The Pursuit of Happiness

Scripture

My soul is bereft {deprived of} of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.

~Lamentations 3:17, ESV

Quote

Surely what everyone wants, absolutely everyone without exception is happiness.

~Augustine {My Confessions p.198}

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. These words come from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson was the author or at least the editor in chief. Where did Jefferson and his committee come up with these ideas. They relied heavily on John Locke who believed in three natural or fundamental rights: Locke said, these rights are “life, liberty, and property.” Locke believed that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of mankind. To serve that purpose, he reasoned, individuals have both a right and a duty to preserve their own lives. He also believed that government is a necessary evil and the less government you have, the happier you will be. So, Jefferson got life and liberty from Locke; where did he get the idea about happiness? We believe that the pursuit of happiness also came from Locke; Jefferson just restated the third of the three natural {God given} laws. Locke’s three laws cover murder, slavery and theft. No man or government has a right to take your life {murder}, your freedom or your property. We can all assume that the deprivation of these rights will leave a person in an unhappy state. Understand that capital punishment is not murder. The State does have a biblical right to execute violent criminals.

Augustine believed that every human walking the planet has a desire to pursue happiness. What do you think? If you think he is right, and I do, where did this desire come from and why is it universal? It could not have come from memory because some folks have never been in a state of happiness. You cannot remember what it is like to be happy if you’ve never been happy. This innate desire to be happy is in every human being regardless of race, creed or national origin. How do we explain this phenomenon? Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. The only reasonable answer in my opinion is that God planted this desire for happiness in the human heart. There is enough gospel here to open the eyes of the blind. Wow! It is a God thing and cannot be explained any other way. Do you want to be happy? If you do, “delight yourself in Jesus and He will give you the desire of your heart.” It may not be immediate, but He will keep the promise.

Extra

Praise the LORD for another good weekend and for the opportunity to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I shared the gospel with the kids at VBS last Wednesday and I personally did not see any results. Then Josh told me on Thursday that one of the kids did make a decision. It made my day, actually my week. You never know.

Joyce Chaney was having a little better day yesterday, but she is not eating very much and very weak. Gregg had a good week according to reports. Keep praying for both.

Have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.

 

Extra/Extra

John Locke, like myself, believed that no government has the right to intrude in private affairs. They do not have the right to know how much you make. Our forefathers would have had a fit if income tax had been purposed. Locke wanted government to protect citizens from both invasion and crime and to secure the three basic rights for all citizens. Our founding fathers, and wisely so, added currency to the responsibilities of the federal government but everything else is intrusion. They do not need to control education, health, welfare and countless other federal bureaucracies. This is not their God ordained responsibility and this is why they have fouled them all up: they had no business going there in the first place and their only motive for doing so was power over people. The federalized education to force inauguration on the South, but that is not the only reason; they did it to force evolution in the classroom. I have no doubt that Alabama would do the right thing on integration, and we would make the right choice on evolution which would be to throw it out the window. It is not science: it is the foundational doctrine of secular humanism/communism. They can’t achieve their goal of a godless society without it. I heard this story in Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Goldwater convention. A group of college president went to Washington and explained how the department of education was making their lives difficult and wasting billions of dollars. These presidents had mapped out a plan that would make education more effective. This is the answer they got from the department of education: “Your purposed plan might save dollars, but it would not achieve our social agenda.” The department of education is a propaganda machine, and their goal is to brainwash our children.

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