What's Wrong With Being Happy?

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A friend sitting next to me in church one Sunday commented, “Larry, if you turn around and look at the people here this morning, it looks as if they all have stomach aches, toothaches, facing a prison term or are here under duress.”

I didn’t have to turn around and look. I noticed it when I walked into the sanctuary. Someone once said to me that “Of all the groups of people in the world, Christians seem to be the most unhappy. They seem to be joyless and miserable. If being a Christian is so terrible, why don’t they give up their faith and try something else?”

Some Christians are like a person with a headache: They don’t want relief, but it hurts to keep it. Can we expect others to want to become Christians if we appear to be miserable and hopeless? Things are bad without Christ. Why invite Him into our lives if things will only get worse?

“Blessed – or happy – are the people whose God is the Lord.” To experience the fullness that the Lord has to give us requires that we surrender our lives to Him and become dependent on Him for everything. Some who profess to be people of God do not experience the blessings of God – or are not happy in their Christian faith – because they try to live the “half-life.” Half a “conversion” is like half a lifeboat: it won’t save you!

Happiness, or God’s best blessings, will not come to the half-hearted Christian. Caleb had the secret: “I wholly followed the Lord.” What a difference it will make. Try it!

Prayer:  Help us, Lord, to “give it up” and surrender all that we are and all that we have to You and enjoy life! Help us to show our joy in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Scripture For Today: Blessed is the people of whom this is true; blessed is the people whose God is the Lord. Psalm 144:15b


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