21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (6 page)

When Jesus stated in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” (KJV), He was talking to people who were struggling while trying to live under the law, but who were always failing. There is nothing wrong with any of the rituals I have listed, and they are in fact good Christian disciplines. But if we view them as something we
have to
do to gain God’s approval, rather than something we
want to
do because we love Him, they minister death to us instead of life. They become a burden rather than a joy. The Word teaches us that the law kills, but the Spirit makes alive (2 Corinthians 3:6).

Jesus had much to say about religion, and none of it was good. Why? Because religion in His day was, and often still is, man’s idea of what God expects. Religion is man trying to reach God through his own good works. The Christian faith teaches that God has reached down to man through Jesus Christ. By placing our faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the benefits from the work He has done for us. His work, not our own works of religion, not following rules and regulations man prescribes, justifies us and makes us right with God, as these Scriptures confirm:

• For no person will be justified (made righteous, acquitted, and judged acceptable) in His sight by observing the works prescribed by the Law. (Romans 3:20)

• [All] are justified
and
made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His un-merited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24)

Many might describe a Christian as “someone who goes to church.” This, of course, is not a Christian. A Christian may go to church, but one does not
become
a Christian through church attendance alone. I can sit in my garage all day, and that won’t make me become a car. A Christian is someone who has had his heart changed by faith in Jesus Christ. He has had a change in his moral nature (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). He is not just someone who has agreed to follow certain rules and regulations and observe certain days as holy.

Religion is filled with rules and regulations one must follow to be part of a certain religious group. Christianity, however, is agreeing to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit entirely. We must remember that God has invited us into personal relationship and intimacy with Him through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His invitation is not to be in a religious organization, where we strive to follow rules in order to gain acceptance and right standing with Him.

Religious rules and regulations steal peace and joy. They rob us of what Jesus died to give us. Through religion we become works oriented, rather than faith oriented. We pray because we are
supposed
to, rather than because we
want
to. We study the Bible because we are obligated; we have made it a rule. We have been taught that we
should,
so we do because we are
afraid not to.
We may do good works, but our motive is wrong if we do them to gain acceptance from God, rather than to reach out to someone in love because of what Christ has done for us. Religion causes us to live under the tyranny of the “shoulds” and “oughts.”

Religion is the topic of discussion in John 9. The religious leaders were upset because Jesus had healed a blind man on the Sabbath. You see, with religious people, everything must be on the right day and done in the right way—their way. The results don’t really matter as long as you follow their rules. If you don’t follow the rules, they will not validate you.

The Pharisees interrogated the blind man over and over to learn exactly how Jesus did this work that gave him sight. They felt that Jesus must be a common sinner because He worked on a holy day.

Finally the man said, “I don’t know all the answers to your questions. All I know is I was blind, and now I see.” Then he asked the religious leaders if they wanted to be Jesus’ disciples, at which point they became enraged and stormed at him (see John 9:27–28).

The Bible says the religious leaders sneered and jeered at the man’s question. Isn’t it a shame they could not rejoice with him? But then again, rejoicing with others is not what those types of people do. Enjoyment is foreign to them, and they want to make sure nobody else enjoys himself or herself either. Righteousness, peace, and joy are not part of their religious system. The man whom Jesus had healed had a very simple answer: “I was blind, and now I see.” God intends Christianity to be simple, but religion and its systems can become very complicated and confusing.

I know many people who have struggled a lifetime to follow all the rules, and they still feel like failures. This is not God’s will for His children. Again, Jesus said that He came that we might have
and enjoy
our lives (see John 10:10).

You might ask, “Doesn’t God want us to be holy? Doesn’t He want us to do good things?” The answer is yes, a thousand times yes. But we don’t
accomplish
holiness through our good works. Christ Himself imputes holiness to us as a gift from God. We receive holiness by faith, not by good works. First Thessalonians 5:23 states, “And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through.” It is God Himself who will do it, we don’t do it, and it is impossible for man to sanctify or make himself holy.

Jesus seriously chastised the religious leaders—the scribes and Pharisees—of His day. In Matthew 23, He called them “pretenders” and hypocrites because they demanded that others do things they were not doing themselves. He said they were play actors. They did good works, but their hearts were filled with wicked things. They paid their tithes and followed other rules, such as fasting, but they did not treat people justly and fairly. Jesus said they tied up heavy loads for others to carry but would not help bear the burden.

Like many others trying their best to serve God, I have experienced judgment and criticism from various people. Most of those people have been “religious” folks who actually don’t know me at all. They assume and presume and accuse, but they never come to me in a loving manner to give me an opportunity to share anything about my life with them. They don’t like anyone who does not do things “their way.”

They are faultfinders who magnify every flaw they can find but never bother to examine or even mention any of the good fruit that has come from my ministry over the years. In Matthew 7:17–20, Jesus explained that we will know people by their fruit. He did not say, “Examine people, and if you find any fault at all, broadcast it to everyone you know, hoping to ruin their reputations.” Faultfinders are angry with anyone who has prospered or succeeded. Their “ministry” becomes criticizing the ministry of others. This is a sad state of affairs. Jesus has called us to love Him and to love one another, not to be faultfinders in the body of Christ.

