Did Jesus die to make me happy?

Please take a quick moment to watch this video....

     "That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard!" But is it?  There is something about that message that seems appealing.  Something that makes us feel good.  It's the half truth that God cares about our pleasure, that God wants to make us happy.
     Every human wants to feel accepted.  We all long for love and the security of knowing that someone cares for us.  Through it's appeasing illusions, the world has tried to offer people something that will satisfy or dull this longing.  Money, relationships and friendships, facebook status, entertainment, these may pacify the need momentarily but will not solve it eternally.
     The church has come to see that Christ is the answer to the need that every human heart has.  Jesus Christ is the living water that if we drink from, we will never thirst again. However, they have used misguided methods to draw in the masses. Methods that focus on man's hunger for satisfaction rather that their need for salvation.
     God has become a God who we can feel comfortable with.  The motive for being a Christian has ceased from serving the Lord and has evolved into making me feel happy.  For many, God has become a cosmic boyfriend who always loves us no matter what, the genie in the sky who will give us whatever we want or the grandpa figure that they run to when life gets tough.  Many have followed God but soon become disappointing with Him when being a Christian starts to get tough or "He doesn't give me what I want".  We have reduced God to someone who exists to serve us rather than The King of kings and Lord of lords that is deserving of our reverence and service.  The gospel and the Christian life has become man centered rather that God exalting and I fear we have been caught in it's trap.

     Instead of having a right view of God, we have exalted ourselves by thinking that God exists for our pleasure, to make us happy.  The point of God's existence has become for us to have 'our best life now'.  But can this view be found in scripture? 


The Purpose of the Gospel and Salvation:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
Ephesians 2:4-7
     Salvation is not about us.  We are simply the recipients of amazing grace lavished on us by the God who looks upon wretches like you and me and chooses to demonstrate His righteousness (Romans 3:25-26) by saving us.  He saves us for His own glory! Even the fruit that we bear in our lives is to draw praise to Him alone, as we see in Philippians 1:11:

"...filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
     God has not saved us to make us happy but to demonstrate His love through His mercy.  Yes, we have reason to rejoice! We have been adopted as the children of God, but that wasn't the main purpose to God's 'rescue mission'.  The main purpose was to make His glory great.  Now our lives in Christ are to be lived for the same purpose, to glorify God.

     At this point I would like to pose a question to you from John Piper:

      “Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?”
   - John Piper    
 
    God's love was manifested on the cross in that Christ became our substitution.  He died in our place, bearing our burden for sin  in order that He might appease the wrath of God.  Now, we are no longer slaves to sin but bond servants of Christ, living in the enabling power of His life and death to live for Him. Yes, God loves us but His love is seen for us in that He has saved us from ourselves.  We are called to stop living for self and to start living for Christ.
    If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

Have You Counted The Cost?
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33)

     If God chose for us a bumpy road laden with trails and pain, would we still follow Him?  Would we still consider Him worthy of our life even though He slay us?  Yes, God desires to give good gifts to His children, but have we come to love the gift more than the Giver?  When the gifts are gone will we still follow Him because in so doing you will have the gained the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ.  
    The pain, the persecution, the daily death that comes from following Christ is worth it all because it draws us closer to Him. 
 
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ... Philippians 3:8
 
When we loose the things of this temporary life, we come to gain Christ.

     So does God really care about our happiness?  In a sense, yes, but it's not the happiness this world seeks after.  It's the happiness, the JOY that comes from Christ.  It is hard to know Christ when we know and love self so much more.  That is why God has called us to walk the narrow road, the road that keeps us close to our Savior.  This path might not be popular but it is the path on which God chooses to work all things together for our eternal good and His glory.  For God alone we must live our lives, not because we are worth anything but because He is worthy of everything.