christmas

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11).

A wise pastor once said that our real question is not "Does God exist?" Deep down we all know the answer to this. The real questions are "Is he good?" and "Will he love me?" I might add we also need to know "Will he forgive me?" These are the deep heart questions of a fallen humanity. We long to know God, but our doubts and fears keep us from him.
The coming of Christ answers these questions. He came to us as a little child who would willingly become the Lamb of God for us. In Christ and in his cross, the three questions are answered with a resounding Yes!

Why Katrina?

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Why did Katrina happen?

In the New York Times piece, Peter Steinfels points out that highlighting the man-made dimension of the catastrophe only “pushes the [theological] issue back one notch.”

The question is not only how could God have allowed this disaster to happen. It is also, as he puts it, “How could God allow the negligence, racism, indifference or hard-heartedness that long gnawed at the social fabric of New Orleans?”

Of course this is what philosophers call the classic theonomy question. For non-believers, the question is: if God is all-powerful and all-good, how can evil exist?

For believers, the question is, why would our sovereign, loving God bring or at least permit such a great disaster?

If we start with false assumptions, how can we avoid drawing a false conclusion? That's why the question of unbelief gets us nowhere. We can’t presume to know the mind of God, but we can come to a better understanding if we consider the issue in light of God’s self-disclosure in the scriptures and in Jesus Christ.

First, we can dismiss the simplistic sophistry of unbelief. Simplistic unbelief asserts that the existence of evil proves that God, if he exists, must therefore be either unloving or not all powerful.

Such reasoning presupposes an attitude of unbelief toward God and the Bible says that anything that is not of faith is sin. Furthermore, such reasoning doesn’t take into account the realities of Satan, the blinding effects of indwelling sin or the reality of the kingdom of darkness. In addition, it fails to take into account God’s great redemptive plan in history. God is resolving the problem of evil progressively and incrementally in time, and this plan is only consummated in eternity.

In addition, the question of unbelief assumes God is accountable to fallen man. This posture is more absurd than a guilty criminal who struts into court imagining the judge owes him an explanation for the rising crime rate. He is in for a very rude awakeneing.

Even though we can’t give an answer that will satisfy everyone, there are some truths and principles that help in understanding how and why God might permit or bring natural disasters:

1. This world is futile by design.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21)

Have you ever noticed the futility of every day life? Its universality is so evident, we even have a name for it: Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Things in this world, whether great or small, go wrong, wear out, break down, decay. And God has designed this world to be that way. For the non-believer, it is sign to seek God. As Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and restless are our hearts until they rest in you.” That’s it. This world is futile by nature and by design, because we were made for God and our hearts can never be satisfied with anything else or anything less. For this reason we shouldn’t be surprised when things go wrong.

2. Adversity comes to us as a test.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands…He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. (Deuteronomy 8:2,15-16)

God sometimes sends adversity to test us and reveal what is in our hearts. He tests us not so that he may know, but that we may know. Sometimes it only through testing and failure that we come to know our sin and weakness, and are so positioned to be able to receive grace. We know neither the depth of our sin nor our helplessness to do anything about it, and it is only by God’s grace, which may come in the form of testing, that we realize our need for the Savior. Notice that God’s ultimate purpose is that it may go well for us in the end.

3. Natural disasters are pictures of the wrath to come.

9/11, the tsunami and Katrina are terrible disasters on a huge scale. I do not want to minimize the great suffering of those who have lost so much in this great disaster. I don’t pretend to be able to fathom what these victims have suffered.

But these disasters are nothing compared to the wrath to come. As alien as it may be to the post modern ear, the wrath of God is coming. We must not think that God is in anyway slack in bringing justice for sin. His justice is coming and it will be swift, sure and severe.

Katrina’s scale may have been vast, but the coming wrath will be universal. Losing all we have, loved ones and even life itself is bitter. But the coming judgment will signal eternal loss for those who are unprepared. Those who ignored the warnings and directions of the authorities paid a dear price.

It is a mercy that there are reminders to us that this world is not forever, and that some day we will all stand before an infinitely holy judge to give an account of how we have lived in relation to his law. It is designed to drive us to the gospel, the sure way of escape.

4. We must be careful to avoid thinking that the Katrina victims are worse sinners than we.

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)

Jesus addressed this tendency to think disaster victims are worse sinners that we are. His message is that the victims are not necessarily worse sinners than we. Some believers are linking the catastrophe to the casino gambling, strip joints, prostitution and murder rates in some affected areas. Of course these things are wrong, but many of those who were affected were not involved in such things, and many were children, poor, elderly and infirm. No. The message to all is repent, because all have sinned.

In conclusion, let’s not ask the questions of unbelief. It won’t give us any comfort or any understanding. Let’s ask the question of faith: What good purpose is our sovereign, loving God engineering for our ultimate good?

Is he reminding me that this world is passing away?

Is he testing me to humble me and reveal my heart so that I might come to him for grace?

Is he taking away lesser, temporal things –things I cannot keep so that I might gain the ultimate good that can never be taken away?