To live a happy life, people only need to follow a few basic rules. Above all, you have to stay true to yourself and listen to your own heart. Some such “wisdom of life” are already standards. But they describe the exact opposite of what the gospel conveys.
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A few popular “life tips”
How can people lead a happy life? A very, very frequently asked question for sure. The answers are usually the same. Certain tips and rules that promise a happy life. Possibly garnished with a Christian touch, or even with fairies and unicorns, depending on the selected target group. The following are a few examples that can often be read in this or similar form:
- Follow your heart
- Be true to yourself
- Believe in yourself
- Live your truth
- Your own happiness is all that matters
Follow your heart
Jesus Christ never said that man should follow his own heart. The opposite is actually the case. The reason for this is already made clear in the Old Testament, as in Jeremiah 17:9:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?“
The deceptiveness of one’s own heart, as long as one suspects the good in oneself, begins very early in humans, as in Genesis 8:21
“for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;“
Jesus Christ did not say to follow one’s own heart, but He asked people to follow Him. The heart of man is above all deceitful and desperately evil. This particularly includes self-deception, deceiving oneself about one’s own self. Further information about the actual “good in people” – here.
Be true to yourself
Jesus Christ never said this to anyone. Being true to yourself is akin to following your heart. Jesus Christ said the exact opposite, as in Mark 8:34:
“And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.“
Man must deny himself instead of being true to himself. Being true to oneself, whatever that means, can only result in self-deception because of the deceitful heart. After all, it’s not about “self-realization”, as is so often claimed in this regard, but about recognizing how far you have actually strayed from God’s path. This also includes “taking up the cross” and following Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ also assured that His yoke will be easy and the burden will be light.
Believe in yourself
This request was not given by Jesus Christ either. He clearly said that man should believe in Him, and this for a good reason, John 14:6:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.“
In the “wisdom of life” of believing in oneself lies the self-deceptive heart of the human being. The danger of pursuing one’s own feelings and thereby switching off one’s reason and thus one’s understanding of the written word is very great.
Live your truth
This “wisdom” is foisted on people in various aspects. Ostensibly, relativism plays a major role here. What is truth, is the crucial question? Today the truth is relative and decisive from one’s own point of view, one’s own feelings and also one’s own identification. It’s partly amusing that the people who vehemently reject the “non-binary”, “gender” and the self-identification of a man as a woman (or vice versa), but still see the truth as a relative quantity and highly individual. Actually schizophrenic.
Jesus Christ never spread this “wisdom” either. The Bible already provides clear information about what exactly truth is. The Word is the Truth, Jesus Christ is the Truth and the Law is the Truth. These are the three definitions found in the Gospel (Info).
The Roman governor Pontius Pilate interrogated Jesus Christ and wanted to know whether He was the King of Judea. Jesus answered, John 18:37:
“Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.“
Not just any “truth”, especially not your own, sets you free, but rather Jesus Christ and His Gospel, John 8:32:
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.“
Your own happiness is all that matters
Another piece of “wisdom” that was never spread by Jesus Christ. Human happiness, which people generally define themselves, has to do with this world. Specifically, a “worry-free” life, based on a form of materialism, including the fulfillment of all individual (extra) desires. If you have all of this, then you are happy. Some people need more, others are happy with less.
But at the end of the day, what is all this worth? Nothing. You have had a “worry-free” life, perhaps only for twenty pro-rata years, and then the adventure trip is irreversibly over. Everything passes away, like the sound and the smoke. Jesus Christ warned against such an attitude, Mark 8:36:
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Humanism instead of Jesus Christ
In addition to the examples mentioned above, there are other “life tips”, but almost all of them are based on the same foundation, humanism. A term that is often misunderstood and has absolutely nothing to do with dealing with other people. “Anyone who is against humanism is an enemy of humanity,” is a completely false slogan. Rather, humanism is a term that comes much closer to the field of a religion than social interaction. When humans have a higher status than a god or a supernatural power (whatever), then we speak of humanism. So it’s a question of faith and, above all, an attitude towards yourself.
The Roman Catholic Church, for example, belongs to the “disguised” humanists. According to its own catechism, this institution claims that Jesus Christ came into this world to deify man (further examples).
Catholicism, New Age and Far Eastern philosophies therefore have an intersection. It was also the “Little Red Riding Hoods” (Jacobins), led by the Jesuit order, who introduced humanism to Europe in the wake of the French Revolution (Info).
The exact opposite of the gospel
These and similar sounding “wisdoms of life” sound very pleasant and calming in this world permeated by stress and distraction. “It just sounds good,” but nothing more. Not only are they lacking substance, they are also misleading. In reality, they represent the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ and His Gospel teach.
All of these “wisdoms”, which do not go beyond the quality of sayings on the tear-off calendar, relate exclusively to a happy existence in this world. This is fundamentally a mistake. Because Jesus Christ has overcome this world and called on people to overcome this world too, because:
Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
James 4:4
Bible verses from King James Version
