Recently I received some good news. I didn’t win the lottery, but something quite beneficial occurred, something for which I had been praying. And I was really happy. And then, typical me, I began to dissect it.

Here’s the question. How do we celebrate in a gospel-based way? You see, God did not change. He was the same before I received this news as he was after. And I was not constitutionally different. My circumstances, however, changed, and so my mood went from nondescript to elation.

And that told me something. My mood, my outlook on life, is too much based on circumstances. Now some of this cannot be helped. It would be abnormal, even wrong, to downplay the excitement that comes from the news of the birth of a child or a promotion on the job or a medical test that comes back negative. But beyond that, too much of my mood is based on my circumstances, which obviously means this. When my circumstances change—and they will—my moods will change. And that’s a horrible predicament. It leaves my mood, my emotions, my outlook on life at the whim of whatever happens that day.

So what do I do? I must live my life without loving my life. I get this from Revelation 12:10-11. “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.’” In order to rejoice well, we must love not our lives.

We must live our life without loving our life, without gaining our life from our life. You see, Satan would tell me that life is hopeless and harsh and discouraging unless certain things happen. And those certain things are different for each of us. You have your certain things that make life happy and joyful and satisfying, and I have mine. When they occur, I celebrate; when they don’t, I’m either blah or discouraged or despairing, depending on the nature of my “certain things.”

But for a Christian, this can’t be. A child of God must be able to be happy and joyous and satisfied no matter the circumstance. And the Scriptures are replete with this idea. In Psalm 84:10, the writer says that he could be happier with one day in the presence of the Lord than a thousand elsewhere. His happiness is not based on his circumstances; it is based on his unchanging relationship with God. In Philippians 4, Paul talks of being content in whatever situation he finds himself (verse 11). Elsewhere, in Galatians 6:14, Paul says that he will boast only in the cross of Christ, that everything else the world could offer him has been crucified to him.

You see, gospel-based celebration is the best kind of celebration. It is celebration that is free of demand. It is unadulterated. It is pure. Really it is selfless. There is a kind of abandon that comes with gospel-based celebration. You celebrate the thing itself; you don’t celebrate because you now have something that you feel you really need. You can have the thing or not; your joy is not based on it. Having it or not having it does not control you. The only thing that controls you is the love that God has for you through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Thus, I can enjoy God’s gifts freely, because I don’t have to have them. This should be the constant refrain of the child of God. “You can take away my job, you can take away my health, you can take away my relationships. Just don’t take away my Jesus.” When we live our life without loving our life, the only thing we have to have is Jesus. Good news or bad, success or failure, tragedy or triumph, Jesus—who he is and his great love for me—is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).