WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?
But has all of this come at a price that is too costly to us as individuals and us as a nation? I would say yes. What we have gained in material objects we have lost in things that cannot be measured. On an individual basis some of those things lost are love, joy, happiness and peace. As a society we have lost our moral compass along with our safety.
We in the United States have lived in a surreal life over the past fifteen years. We have had it really good compared to the rest of the world. Our life styles are the highest they have ever been, we get food from all over the world in varieties year ‘round that 30 years ago were unheard of. The technology is stupendous with DVD’s and computers and internet. Medical break throughs are keeping us alive longer and longer. But has all of this come at a price that is too costly to us as individuals and us as a nation? I would say yes. What we have gained in material objects we have lost in things that cannot be measured. On an individual basis some of those things lost are love, joy, happiness and peace. As a society we have lost our moral compass along with our safety.
The bottom line of corporate America has become our moral compass. It is “what sells” and how can we sell more of it. Sex sells and the market at the teenage level was saturated with it so now the marketers are marketing sex to the preteen age group. I see young girls who should be more concerned with playing games and music out wearing clothes that looks like something a prostitute would wear and reports of sex in elementary schools are starting to abound. Is that wrong? Yes! Sex was never intended to be used as social thing or a thing between friends. It was made to be something beautiful between a husband and a wife. The emotional cost to girls that have premarital sex is huge. Another effect of the sex culture that we live in is the extremely high rate of venereal disease,. upwards of fifteen million new cases per year. The rate of venereal disease is approximately one in four people and we have one of the highest rates of V.D. in the world.
Meth use is astronomical. In 2005 6.2% of high school seniors admitted to trying meth. More than 85% of the Meth comes from Mexico and California brought to you by the drug cartels. With this problem why do we keep the border to Mexico open? Look to the bottom line.
Our nation has allowed our manufacturing jobs to go overseas. It is under the pretense that it is good for America. We now depend on our enemies for the clothes that we wear and the electronics that make our lives more fun. Yes, I am talking about China. Yet, with the profit that China gets they are building bombers and missiles and armies. Along with the lost jobs and the high unemployment we are now getting poisoned by the low standards of the Chinese.
Oil is another issue. We are at war in Iraq because of oil. We could be energy independent but we aren’t because of the money involved. American men and women are dying to line the pockets of the American oil companies. Lives for oil.
Do you feel more secure and safe from foreign attack than you did fifteen years ago or ten years ago? How safe do you think you would feel if the government spent all of that money that they spent on the war in Iraq and spent it protecting our borders?
I could go on and on but I don’t want to. I want to show you that just because we have a lot of things it doesn’t mean that we will be better off. Quite to the contrary. So here is the rule: THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL BE HAPPY AND CONTENT IS WITH GOD THE FATHER OF JESUS CHRIST AND BY LIVING IN HIS WILL.
Matthew 6:19-33
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Proverbs 15:16 & 17
16 Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.
17 Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
James 4:1-4
4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Galatians 5:14-26
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
It doesn’t matter or what you have or don’t have in your life that makes you happy it is a matter of WHO you have in your life that will make you happy.
Isn’t it time to wake up to the reality that no matter how much stuff you have you are still lacking something? You will only find it in one place and that place is the Bible. Let go of your lusts for more because you will never have enough. Turn to God and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
Helen Lemmel