At Harvard University, you can take a course in happiness. This popular class helps students discover, as the professor states, “How to get happy.”
I’m not against being happy. I actually like to be happy. Sometimes, though, we take the search for earthly happiness too far. If we’re not careful, we’ll even begin to believe that our happiness is God’s highest goal for us.
That’s when our thinking gets confused. If we seek happiness alone, we will run the risk of becoming selfish.
That’s why the challenge of Romans 8 is to seek holiness, not simply happiness.
Happiness and holiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it does matter which one is your primary focus — your ulimate pursuit.
There is no true happiness apart from holiness and no holiness apart from Christ.