All good comes from and leads to God

Most people would agree that they desire joy, but few intentionally seek it, as demonstrated by the distance between what people say makes them happy and how they actually live. Those who honestly and diligently seek for joy will traverse a path where they actually live according to what they believe will produce it. As they do so, they will learn more accurate appraisals of what options are available in life, what they cost, and what benefit they provide. The path to greater joy begins broad and narrows as the limits of present beliefs are discovered and better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting are discovered and implemented.

All good things come from God,¹ and all good things lead to God.² All paths of improvement lead closer to God. Anyone who seeks to improve themselves will become more like God as they do so, even if they do not believe in God or understand what he is like.

Anyone who seeks improvement in life will find greater joy. However, there are barriers to how much joy can be found and how long it can be retained without learning and living correct beliefs about God.

There are limits to how much you can learn about God or live like him without believing that he exists and possessing correct ideas about his character. The more you improve your character, the more you will adopt the character of Christ, and the more you adopt the character of Christ, the more you will improve your character. The character of God does not exist outside of God, and the greatest joy does not exist outside of his character. Anyone who seeks improvement will eventually need to believe that God is real, learn what he is like, and begin to live like him in order to continue progressing.

The more you learn about reality and about the optimal path to obtain the greatest joy within it, the more you will learn about God, because he has already discovered this path and lives this way.

Conversely, the more you learn about God, the more you will learn about the optimal path to the greatest joy given reality.

God’s measure of the worth of things is based on a complete and correct understanding of what other options exist and the true longterm costs and benefits of those options. God knows the value of all things, he knows everything that could happen, he knows every available option, and his character is the best possible way he could be in order to yield the greatest possible joy.

All things do not have the same potential to provide joy. As you reach for and obtain what has and provides greater joy, you will learn more about how God is and become more like him. All things in creation can be arranged in a hierarchical network according to the joy they possess and provide. Those things closest to and most like God provide the greatest potential for joy. The greatest joy is available in God himself: in being with him and being like him. From that apex flows all cascading intensities of joy.

You should choose to be like God if you want what is best for yourself, others, and the world. To turn towards God is to turn towards what is best. To turn towards what is best is to turn towards God. To turn away from God is to turn away from what is best.³ To turn away from what is best is to turn away from God. Anything that seems better than following God is a mirage that will evaporate over time, usually replaced by something much worse than expected. To be different from God in any way is to experience less joy than you otherwise could. All sin reduces to the lie that you can find greater happiness in thinking, feeling, or acting contrary to how God would in your place.⁴ To the extent that your path deviates from what God would think, feel, or do in your place, you will deviate from the good you could otherwise be, give, and receive, and the happiness you could experience in the process. The path to the greatest good, and therefore the greatest happiness, is to learn everything you can about God, and to live everything you learn.⁵