I think that as Christians living in a postmodern age it's very hard to think that our spiritual life isn't about us. And I think it's the engenderment of that kind of thinking that bothers me most about how I see people approach their Christian lives nowaday. The following comes straight from the aforementioned blog (Stephen Hopkins'):
"Personal Christianity. God created you for a relationship. God loves you so much that He would have died just for you. We need to work out our own salvations. All that matters is your belief that you are saved.
While all of the above do look Christian (and many are – we are released from sin upon individual conversion and we are to work out our own salvations with fear and trembling), one has to look at the subjects of these statements. Namely, the word ‘you’ and its conjugations. It’s all about you.
What follows is ‘experiential’ Christianity. What we, ourselves have experienced in times of prayer and in our daily lives no longer supplements our faith; our personal experiences now trump everything else upon which our faith is based. Nearly gone is “God is real” and enter “God is real to me.” We are more fired up when someone talks about miracles and victories within their lives (or our lifetime) than the word of God. Jesus, Himself, said that if one had ignored the prophets, then even someone coming back from the dead wouldn’t convince another of the reality of God.[...]
The last consequence I will discuss today of such a personal Christianity is the embracing of the self. Although it is often guised as self-improvement or self discovery, there exists a pervading idea that growing closer to God is the same as self-actualization. Empowerment by God no longer means being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but that God gives you the focus to more efficiently organize your own energy and talents. Knowing yourself is now a prerequisite to knowing God, and loving yourself a precursor to loving others."
http://hoppy393.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/children-of-modernity/
There is very little that he hasn't said that I can't say or screw up with my lesser level of verbal eloquence. But it is an important thing to ponder. The last couple weeks or so I've had one extremely important question on my mind: Does God want you to be happy?
My first approach to that question treated it as some kind of prosperity gospel - even if God doesn't want you to be materially successful, to think that His highest priority is wanting to grant you some kind of emotional stability is just as much of a prosperity gospel as any materially-minded one might be. So I preliminarily answered that as "No, God doesn't necessarily want you to be happy."
But now that I've had some extra time to think about it, it seems that it absolutely is the case - in a certain sense - that God does want us to be happy. But it's not about personal fulfillment or some flawed sense of "I want to grow in God so I can be emotionally secure", but it's very much true in the sense that we were created for God's glory, and moreover to enjoy the fullness of His glory.
"God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him" keeps popping up in new and interesting places.