People like this have deeply hurt me in the past, as they have many others, but I must remember that even Jesus Himself was attacked by the religious people of His day. Satan attacks, hoping to get people to quit and give up. He wants to drain us and wear us out, but God gives us endurance and makes strong in Him.

Satan is the author of this legalistic system that sucks the life out of people. The Holy Spirit ministers life to people. The Holy Spirit adds to us, Satan steals from us. In John 10, Jesus was making reference to the scene regarding the man who had been born blind when He said, “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” (v. 10). Remember that Satan is a liar, a thief, and a legalist. Don’t be deceived by him any longer—know your enemy!

S
ATAN
I
S A
T
ROUBLEMAKER

The word
trouble
in
Webster’s II New College Dictionary
is defined in part as: “distress, affliction, danger or need; malfunction, to stir up or agitate; to inconvenience or bother.” Needless to say, we all experience these things on a rotating basis.

When people accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and begin to study His Word, when they make progress in any way, Satan launches an all-out attack against them. He wants to entangle people in trouble so they will focus on the wrong things. He wants us to focus on things we cannot do anything about, rather than growing in God.

Mark 4 illustrates what is called the parable of the sower. It tells us of four types of ground onto which someone sows seed. In this parable the seed is the Word of God, and the ground is the heart conditions of mankind. Verse 15 says, “The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them.”

Verse 17 says that some have the Word sown in their hearts, but “they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away.”

Verse 19 says, “Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless.”

We can see from these verses that Satan works diligently to cause trouble and bring distractions.

The Word teaches that Satan will attack us for a season, and if we pass all of our tests, if we endure the testing and remain firm in our faith, he goes away for a while and waits for another time to attack. Luke 4:13 confirms his tactics: “And when the devil had ended every [the complete cycle of] temptation, he [temporarily] left Him [that is, stood off from Him] until another more opportune and favorable time.”

This verse refers to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Even Jesus Himself was not immune to Satan’s being a troublemaker. The Bible never promises us a trouble-free life, but we do need to know who the source of our trouble is. It is Satan!

Hold your peace. Satan may be a troublemaker, but Jesus is your Trouble Solver. He is your Deliverer, your Hiding Place. These times of testing, too, shall pass.

Satan tries to cause trouble in virtually every area of our lives. He does not attack every area at one time, but eventually he gets to everything. He will bring inconvenience of every kind, and it seems the wrong thing never happens at the right time. Problems never come when we are ready to deal with them.

He may attack people in their finances, relationships, physical health, mind, emotions, job, neighborhood, or projects. The apostle Paul said there were times when he was abased and times when he abounded (see Philippians 4:12). In other words, he experienced good times and hard times, as we all do.

We recently invited four different men from four different parts of the country to be guests on our television show. These men were all involved in the restoration of morality in America. They were all praying for revival. Dave and I are also very interested in this, and we wanted to impact the nation with some special programming along these lines.

Two of the four men had major delays with their flights. One had a flight entirely cancelled and was very late, and another sat on the runway for two and a half hours without any real explanation except that it was raining. What was Satan trying to do? He didn’t want them to come at all, but if they were going to come, he wanted them to be upset when they arrived.

Two out of four of our guests having this type of trouble is more than coincidence. Satan sets us up to get us upset! He wants to steal our peace because our power is connected to it. I have learned that my ministry does not have much effect if I am not ministering from a heart of peace, so I strive to stay in peace at all times. Satan tries to steal my peace, and with God’s help, I try to keep it.

We can trust God not to allow more to come on us than what we can bear (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). Paul also said that during all those times, he had learned to be content (satisfied to the point where he was not disquieted or disturbed.) It sounds to me as if he always kept his peace, no matter what was going on in his life.

This is an example we should seek to follow. Paul actually told the believers to follow him as he followed Christ. He believed he was doing what Christ would do. Jesus is “the Way.” When we follow Him, we always end up enjoying a great victory.

Nobody likes trouble, yet we all have it. Everybody gets upset about it, and it never does any good. It is time for change! Don’t go around and around the same mountains all of your life—learn a different approach.

I spent years getting upset every time trouble came, and Satan prized my response. I was following his lead, not the leading of the Holy Spirit. My response gave Satan power over me. The outer storms of life have no real power over us unless we let them rage on the inside of us. We cannot always do something about how life turns out, but we can do something about our inner responses.

I know you have probably heard the statement, “Attitude determines altitude,” and it is very true. A good attitude will take you farther in life than most other things. I had a bad beginning in life; Satan had brought trouble for me as long as I could remember, and I had a bad attitude. I was filled with self-pity, bitterness, and resentment. I was jealous of those who had experienced an easier life than I had.

Jesus taught me to have a good attitude. He said I could not be pitiful and powerful at the same time, and He let me know that I had to choose which path I would take. By the grace of God and the help of the Holy Spirit, I made the right choice, and although it has been a long journey, it has been worth it.

Remember that peace must be aggressively pursued. I am encouraging you to adopt a new attitude toward trouble. Remember that what the enemy means for harm, God intends for good, and all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (see Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28).