God wants His people to be happy. This theology is based on the same type of teaching that says "God helps those who help themselves." One would be hard pressed to find anything in the Bible that comes close to resembling such a statement.
The church today is filled with people who believe that God wants us to be happy. These people teach the "health and wealth" gospel that has riddled the church during my lifetime with heresies and false promises.
God wants us to be happy...Tell that to the Christian in China who is persecuted for his faith and to his congregation in the house church who meet in secret because they could all get arrested if they were found out. Tell that to the believer in Sudan who was executed for his faith. Tell that to the Christian who gets ridiculed at work because she is a follower of Christ and follows His teachings. Are these people happy? Is God letting them down by allowing them to be unhappy? Have they somehow offended God and so God is punishing them by taking away their happiness? By no means.
He wants us to be happy...Was Jesus happy? A quick perusal through the Gospels tell us that He was not. He was constantly ridiculed; He was hated; He was betrayed by a close friend; He was denied by an even closer friend; He was flogged, spat upon, crucified, mocked, ridiculed...Happy? I doubt it.
No really, He wants us to be happy. Let's look at Paul's life. Paul: flogged 5 times, beaten with rods 3 times, stoned once, shipwrecked 3 times - adrift at sea for a night and a day, in constant danger, in prison multiple times, without food, in cold and exposure, constant anxiety for all of the churches, imprisoned multiple times and finally executed. Happy? I doubt it.
Didn't Jesus say that He wants us to be happy? Jesus sent his disciples out as sheep among wolves. Think about that statement - does that sound like He was setting them up for happiness? We will be hated by all because of Him - happiness? To the man who wanted to first bury his father Jesus told him to let the dead bury their own. To the rich young ruler Jesus said that he had to sell everything he had before he could follow Jesus. Happy?
Does God want us to be happy? By no means. God wants so much more for us. The problem is that we do not have an eternal perspective as to what God really wants for us. We think in terms of this life. We don't think in terms of eternity. God wants us to find our meaning in Him; to find our purpose in Him; to find our identity in Him. Will this make us happy? Perhaps on some days it will but I guarantee that it will make our lives better and far more fulfilling that we can possibly imagine.
There is a hymn that makes me very unhappy to sing, At the Cross. The chorus goes like this:
At the cross, at the cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away -
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day.
I get it. I understand that this idea is appealing. Perhaps we should stop living a faith that is appealing and start living a faith that is real, that is biblical, that is eternal.
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