Joy based Ethics

The highest form of ethics is based on joy. Joy in God which overflows into the lives of others.

There are many forms of philosophical, religious, and even Christian ethics which fall short of the highest ethic.

"For the joy set before him he endured..." (Hebrews 12:2)

You see Jesus overflowed with joy in his fellowship with the God head. His ethics flowed from joy.

You see many ethical forms try to teach us to do good because of fear. Fear is one of the lowest ethical forms. It has effect but it is really not an ethic at all but a self preservation.

Other forms try to appeal to our sense of right and justice and how do we feel. The bible does teach that there is validity this form and approves of this form. But you see it is not the highest.

Joy in God and the fruit of joy in God is the highest ethic. You once we have studied the whole bible and it's vast teaching we then can some the whole of the law into the word "love." To obey the law is to love God and man.

Why the bible has to spend so much time on specifics is that man does not understand what love is. He thinks all sorts of things are good which are not in God's eyes.

Man often finds these things are not as good as he thought when he gets burned doing them but he rarely realizes that God was in fact right and if he had listened to what God said love was than his life would be better.

We are saved by grace which came joy. We are at our best when we live day by day in the joy of God.

Church

I was thinking after church today about all the joy and happiness I saw in people after the service.  But, in a way I saw a massive amount of folly.

We all got a taste of the sweetness of God on our tongues.  How many of us would walk out of the church and forget the utter sweetness of it.  The utter contentment we found submitting ourselves to the Lord.

How many of us will settle for far less joy filled, happiness yielding, beautiful, and contentment filled experiences.  How many will settle for utter emptiness after having felt the joy of  being filled.

We Will Be Most Satisfied When We See, Savor, and Make Much of God

A bit from Piper:

“If the purpose of God – flowing from the very essence of what it means to be God – is that he be known and enjoyed and praised as infinitely glorious in his free and sovereign grace, then the meaning of our existence is clear. We exist to know and enjoy and praise and display the glory of God’s free and sovereign grace. We exist to see and savor and sing – and spread a passion for – the glory of God’s grace.”

A bit from me:

And I would like to add if we exist for the purpose of seeing and savoring and making much of God then it should well be easily be inferred that we will be most satisfied when we see, savor, and make much of God.  For, God as an infinitely wise creator did not create us in a way so that we would find anything other than our most ultimate joy in him.  In fact it is hard to imagine us finding anything other than our ultimate joy in the infinite beauty and brilliance of God.