The Good Life Redefined

What would you call the good life? How hard are you working to live the good life? What is a good life?

I personally think of two things, one what happens to me when I die. And two, how should I live life now, preparing for death, but still enjoy life as it is today.

What’s this look like and are you and I doing it right?

I think we stay busy, stay distracted, fill our lives with enough noise that we don’t really stop and think of the popular question: “What is life?”

So here’s a truth - you are going to die. How ready are you for it. What if something fatal cropped up in your life today? What would change? How would your thinking change? Well, get ready, because death is on its way. Nobody get’s out of here alive.

Jesus knew all of this when He gave His sermon on the Mount. I read it today in Luke 6 - and wow, it’s just so full. Let’s walk through it and see if you are living the good life. .

Christ dismantles and redefines the good life. Living for God, following Him and loving others deeply.

He looked at the struggling, the grieving, the ones society had passed over, and said “You people who are poor are happy, because the kingdom of God belongs to you. You people who are now hungry are happy, because you will be satisfied.” (Luke 6:20–21 NCV)

And then he turned it around and warned the comfortable - “But how terrible for you who are rich, because you have had your easy life.” (Luke 6:24 NCV)

He wasn’t saying poverty is holy or that wealth is sinful. He was saying the person who has everything they need right here and feels no hunger for anything beyond this world has no reason to look up, no reason to reach for God, no reason to ask the hard questions.

Comfort can quietly convince you that you don’t need God.

Then He said something hard - it’s just true: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who are cruel to you.” (Luke 6:27–28 NCV)

Is there somebody in your life right now who fits that description? Somebody who betrayed you, who walked away, who took something you can’t get back?

Jesus looks right at that situation and says - love them. Not because they deserve it. Not because it lets them off the hook. But because bitterness doesn’t hurt them, it hollows you out.

Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to get sick.

If you have trouble loving the unlovely, maybe, just maybe you’ve not experienced the love of God through Christ. It sounds religious, but it’s true. God loved us when we were his enemies. He forgave us when we deserved none of it. He gave everything when we had nothing to offer in return.

He then gave us the golden rule — “Do to others what you would want them to do to you” — and then pushed it further. (Luke 6:31 NCV)

“If you love only the people who love you, what praise should you get? Even sinners love the people who love them.” (Luke 6:32 NCV)

Loving people who love you back isn’t impressive. That’s just instinct.

He then went after something we all do, judge other people by standards we don’t apply to ourselves.

He painted this almost funny picture of a person walking around with a log sticking out of their own eye, trying to perform surgery on somebody else’s speck. “You hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to take the dust out of your friend’s eye.” (Luke 6:42 NCV)

The same measuring stick you use on other people is going to be used on you.

The most dangerous person in any room is the one who has never genuinely looked at themselves.

Here’s a real definition of a human being: “Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people bring evil things out of the evil they stored in their hearts. The mouth speaks the things that are in the heart.” (Luke 6:45 NCV)

As a counselor, we listen to the words. They define the heart and what you believe in. Your words define what’s important to you.

We can manage our image for a while, say the right things, show up in the right places, post the right content. But when life squeezes you, under real pressure, through real pain, what’s actually inside is what comes out. Every time.

The answer to that isn’t better behavior management. The answer is a changed heart. And that is something only God can do.

Then the heaviest question was asked. “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46 NCV)

Do you and I “do” what He says to do? Do you know what all He is asking you to do?

Calling him Lord and actually making him Lord are two completely different things. A Savior you receive. A Lord you follow.

How do you live when no one is watching or listening?

He closed with a story of two builders, same storm, two foundations. The one who built on rock? The house held. The one who built on sand? “The house quickly fell and was completely destroyed.” (Luke 6:49 NCV)

Here’s the truth the whole sermon is pointing toward. Every one of us has sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard, chosen our own way over his, in ways big and small, our entire lives.

And that has a consequence that no amount of good living can cancel out on its own. But God didn’t walk away from that. He sent his Son into the mess, into the pain, into the very world that had turned its back on him. And Jesus went to a cross, not because he had to, but because he chose to, and took the full weight of everything we’ve ever done wrong so we wouldn’t have to carry it into eternity.

He paid a debt he didn’t owe so we wouldn’t have to pay a debt we could never afford.

“God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NCV)

We follow his teaching because it works. Because it genuinely improves our lives. Because it honors God. But the deepest reason, the real reason, is because we love him. Do you love God more than ________ (fill in the blank)?

Because when you truly grasp what he did for you, it changes what you want. It changes who you want to become. It changes the way you see the people around you, the way you handle the hard seasons, and the way you think about what comes after. That’s not religion. That’s relationship.

That’s the good life redefined. You become strong, confident, content, actually happy. How happy are you? Really?

Why does this matter. Because it changes what happens to you when you take your last breath.

GOD, help me live like I love you. Help me live as if Jesus is my Lord. Help me change in the areas I just have not given to you. Help me surrender it all - I really mean all of it. Not just in words, but actually create a plan to change - starting now. IJNIP amen ♥️