UpTime Community: A Prelude to Revelation 6:6 💸📉 & 13:17: [Over 2 hours long] All normal human beings want to be happy. Aristotle observed that happiness is the goal of human life. For us Americans, the pursuit of happiness is even enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a self-evident, unalienable right. We can all agree that we want to be happy, but it’s much harder to find consensus when we ask what happiness is and how we can achieve it. Despite disagreement on the finer details, for Americans (and most in the West), happiness is closely connected with being true to oneself, following one’s heart, and personal fulfillment. For example, 84% of Americans "believe that the 'highest goal of life is to enjoy it as much as possible.' Eighty-six percent believe that to be fulfilled requires you to 'pursue the things you desire most.' Ninety-one percent affirm that 'the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself.'" For Christians, there is an element of truth in this advice based on God’s sovereignty. Our individual personalities, interests, and desires are part of who God has made us to be (see, for example, Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:5). These can all be indications (though not necessarily determinative) of the goals and dreams we will pursue in life. As Dallas Willard writes, “Because we are God’s co-laborers, our wants and desires are ... important to God and God’s plan for us (1 Corinthians 3:9 KJV).” Frederick Buechner notably observed, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” It would go too far to make this a universal principle, but in God’s sovereignty, many Christians have found this to be the case. The key difference for Christians is that our desires and goals must be submitted to God’s will and direction, and the ways in which we pursue them must accord with scripture. As Thomas Tarrants comments, “When our desires are God-centered, they are good and fulfill their intended role. But when they are self-centered, when our desires are captured by the things of the fallen world and the sinful nature (the flesh), they are evil. These have been called disordered loves.” This is why the self-focused approach to happiness always fails, especially when God is excluded. In our fallen pride, Timothy Keller writes, “We labor under the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God.” Further, if we “look to some created thing to give us the meaning, hope, and happiness that only God himself can give, it will eventually fail to deliver and break our hearts.” Because both we and creation are fallen, we won’t experience happiness to its fullest extent until the new heavens and earth (Revelation 21). We discover in the early chapters of Genesis that God designed humans to exist in a relationship with Him.... Christians can flourish as human beings because we can now attain the ultimate end for which we were created — to know and love God.... Thaddeus Williams thus concludes: “The more you worship your self, the less you become your self. You become a shadow, a specter, an unself. The longer and deeper you stare into the mirror, looking for answers, the more it will feel like looking at Edvard Munch’s 'The Scream.' This is the strange paradox of self-worship.” @patrician with help from the Holy Spirit we can die to self, and then Jesus will save us. [12 minutes] 
The True Meaning of Pesach (Passover):
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