Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk.
You are welcome to share this and include in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
ROMANS 5:1-8
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
DEVOTIONAL
I have a number of books on my shelf addressing the topic of happiness. In his Ethics, Aristotle accepts that the greatest good for human beings is eudemonia. This Greek word has been translated variously as flourishing or happiness. Now I would say that it is uncontroversial to claim that happiness is something we all seek. However, our understanding of happiness may well be shaped more by contemporary psychology than by Aristotle or the Bible. For both Aristotle and Paul happiness or flourishing is to be understood within the context of character development and belonging to a certain kind of community. The link between happiness and character is often forgotten in contemporary writings where happiness tends to be reduced to ensuring that the right endorphins are firing in the individual’s brain.
In one of the more interesting books I have read on the topic entitled Against Happiness the author argues that the emphasis on individual happiness is in fact robbing us of the potential for growth and development. The idea here is that it is often when we experience melancholy that we learn many of life’s lessons and develop important character traits like resilience, compassion, empathy and perseverance. It has to be said that the contemporary focus on happiness is somewhat of an anomaly in history. In Christianity as in other religious traditions it is generally accepted that our life in the world is marked by suffering or what is sometimes referred to as the vale of tears. In our reading Paul does not shy away from acknowledging this hard truth. Being a Christian does not resolve for us the problem of suffering. There is no get out of jail free card on offer. Further, joy and hope are not dependent on our personal happiness. Instead, Paul calls us to glory in our sufferings. Why? Because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Paul then goes on to remind us why we are able to accept this hard truth. It is because “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”.
By all means we should work for justice for all, that we work towards happiness and flourishing for all. But we must not mistake the object of our future hope, fullness of life in God, with our life lived and experienced in the interim. As I used to say to my girls as they were growing up and from time to time expressed frustration that things were not fair. My darlings, life is not fair. Acceptance of this hard truth is a step along the way to real growth in character and experiencing the true happiness to be found only in Christ.
Dean Smith, Dean of Students
Nazarene Theological College
40 Woodlands Drive
Thornlands QLD 4164
Email: [email protected]
Ph: 61 7 3206 4177
Fax: 61 7 3206 0081
www.ntc.edu.au