What’s difficult for me, and perhaps for you, is that though I am a new creature, though I am no longer a slave to loving dead things, I am still tempted to believe at times that they, and not God, will provide the joy I want. That obedience to God would kill, and not increase, my joy. But oh, the irrationality of temptation. If anything, obedience creates the opportunity for joy. 

Can a dead thing make you happy? Strange question, I know. In the moments when we’re vacillating between obeying God or disobeying God, though, the question might help identify who or what we are really believing in for joy.

For me, a lot of my life was wasted on the assumption that dead things were the best things. Dead things being another way to describe “sinful things” — all the ways we try to be happy when we’re dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). I intentionally and persistently chose behaviors and affections that dishonored God and neighbor, because I figured they had the ability to satisfy me.

And in some ways, they did. If the experience of a particular sin felt abominable to the sinner, they’d most likely replace it with another sin that felt good. Sinners don’t just sin because, being sinners, they have to. Sinners sin because they want to — they enjoy sinning (John 3:19). Being made in the image of God, we were made for joy, but not the shallow and temporary joy we feel when we sin.

When Your Life Ends

All of the dead things I loved — the things I said, thought, did, talked about, watched, walked in, listened to, promoted, and went to bed with — had a measure of satisfaction in them, but they were never enough. I was made for an infinite God, so how could some little idol make me whole or happy?

I don’t mean the kind of happiness that can fit inside of time. I mean a happiness that extends beyond the time we have here. That’s the caveat sin doesn’t want you to think about: After you’ve had your fill of everything but God, and you stand before the Holy One, will the smile that sinful delights gave you hold up under the wrath of God?

Read More