Man's Happiness Is Found in God Alone

A wicked man may be convinced that heaven and grace are good things; but his corrupted affections persuade him that it would be better to live in pleasure and lust now; and when death comes then he may repent, for God is merciful. But a good man prefers drawing near to God above anything else. This made Moses in his sober evaluating of things to choose to draw near to God and join with his afflicted brethren, than to live with honour in Pharaoh's court and enjoy worldly pleasures. 'He had respect to the reward' (Heb. 11:25). He was convinced that there was more to be gotten with his brethren than with the Egyptians.
Man's happiness is in communion with God. Before the fall of man, there was familiar conversation with God; but by the sin of our first parents, we lost this great happiness, and now we are strangers, and as contrary to God as light is contrary to darkness, and hell to heaven. He is holy, we are impure; he is full of knowledge, we are stark fools. Instead of delighting in him we tremble at his presence and are even afraid of those who draw near to him. 'What have I to do with, man of God? Have you come to call my sins to remembrance?' (1 Kings 17:18). We flee from the company of good men, because their behaviour and course of life rebukes us. But God, in his infinite mercy and goodness, did not leave us in that state. He purposed to choose some to draw near to him; and to this end he found a way for man and him to meet. The foundation of this union is in Christ, in whom God reconciled the world to himself. Jesus, being God, became man, so to draw man back to God. He has made a means to make the seeming opposite attributes of justice and mercy to kiss each other. We by his grace are saved, yet at the same time his infinite justice has been fully met.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Saint's Happiness Works, vol. 7, pp. 70-72
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