Julian J. Carter

To My Sisters...

I'd like to start this letter off by saying that I'm incredibly blessed by your love for Jesus.

"You are the only women in the world who possess a beauty that will never cease to be complimented (Prov. 31:10)."

You have the type of beauty that does NOT fade with age, for it is the type of beauty that flows from fearing Jehovah! The most expensive clothing you will ever wear will not be from a designer’s closet, but from the life purchased by “The Designer’s” Son – the clothing of righteousness. You are daughters of God and you inherit His features; you have His kindness, gentleness and beauty. There are no brothers in the world that should be more proud of their sisters than we are. Along with this, there should be no brothers in the world who are more jealous for their sisters than we are. When I say jealous, I don’t mean jealous of you because I am envious of wanting something that doesn’t belong to me. But rather, I am jealous for you in the way the Bible calls, godly jealously (2Cor. 11:2), in which I zealously want God to have what belongs to Him, your undivided devotion. Sisters, you live in a society where femininity is almost completely lost. Women are said to be “lady like” when they are sex hungry, materialistic, independent, deranged, and have serial relationships. And truthfully, most of what we know about womanhood, especially sex, sexuality and dating, has NOT come from good teachers but from this world. There is so much competing for your heart dear sister and it is my earnest desire to guard and protect you.

There is a real enemy against you, and one of his greatest tools is the simple phrase: “Everybody is doing it.” What the world needs is more godly women who take a stand on the bible. You will be most influential on everybody else when you are most unlike everybody else. My hope is to give you some brotherly guidance to help protect your purity and develop your growth in the Lord. Lets start with biblical courtship. Here are some thoughts from a jealous brother:

God is not interested in developing you into the perfect girlfriend, but into an exemplary wife. For the women of God, there is but one reason why you should allow a man to draw near to you and that is for the purpose of marriage.

If a man is not ready to commit to you then he is not ready to court you. There is nothing more wasteful than dating for fun. This is the epitome of how the world practices things, where commitment means “test driving.” And then after you’ve spilled coffee on the seats, used up the gas and dented the doors you leave the car for somebody else to maintain.

Men and even “Christian men” are greatly responsible for this, but sisters you are not off the hook because you allow it. At all times, my beloved sister, you are another man’s wife. You belong to your future husband or collectively to the bride of Christ, but in either case, you are not your own and are not available for “test driving.” YOU WILL do tremendous damage to your life if you join the “serial monogamy” of modern dating. Hopping from one committed relationship to the next does not give you experience on how to stay committed to one man all life long. Rather, it teaches you to leave when things are not working out, and find somebody else. In other words, you’re being trained to divorce in the future. Contrary to popular belief, experience is not your strongest ally in a relationship, biblical wisdom is. The world would have you live and learn but the bible will have you learn and live.

Singleness

There is a such thing as the gift of singleness and it is not the Lord’s will for everyone to marry. But I’ve come to believe that the “gift” of singleness is the same thing as the “state” of singleness. Figuring out if you have “the gift” or not is not of supreme importance because with or without “the gift” you are called to live a God-devoted life in your singleness. I know of several men and women who are in their late 50′s and have never been married. They would say that they have the gift of singleness, but almost all of them still desire to marry. It’s difficult to be single, but it is also difficult to be married. There is not a gift that makes singleness easier just like there is no gift that makes marriage easier. The phrase, “You complete me,” is a romanticized misunderstanding. We are not half beings hoping to find completion in some soul mate. We are whole beings made for God. You will only be complete in Him and that must be done with or without a spouse. I know the common question is, “Will I ever get married?” Well i don’t know, but if you are in Christ, I do know that you will never be alone.

What He Must Be

Sisters you should only embrace a man that loves God more than He loves you. Only settle for a man who can lead you spiritually, who is capable of washing you in the Word. It would be tremendously better to remain single than to become one with someone who does not love Jesus. I understand that there are cases where the Lord has been gracious to save non-believing spouses, but know that is not ideal or normative. A man is incapable of loving you like Christ loved the church if He is does not know who Christ is.

Now I must warn you that you should equally be aware of brothers who are indeed christian, but indeed boys. Being a Christian doesn’t make you worthy of a wife.

