God wants you to be happy. Of course, the word “happiness” is sometimes used in a very superficial sense. Maybe the word “joy” is better, for it suggests something deeper. The Gospel never promises that a Christian will be free from the difficulties of this world. Nobody can ever promise you that, for that is not the way life is. But Jesus says, “These things have I spoken unto you…that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
Jesus Christ is the great lover of the human soul, and He wants you to be free from your fears, free from your sins, free from your weaknesses, free from your defeats. “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). He also wants you to really live. “I am come that they might have life,” He said, “and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
“Well,” you may say, “I’m a good person. I go to church; I read the Bible; I don’t tell any lies—or at least not very many, and the ones I do tell are ‘little’ ones; I don’t steal anybody’s money; I don’t get drunk; I don’t run off with anybody else’s spouse. I’m a respectable, decent person.”
Now I do not mean to minimize these virtues. Those who hold to these standards become fine citizens. And you always find them on the side of what is decent and right. But I become concerned because so many good, upright people tell me they have never found the joy and exuberance and power Christianity offers to us all. They ask, “Shouldn’t good people be happy people?”
Yes, they should be. But there is no guarantee that they will be, because respectability and decency are not enough. If the real power and joy Jesus offered us through His teachings is to be yours and mine, we must go beneath mere ethical goodness to the throbbing, life-changing force which is there. Otherwise we can live all our lives being scrupulously good people but never possess “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
The Apostle Paul assures us that “the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). When you penetrate the essence of Christianity you come face to face with a religion not of formality but of power. This thing is alive. So, why don’t you get alive? You don’t need to go through all your days struggling against your defeats. You are a child of God, and spiritual power is available for you! To have it, love God. To have it, love Jesus. To have it, love people. It is a trinity of love: God, Jesus, people. I doubt if any man or woman who doesn’t love people can ever get spiritual power and happiness.
Are good people happy people? They can be. They’re on the way to being. They’ve made the start. They’ve gone down the road a long way, but they’ll not have the power in religion that brings deep joy until they penetrate the essence. “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). I would fervently pray that this might happen to us all. Let us go deeper through self-surrender, through self-giving, through desire, through earnestness, until the glory bursts upon us and true happiness surges up and fills our lives.
