Hi

Christian Success is a difficult thing to measure. To many Christians
it can mean many different concepts or things. I believe that in the
whole most Christians have been sold short on what living a fulfilled
life is.

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of
your heart.

Surely one of the Bibles, greatest promises, But what are the desires
of our hearts.

Pascal a 16th Century philosopher said,
"All men seek happiness," says Blaise Pascal. "This is without
exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to
this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it,
is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will
never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of
every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

At the heart of every man lies the desire to be happy. So man will
take the best route to happiness he can find. This critically is the
area in which the 'faith' preachers have sold Christians short.
People have picked up on a message of prosperity, wealth & health and
have sort after these things (albeit with good intentions) and have
missed the real focus of our lives God.

So are our desires wrong, C S Lewis said

'If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering
nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our
Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-
hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when
infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on
making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by
the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.'
(C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)

Here we have it spelt out, we are far too easily pleased. It not that
our desires are wrong, it's that they are not strong enough.
The 'faith' generation has sold its desires short, with half-hearted
promises of a temporal nature, when God offers us all his riches.

Look at Moses in Hebrews 11
24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the
son of Pharaoh's daughter,
25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than
to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures
in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

Like Moses we look to the reward of Christ not to earthly riches.

There is only one place to find true happiness, which is in God,
through Christ. Health, Wealth & prosperity are temporal thing that
will fade away, but Christ offers us all that he is in him.

But the really telling part of this is not only does this focus on
temporal things rob us of real happiness, it also robs us of the joy
of having a satisfied and healthy soul.

'The Worth and Excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object
of its love'. Henry Scougal - Life of God (1651 - 1678)

wherever, we focus the desire and object of our hearts becomes a
reflection of our inner man. Temporal things create a temporal worth,
but eternal things creates an everlasting, eternal joy and hope.

If the 'faith' generation and preachers have sold us short, the most
telling place is in the Excellency of our soul.

George Muller said this:

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great
and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to
have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about
was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the
Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my
inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth
before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might
seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave
myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being
happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my
inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right
spirit (Autobiography of George Mueller, compiled by Fred Bergen,
[London: J. Nisbet Co., 1906], pp. 152-154].

God wants us to be happy, he wants us to be fulfilled and joyful, but
this must come from having a desire to have all that we can in HIM.

A total reliance in Him, that must be our desire


Cheers