In summary, what have we discovered over the last three weeks?
Here are some points:

• No amount of riches or things of this world can give us real happiness.
• Our lives and everything around us only last for a moment.
• Fullness of joy is found in the presence of God.
• Therefore true happiness and fulfilment in life can only come from God.
• God is eternal.
• God promises to dwell (live) with those that are humble and contrite (broken).

This will be the last gem in this series, so to close we need to find out what we must do for Jesus to be able to dwell with us. To understand this we must first understand what separates us from Him.

Think back to the garden of Eden, when God created Adam, the first perfect human being. The bible says he was created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:26). God took the first man and placed him in a perfect garden, the garden of Eden. Did you know that "Eden" actually means delight or pleasure. God placed man in a garden of delight, and spoke to him and told him to take care of this beautiful garden. Then, God created Eve, the first perfect woman, as a help-meet for Adam. And so the happy couple delighted themselves in taking care of the garden and the animals that God had created.
Can you image what it must have been like, they were perfectly happy! And they were in perfect harmony with God.

But what happened? What separated them from God, and that beautiful garden of delight He had created for them?

It was only one thing. God gave them a test of obedience to see if they would be loyal to Him, but they chose instead to disobey. They ate fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God had asked them not to eat (Gen. 2:17,3:3). As a result they were driven out of their paradise and separated from the presence of God and from the perfect harmony that they had previously enjoyed.

The Bible says:

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid [his] face from you, that he will not hear. Isaiah 59:2

You see, what separates us from the presence of God and from the joy and delight that He wants for us, is sin or disobedience. Sin has made a large black gulf between God and man. A gulf so deep and wide that it is impossible for any one of us to span it.
Does this mean we are stuck in a world of misery and unhappiness? Forever lost, without hope?
NO! let's not stop here. True, we have been separated from God by sin but there is hope! There is a saviour who has bridged the gulf! Jesus loves us and has not left us to be miserable in our sins.

. . .thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1:21

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life John 3:16

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8

Jesus, the powerful creator, became a man. What humiliation! He became a man and walked this earth. He lived a perfect life and did no sin (1. Peter 2:22), instead he bore our sins (Heb. 9:28) the sins of you and I, He took our guilt and with hands outreached on the cross He died the death that we deserved and gave us the hope of eternal life.

Praise His holy name! Ye inhabitants of the earth, praise Him! And why? Because through Jesus Christ — whose long human arm encircles the race while with His divine arm He grasps the throne of the Almighty — the gulf is bridged with His own body; and this atom of a world, which was separated from the continent of heaven by sin and became an island, is again reinstated because Christ bridged the gulf — Christ has bridged it! - Christ Triumphant p. 86, by Ellen G. White

WHY? Why did Jesus do this? Because he loved you and I so much that he couldn't bear to leave us without hope. He longed for us once again to be in harmony with Him, and to be perfectly happy.

Today He says to us:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

This, dear reader, is the only way to true happiness. When we see our need of Christ and with humble contrite hearts confess our sins to Jesus, He is faithful and just, and will forgive us from those sins, and not only forgive us but also cleanse us from all unrighteousness (or sin).

And then, just as we read in Isaiah last week, God will dwell with us, in the heart of those who are contrite or broken and humble because of their sins. And then with God dwelling with us we will experience the fullness of joy that He has promised!