Sisters, look for a man who knows the gospel, and will physically lay his life down for you like Jesus did for his bride. Look for a man who values sexual purity and avoids being in compromising environments with you. You want a man who knows where he is going in life and is not known to be inconsistent and irresponsible. Ladies, HE NEEDS TO HAVE A JOB (or at least be on His way to having a job). Not only is he to be a provider for the family, but he needs to know the necessity and difficulty of being industrious. If you are feeding him, clothing him and transporting him to places every week, then there might be an issue. Don’t settle for anything less than a worthy man.

What You Should Be

The bible says, “Do not let your adornment be merely outward-arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel-rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.” (1 Pet. 3:3-4)

world will tell you that the way to keep a man is through your curves and body parts. And I say to you sister, any man that is kept by body parts is not worth keeping. Always remember, “What you catch them with is what you catch them to.” If a brother ONLY wants you because of the way you look, he will stop wanting you when you cease to look that way or a better looking woman comes along. Both will happen. Dress to impress a man’s spirit, not his lust. Check your motives, get godly counsel and intentionally try to serve your brothers by dressing modestly. Modesty is not old fashioned, but godliness on display. Allow a man to discover your beauty on his own rather than flaunting what you think he’ll like. I do encourage you to stay in shape, work out, and maintain a healthy size proportional to your body type. There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking good, your future husband will appreciate that. I see no biblical reason that forbids you from letting a man know how you feel about him, and putting yourself in an environment where connection can happen. But this information should flow out of a pure friendship, and those environments are most ideal in group settings. Don’t be secretive with your relationship – drown yourself in wise counsel. Thats what I did and I continue to do so, and it is one of the the most helpful tools in my marriage today.

Conclusion and Contentment

I know that many of you have been told that your concern in singleness should be contentment in Christ and not getting married. And although your concern should be contentment in Christ, wanting to get married is not a threat to that concern. Your desire to have a man, is a good and godly desire. It only becomes a problem when that desire for a future husband disrupts your present pursuit of the Lord – when that desire turns into doubt and you question if the Lord knows what He’s doing. Getting married does not fix our issues of contentment, it only give us another person to be discontent with. Contentment is satisfaction that is unmoved by circumstance because it only comes from having Jesus.

We Preach Christ So People Can See Glory

By Musical Artist Lecrae

The truth is: God is still at work! 

Thanks to everyone who is downloading and spreading the "Church Clothes" mixtape. 

I'm blown away at the response. It’s humbling and pushes me to keep going. 

 At the beginning of my musical career, my intention was to enrich and give hope to the listener (it still is). I was volunteering at a halfway house, and the young men there embraced Hip Hop music that encouraged their low ideals and detrimental perspectives. Over the years, some, due to their new found faith in God, had their ideals changed but now had few musical offerings. There were always Christians doing Hip Hop, but the music was usually inaccessible or unpopular.  I would listen to the radio and wonder where was the Christian's perspective being heard in Hip Hop culture? "Contemporary Christian Music" had developed, "Gospel" had its lane, but where was Hip-Hop that articulated faith in Jesus? Hard to find.

 Interestingly enough, those genres are the only ones categorized based off the content and not the style of music. Though it gives people identifying marks for their music, it can also (in many ways) limit their reach. Many people take these titles to mean the music is for an exclusively Christian audience. If indeed the true Gospel is what transforms people outside the faith, then why should the term Gospel seem exclusive to those in the faith? Of course that's not the intention, it's just a reality that any missionary should consider. 

 As far as Hip Hop music done well by Christians, there were always a few groups and artists over the years that helped ease my woes; but I was not at all content. The general market was flooded with Hip Hop artists, but I rarely heard anything that embodied a worldview that God would endorse. Trying to be a part of the solution, I took to the studio and recorded an album. It captured my southern roots, love for lyricism, and I tried to make it as current in production as I could. (I produced most of it.) The result was a tool for my fellas at the halfway house and other areas with similar struggles.  That project opened doors for me to travel a bit—mostly prisons, churches and inner city outreaches—and perform my songs. I found that I had a gift for catalyzing people toward truth and creating anthems for Christians to live sacrificially and unashamedly for their faith. 

