You Can Be Filled…With Everlasting Happiness!
Updated: 18 hours ago
Today's Message of
From
Discovering a BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES
(Stories of Real People, Real Events, Real Places)
Because they provide
Spiritual FOOD FOR THOUGHT
That Encourages Men and Women to find PEACE and HOPE
By entering a transformational relationship
with Jesus Christ
(John 10:10; 14:1-6; Galatians 3:26-29)
You Can Be Filled…With Everlasting Happiness!
To hear this Song, Please click on the link below:
WELCOME Friends to Discovering A BETTER LIFE!
Every day, we look forward to sharing these messages with you. Each message we present is an invitation for YOU to review YOUR life, assess YOUR spiritual direction, and consider making a firm decision to place YOUR faith in Jesus as YOUR Saviour and to commit YOUR life to follow Him.
Friend, we sincerely hope you will allow the Discovering A BETTER LIFE team to assist YOU in YOUR spiritual life, in any way we can. -- Faith in Jesus Christ, is a decision and the beginning of a process. Our sincere hope is that our daily Discovering A BETTER LIFE messages will make a small contribution to YOUR faith.
Today, we’d like to share with you, that with
God’s help,
YOU Can Be Filled…With Everlasting Happiness!
Friend, I once knew a farmer who built a substantial reservoir to provide water for his livestock. However, no matter how much it rained, his reservoir never filled up. -- Perhaps some of you ask, “Why would that be so?” Well, there’s a simple answer to that question. It was because the land beneath the reservoir he had built was laced with limestone caves. Subsequently, the water leaked into these caverns as quickly as it entered the reservoir. And no matter how much it rained, all the farmer had left was a muddy bog.
Thousands of years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato, pointed out that each of US is like a leaky vessel. He said this because he observed that no matter how much we human beings fill ourselves, we never quite get full. We never achieve lasting satisfaction or happiness. For instance, if we are given $100, we wish we had $200. If we earn $25,000, we wish we could earn $50,000. If our house has three bedrooms, we wish it had four. Somehow, it seems that we humans, by nature, never stay satisfied. Our buckets never get full, and our reservoirs are always leaking!
Well, although these observations of Plato were made centuries ago, his discovery is still a big secret. Because most of us seem to go about our lives feeling more or less empty, or restless, or bored, or dissatisfied. But we don’t know why! From my observation, I believe too many people spend their days HOPING that the large Department Stores, Supermarkets, or Film Makers will permanently “FILL” us with the right product, pleasure, or entertainment.
Sadly, day after day, too many people live in denial. Sometimes we can forget our UNHAPPINESS, but it always seems to find us again, because we are leaky vessels, and there is NOTHING on this earth that will permanently “FILL” us!
On rare occasions, however, we can remove our masks and tell the truth about our emptiness. Some years ago, there was a popular song which was titled: “Show Me the Way.” The lyrics of this song powerfully express the deep religious longing that even the most secular people can feel at times. This song was sung by a group called Styx. And this is what they sang:
“Every night I say a prayer
In the hope that there’s a heaven
But every day I’m more confused
As the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and the legends
I knew as a child,
Have fallen to idols of clay
And I feel this empty place inside,
So afraid I’ve lost my faith.”
Then the singer pleads:
“Show me the way.
Take me tonight to the river and wash
My illusions away
Please show me the way.”
Friend, each of us can find the way to heaven and eternal life! And the solution is close at hand, but only if we can muster the courage to admit our failure to do it on our own, and only if we are willing to search deeply.
However, it does require us to take a detour from the road most of us are travelling. The reason for me saying this is that the One in whose image we have been created is a God of surprises, and he calls upon us to make a surprising choice in order to receive our ultimate fulfilment, everlasting happiness, and eternal life in His heavenly kingdom.
