Jesus' Greatest Wish

I once had a hard conversation with someone about a wrong direction they were going in life. I was trying to tell the person what they were doing wasn’t right. This person turned to me and said—“I just think God would want me to be happy.”  We’ve all heard this response at one point or another… and while my knee-jerk reaction was to say that they were dead wrong and become argumentative… I gave some pause in the moment. Actually, that person wasn’t totally off-base for saying that. While we Christians may falsely think all pleasure is bad, since Christianity is colored by self-sacrifice, it’s not the case. God does want us to be happy. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Philippians 4.4.

God wants us to rejoice. Joy is a greater and more deep form of pleasure than happiness, but it’s often harder to obtain. Happiness and short-term pleasure may fade away with emotions, but joy is an undercurrent colored by our walk and worldview. Jesus wants nothing more than for us to have joy… but pure joy isn’t found anywhere else but in Christ.

He’s the author of joy. “Every good and perfect gift…” comes down from Heaven. Everything else is insufficient and counterfeit. Without Jesus and his conquering death, joy can’t be complete because we know it will end. In Christ, we are promised endless joy… not in this life but in the next. We can experience fleeting glimpses of this joy whenever we serve, laugh and live alongside each other here on earth. 

So, Jesus does want us to be happy…. rather, he wants us to have joy. He never wants for our joy to have to end. That’s why he gave his life for us on the cross. He wants to see us at the end of our pursuit of him and say… “Well done, my good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your master.” In order to have that kind of joy, eternal joy—we may have to make some sacrifices here on earth, sometimes small, sometimes large… but we have the assurance that it will absolutely be worth it in the end. Keep pressing on my friends. Walk the narrow way.