Personally, I couldn’t simply talk about change. I had to be apart of it, so I spent my life living in the inner city, doing foreign missions and serving in the local church. All of that was ammunition for my Rebel album. My life bled out in that project, and the result was God showing tremendous fruit and people's lives being transformed by His power.

But one problem I faced was that, in my hood, only the kids in after school programs and the Christians were feeling it. Sure, some were rejecting the Gospel but others didn't give it a spin at all due to the labels placed on it.  I was respected by my non-religious friends, but my music to them was very limited and didn't speak to any areas of life other than salvation and living right.  I sought advice and was led to books by people like Francis Shaffer, CS Lewis and others. (There are links below.)

I was challenged in more ways than you can imagine. 

Desperate to help the lost, broken and hurting, I tried building relationships with my newfound understanding. It was difficult and awkward, but God showed me plenty of grace.  People came to Jesus and grew deeply, and I found I was liberated and matured in ways I could not articulate. 

I'm starting to get it. God hasn't changed my vision, He's expanded it. 

 Only 4% of all Americans have a biblical worldview and only 10% of Christians see the world with a biblical lens. (There's a test link below to check ya self!)  

 We tend to wear bifocals—partially seeing things as spiritual and seeing other things as secular or non-spiritual.

 We limit spirituality to salvation and sanctification. As long as we are well versed in personal piety and individual salvation, we think we're good. But most Christians have no clue how to engage culture in politics, science, economics, TV, music or art. We tend to leave people to their own devices there.

We subscribe to views like, "Politics and movies are evil or of the devil," and we don’t touch them. Leaving them to be dominated by non-biblical worldviews. Or, since we don’t have a philosophy or filter, we do it the way culture says to...chasing vain ambition. 

Most professing Christians have no idea how to direct their careers with biblical lenses, but instead of praying for and offering solutions we usually just shake our heads and dismiss these “sellouts & compromisers.”

 We are missing out on the gospel's power of redemption and glorification in all things. 

 The whole idea of a secular/sacred divide was born because ancient Greeks (specifically Plato) thought matter (or things) was preexisting and eternal. They thought matter contained the ability to resist the gods or just God--making it evil. But as Christians, we defeat that claim with the doctrine that only God is preexisting and eternal. He is the source of ALL creation.

 PSALM 24:1 “The Earth is the Lord's and all it contains.”

 In Genesis 1, God repeatedly identifies His creation as good, meaning no part of creation is inherently bad or evil.

 Paul in 1 Tim 4:4 says, “Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving."

 I can already hear people saying, "So pornography and crack is good if embraced with thanksgiving!?" Obviously not. The origin of objects and God's intended function are what's good; it's man's direction that distorts them. So the origin and function of sex is good, but the depravity of man to direct and distort it into pornography is a manifestation of man's darkened heart. 

 Is there such a thing as evil music?  Well, the artist’s heart may be evil and because of that you are hearing their heart. Matt 12:34 says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The heart is therefore the problem, not the music. Changed hearts produce changed music. 

 When Adam and Eve rebelled, they sinned. The trees didn’t sin, the ground didn’t sin, humanity sinned. The natural world was, however, affected by human sin. Humans were the housekeepers of God's creation, so their sin had a ripple affect into the natural world.

 Humanity had authority and there is a consequence for authority. If the owner of a house is lazy, the house is going to catch the effect of his laziness. It’s going to look ragged and filthy. It’s not that the house wants to look ugly or creepy, but the people’s sin has affected it. Even good things fall to the depravity of people.

 Evil and disorder are not intrinsic, built-in or inherent in material things like art, dance, or alcohol. "The heart is wicked," the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9. We take those things and distort them, because the human will and volition are rebellious and wrong. 

 Paul writes in Romans 14:14 nothing is unclean itself. It becomes unclean when sinners use it to express their rebellion towards God. The line between good and bad is therefore not in the thing, the music, the movie, the politics, but in the heart.

 A butcher knife is usually depicted as an evil murderous tool. But God made the ore and wood and man can use it to make a knife that cuts food and feeds people.