Vestal Goodman, Dottie Rambo –
“The Holy Hills of Heaven Call Me” [Live]
To hear this Song, Please click on the link below:
Friend, you and I must stop trying so hard to achieve everlasting happiness, and eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom on our merit. However, since most people insist on being captains of their destiny, what I’m proposing might seem odd. You see most people run huge pipelines to their “reservoir” of dreams, hoping to fill it with products, pleasure and power. However, the JOY we’re all longing for, sometimes just seems too elusive to find.
The Grand Canyons of our souls can never be filled with money, or sex, or prestige, or power! Paradoxically, the answer to our HAPPINESS lies in learning to slow down, being quiet and cultivating a contemplative state of mind. Sadly, when you and I are desperately trying to fill up our lives with pleasure or meaning in our strength, our every exertion keeps us from the Living God who is the only One able to fill our lives with everlasting JOY and real FULFILLMENT.
In Psalm 46:10, we are reminded how important it is to take time each day to “be silent and exalt God,” which in essence requires us to make an effort to shut out the noisy lies and sensational dramas with which the media assaults our minds daily. It means shutting down the “internal chatter” in our hearts – the anger, the worry, and the endless plotting of the material world which tempts us daily. – It also means “forgetting” ourselves.
Friend, the second thing we need to do to experience Everlasting Happiness, is to implicitly TRUST God in whose Image we have been made. This is not always easy for us as human beings. Because, in our minds, there’s an element of risk – in daring to believe that only the Maker of the vessel knows how to repair us and make us complete. However, we must TRUST that God is personal, loving, and deeply concerned about our cracks and flaws.
The Scriptures reveal to us that God feels great sorrow when we are in distress. And that He stands next to us and knows our words before we speak them; He reads our thoughts from far away; He knows every detail of our conduct, just as the Psalmist proclaims in the 139th Psalm, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.” -- Amazingly, God knows all about our broken dreams and bitter disappointments! Therefore, to answer the call of God, simply means that we must place our TRUST in Him.
However, it will take Courage and Faith, because we live among so many people in denial, who want us to stay a little longer and be miserable with them. Sometimes we’re persuaded to “try making more money”, or “Try another fix, or another affair, or another job”. – However, this is the moment of truth friends! If we can admit that we are the leaky, fractured vessel unable to find JOY on our own, then we are ready for some exciting changes.
But this will involve an exercise of FAITH on our part. And in FAITH we will need to say, “Change my heart, O God. Mould me and make me”.
“Change My Heart, O God”
To hear this Song, Please click on the link below:
Friend, the submission to God, as expressed in the song we’ve just listened to is sometimes painful, but it’s always beautiful. And the transformation is so complete, that the Bible compares it to a new birth. You see, submission to God, which is so wonderfully completed through Faith in Jesus, Repentance of our sins, and Baptism into Christ leads us to God’s greatest miracle, which is a new YOU, where YOU will be joined together with people who know that it is GOD’s relentless love which provides us with everlasting JOY and real FULFILLMENT.
Friend, as I bring today’s message to a conclusion, I urge YOU to remember that our God is a generous God and He has wonderful plans for YOU and ME in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who came from heaven to earth in order to make known God’s relentless love for YOU and ME. -- Let me ask YOU this question: WOULD YOU BE WILLING TODAY, TO SURRENDER TO GOD’S INCREDIBLE LOVE? – I sincerely hope you will!
If you would like help in obtaining a fresh look at God’s grace, we invite you to write to Discovering A BETTER LIFE and ask for our FREE booklets titled “How to find God” and “Who is this Jesus?” You will receive your copies by return mail.
Our address is: Discovering A BETTER LIFE,
Unit 49/2 Plantation Street, Menora, Western Australia 6050
You may also telephone your request on: 0456 58 006
Or Email us at: abl-alb@omninet.net.au
Until our next Message of Encouragement and Hope,
May God bless you with His Love and Peace.
“Something Beautiful”
To hear this Song, Please click on the link below:
“Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness.
They think it consists in having and getting.....
On the contrary, it consists in giving and in serving....”
(Henry Drummond)
Discovering A BETTER LIFE
HELPING PEOPLE FIND HOPE
Commentaires