 A skull is typically viewed as evil and demonic, but God made skulls. We all have them and they are VERY good. They protect our brains! So wearing a skull on your shirt doesn’t make you less of a Christian, even though society has given it negative associations.

 All this to say that the "secularizing" of things or music speaks more to the heart's intention on not painting a picture that God would endorse. After all, food, music and school buildings are just things. They don’t have a soul or mind and can’t have intentions. The people who are involved in them do.

 Worldliness does not mean engaging culture, it's when the culture shapes your thoughts over God. Jesus prayed we would remain in the world but protected. He also tells us the gates of Hell will not prevail against us. Gates were established to protect cities, so for the gates not to prevail would mean we are trying to storm them. We are here to engage culture not run from it.

 Wrestling with worldly ideas challenges us and gives us new ways to depend on God. Is this my new direction? No, it’s just an expansion on what I’ve already been doing.

 Will I continue to write songs like "Don't Waste Your Life" and "Go Hard"? ABSOLUTELY!  But after seeing how powerfully God is using my latest efforts, I will also write songs to engage culture and speak to things that humanity in general will wrestle with and think on.

 So, thank you for supporting me and helping the success of the mission and vision.  I’m not concerned at all with being a "star". I got in this to bring hope and that's how I'm going out. 

Love y'all 

Lecrae 

 Links:

Biblical Worldview Testing - http://www.nehemiahinstitute.com/peers_test.htm

Francis Shaffer - http://amzn.to/KnKnab

Chuck Coloson - http://amzn.to/JWeM1Y

Nancy Pearcy - http://amzn.to/Lng2Q7

CS Lewis - http://amzn.to/J9A4bs

                         Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? That’s an interesting question and I think a fair one to ask. There’s a certain picture of Christianity that’s often painted. When people think of Christianity they think of different things. Some think screaming TV preacher, others think white guy in a suit or old black grandmother in a big church hat. Some think political conservatives or those people who don’t like science. But very few people think Christianity and think: hey, that would be a fun thing to do! Becoming a Christian doesn’t seem fun to people.

Christianity has gotten a reputation as a killjoy. It’s something for boring people and old people. One rapper in a song says, “If you scared, then go to church.” Apparently Christian churches are for timid, scared punks. People think becoming a Christian means you have to wear suits and long dresses, and listen to bad Christian music, and stop being cool. First of all, some of y’all aren’t cool in the first place, but that’s another story.

I just watched this Ja Rule interview yesterday. He was talking about his experiences with churches. In his experience churches always said come as you are, but never really meant it. He never felt welcome. And when people asked if he accepted Christ into his life, he said he wasn’t ready. He thought that meant he had to make gospel records now. The picture that he had been given of Christianity was one where you had to change everything about yourself; you had to stop enjoying everything you’ve been enjoying. As if becoming a Christian is the last thing you’d do if you wanted to enjoy yourself!

What is Fun?

Here’s how fun is defined in the dictionary. Fun is: A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure. There’s no question that becoming a Christian means your understanding and experience of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure will change. If you’re wondering if it can stay the same, it can’t. There’s no doubt that becoming a Christian changes the way you see life.

The question is: does it help or hurt your fun? Is Christianity the enemy of your enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure? Or does it help you experience enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure in their true sense? Has everyone in our culture gotten it right? Are Christianity and fun on opposite ends of the spectrum?

I think one of the reasons people talk about Christianity this way is because of the way Christians are portrayed in the media. Any Christian guy in a movie or TV show is the worst. They’re usually judgmental and corny. People unfairly caricature many Christians and give attention to the most ridiculous stuff.

The second reason is because some Christians and those who call themselves Christians give off that vibe. They contribute to the stereotype. Some Christians really don’t enjoy anything and they blame it on God, as if it’s HIs fault.

So what do I think? I have two answers to the question for tonight. Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? My first answer is: No

I. No – Becoming a Christian Does Not Mean the End of Your Fun

If you really think about it, it’s an odd question to ask. “Does becoming a Christian mean the end of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure in my life?” It says something about God to ask that question. If being a Christian means following God through faith in Christ, then to rephrase the question it’s asking: Does God want you to have an un-enjoyable life? To answer yes says something untrue about Him. He’s the Creator of all life. Of course he wants you to enjoy the life that He created.

It’s like asking if Jay-Z or Kendrick Lamar wants you to hate his newest album. Did he want you to just suffer through it and hate it? Or like Steven Spielberg wanted you to hate his movie, or he wanted you to doze off because you hated Lincoln so much. Well of course not! They made it, in part, so that others would enjoy it.

Life is different, because it’s not just some form of entertainment, but there are similarities. What we know from Scripture is that God is a good God. He created life. He made us in His image and He wants us to live that life to the full. He wants us to enjoy life and praise Him for it.

Proof

There is nothing in the Bible that suggests that God does not want us to enjoy our lives. When you read the Bible that’s just not the picture you’re going to get. The way people talk about Christianity you’d think there was a verse where Jesus says, “If you follow me, you must be miserable, hate everything, and drag others down with you.” But you’re not going to find any verses like that.

Instead you’ll find God wanting us to enjoy our lives. I’m going to read a couple of passages that I think point this out.

People think God wants to keep us from good things, but that’s a lie. Listen to James 1:16-17.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:16-17)

God doesn’t try to keep us from good things; God is the Giver of all good things. He’s the source. That’s like the kids at an orphanage asking if the people who pay for their shelter and clothes want good things for them. They paid for everything so what do you mean? It’s an illogical question.

God created friendship and marriage. God created smiling and laughter. These are all gifts from God. So to act like he doesn’t want us to enjoy them is ridiculous.

What about Jesus? Does he have anything to say about this? In John 10, Jesus contrasts Himself with false teachers. These false teachers lead people astray; they were bad shepherds. Jesus calls them thieves.

“The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

This goes directly against what people often say in our culture. They think God wants to steal. Steal our joy, happiness, and free will. That God wants to kill us and drag us down. But Jesus says, He came to give is abundant life or a full life. He wants us to live our lives to the full.  We’ll talk more about that later.

In Psalm 16, David is talking to God and here’s what he says.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever more.” (Psalm 16:11)

So coming closer to God doesn’t lead to boring sadness, it leads to joy. Not just any joy but fullness of joy. And there are pleasures. Not five minutes or five years of pleasure, but pleasures forevermore.

I could go on for days with passages like this. Christianity is not the enemy of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure. It’s actually the road to true enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure.

True Joy

Last week, my wife and I went to see Gravity in IMAX 3D. You know they give you these big clunky glasses to put on. But what if instead of those glasses we brought our sleep masks from home? You know those things you put on like glasses that block out all the light? You don’t see anything but darkness.

Now what would have happened if instead of 3D glasses we put on the sleep masks? We’d miss the whole movie. But since we put on those 3D glasses it was amazing. It was like we were in the movie. I was holding down my drink so it didn’t float up in the air. Stuff was around us. Stuff was coming at us. The glasses brought that experience to life.

We treat God like he’s trying to hand us that sleep mask in the movies, when really he’s trying to hand us the 3D goggles. He’s not trying to block our joy, and leave us in the dark. He wants our joy to be enhanced and to the full. He wants us to enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed. Sadly we don’t always know what that looks like.

Our problem is we’re under the impression that fun means doing whatever we feel like in any given moment. But if we really think about it, all of us know that’s a bad idea. Who wants to be a slave to everything they feel like doing? We’re fickle.

My son wants to have fun and he thinks sticking his finger in the outlet is the best way to do that. He needs guidance from me. And if my son is going to have fun instead of dying he has to trust me. He thinks walking down the stairs looks fun. But as an adult, I know that he doesn’t walk well and he’ll tumble down.

God is the Creator of life and He knows. We would all acknowledge that we’re not all-knowing. There are things we don’t understand. And because we’re sinners, we value the wrong things. We have to trust God and His character.

Some people think, “that sounds nice but God has all those commands that tell us not to do fun things.” And you’re right; there are commands that forbid us from certain things. But is it so that our fun will be ruined?

That brings me to my second answer to this question. Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? My second answer is: Sometimes.

II. Sometimes – Following Jesus Will Mean the End of Some of Our Fun

I don’t want to deceive you. Becoming a Christian does mean you will have to deny yourself. There are things that you enjoy that are bad for you, things that in the long run steal joy instead of giving it.

Drunkenness seems fun but leads to stupid decisions. Sex before marriage seems fun, but that deep level of intimacy was never meant to be enjoyed apart from that lifelong commitment under God. It’s the deepest way you can give yourself away to someone else. Sometimes lying seems like it leads to fun but it harms us and others.

As we’ve already acknowledged, God created all of life and He knows how it’s supposed to be enjoyed. His commands are for our good. At His right hand are pleasures forevermore. And when we disobey Him, we are moving away from true joy. God doesn’t keep us from the good life; we keep ourselves from the good life when we disobey Him.

And as a loving act Jesus calls us to deny ourselves.

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

What does it mean to deny yourself? Denying yourself means saying no to yourself. Refusing yourself. Rejecting what you naturally want to do.

This doesn’t sound nice and fluffy. You probably wouldn’t put that on a hallmark card. This isn’t very encouraging to the disciples. Is Jesus just being controlling and mean and insulting?

If we were perfect, asking us to deny ourselves would be ridiculous. If we were always good and wise asking us to deny ourselves would be strange. But if we’re flawed asking us to deny ourselves is loving. If we’re misled and messed up, asking us to deny ourselves is helpful.

You can’t always trust yourself. There are things that you enjoy that are bad for you. How many times have you made decisions that seemed fun, but you had to deal with the consequences later?

Jesus is saying if you want to follow me, you have to stop following yourself. It’s like asking someone for directions. If you realize you’ve been going the wrong way, and you ask someone to help you, you can’t keep going your way. Following Jesus is in one sense admitting that you’re lost and in need of someone to direct you. So Jesus is saying, let go. Give me the steering wheel. You’ve given yourself to me. I’m the Master. I’m the Leader. This is what it means to come after me.

If my wife said, if you want to be my husband you have to deny yourself and follow me. I’d be like huh? If my son said that… I’d really be surprised since he can’t talk. If the president of the United States said that, I would reject it. Even if my pastor said, deny yourself and do whatever I say no matter what it is, I’d go to another church. Why? Because I don’t want to give the reins of my life completely over to another sinful person. That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t help me. They can’t lead my life perfectly either. They have their own issues.

But Jesus Christ is not another sinful person. He’s holy, He’s my Creator, and He died so sinners could be reconciled to God. He’s trustworthy. He knows what my life should look like. He’s not being mean, He’s loving me. Being a Christian means that you sign up to say no to yourself sometimes.

If you’re not saying no to yourself regularly, you should ask yourself whether you’re really following Jesus. Because we’re wrong regularly and we need His help.

Solomon’s Example

One of the realest books in the Scriptures is the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s probably written by Solomon. In it, he talks about how everything is meaningless. Since he had had a lot of everything, he speaks from experience. Here’s what he said.

“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10)

So you could take this, as here we go. They hate everything, including money. God doesn’t want me to enjoy it. Or you could see it as God protecting you from chasing after something that will never satisfy you

Listen to what he says later:

Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. (Ecclesiastes 5:19-20)

Is that a contradiction? Enjoy money? I thought he said it won’t satisfy you. God gives joy, not money. Money doesn’t satisfy you, it just makes you want more money. It’s dumb to live for it. You can enjoy something, without living under the false assumption that it will satisfy your soul. God is trying to protect us.

Our problem is that we want to worship the gift instead of the Giver, Creation instead of Creator. We want to worship the canvas instead of the painter, the pages instead of the author. We want to pursue money instead of the One who provides all things. And Jesus calls us to deny that and follow Him.

Christians are not trading fun for boredom, or joy for sorrow. They’re trading temporary joys, for everlasting joys. They’re trading deadly joys, for life giving joys. They’re trading fleeting, fickle joys, for stable, rock solid joys.

III. How Do We Enjoy Things Rightly?

We live by faith in our Creator.

We All Live By Faith

Whether we realize it or not, all of us are people of faith. Every human being. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists—all of us live by faith, we live in light of what we believe in any given moment. Those of you who are athletes practice really hard. Why? Because you believe it will make you better at your sport. Or how about this? Some of you put the address in Google Maps to get places. Why? Because you believed that your phone would give you the right directions. If you believed your phone would trick you, which I think mine does sometimes, you wouldn’t have used it. I could go on and on. But we all live by faith.

I think the good life is living by faith in a good God. He tells us how to enjoy His creation rightly. He leads us to joy.

Any time we treat anything other than God as an end in itself we’re not enjoying it correctly.

Fun’s Not Enough

But maybe you think, I don’t want that. I want to have fun. Being amused, enjoying yourself is not all life is about. If you think it is, you’re in for something scary. If you build your life on the foundation of fun, it’ll come tumbling down when life is hard. Fun, being amused, enjoying yourself right now is not enough. Why not go after eternal joy?

And it’s not enough to wait till later. Why wait to start living? Stop chasing the fake thing and start chasing the real thing.

It’s like ignoring the NBA, because you would rather play NBA 2K on PlayStation. Stop chasing the fake thing, and embrace the real thing that’s available. C.S. Lewis expressed a similar sentiment when he said this:

“We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased” – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I used to think life was all these fleeting pleasures. Then I became a Christian. There were things I read early on as a Christian that demolished my old picture of the good life. Here’s an example.

To Die Is Gain

All of us have heard people talk about death from time to time. We’ve heard people say,“Nothing in life is sure but death and taxes.” One popular rapper said, “I’m trying to beat life cause I can’t cheat death.” People understand that death cannot be avoided. But as a young Christian, I read a verse about death in the Bible that was like nothing I had ever heard before. The Apostle Paul spoke about death in a strange way. Paul didn’t just say death was certain, he took it a step further. He said, “to die is gain.” What!?

Death is when your brain, your heart, and your lungs stop doing their job. Death means the conclusion of life and separation from family members. Death means your life’s work is over. Unlike our other trials, death is, for the person who dies, literally “the end of the world”– the end of this one anyway. So how could death possibly be gain? I can’t make money when I die? I can’t increase my status when I die. It just didn’t fit with my old views of the good life.

Well in order for me to understand what Paul meant by these four words—to die is gain—I had to understand the four that came right before them. In Philippians 1 Paul explains why he seems to be ok with either staying alive or dying at the hands of his persecutors. He writes in verse 21, “To live IS Christ.” With those words, the apostle told me what life is really all about- not money, not my job, not even family- but Jesus. How could my self-centered, status-obsessed worldview survive next to that truth?

Life has no meaning apart from Christ, because Christ is what it’s all about. Therefore to enjoy things rightly, we have to enjoy them in a way that testifies to that truth.

Everything is better when enjoyed in the context it was meant to be. When we treat anything like an end itself it’s wrong. We should them as a means to the end of God’s glory.

Should we just have sex with as many women as possible? Or even just whoever you’re in a close relationship with? Sex Is best enjoyed in a marriage covenant. Two people committed to one another for the rest of their lives, not going anywhere. There’s no need for insecurity, no shame. Friendship is best enjoyed in this context. There’s humility, forgiveness, grace, love.

Money is best enjoyed when it’s not worshipped. Power is best enjoyed when it’s not worshipped. What happens when it goes away? Wine in moderation is better than drunkenness. And f course you can enjoy music and movies. But think about how they relate to the meaning of all life: Christ. Everything is best enjoyed when it’s submitted to Christ.

We are broken, and Christ came to put us back together. When we worship money, or friendship, or sex, it’s an offense to God. And we deserve to be judged for those offenses. But God sent Christ. Jesus didn’t have a problem with enjoying the wrong things, or enjoying good things in a sinful way. Yet Jesus took the punishment for our offenses on the cross. He rose from the grave and offers us eternal life.

If we’ll leave our old ways behind and cling to Christ we can be forgiven, and we can enter in to the joy of our Master. We will not live our best life now. But He’ll give us joy and pleasure forevermore.