If It Makes You Happy?

“God wants me to be happy”.

You probably heard people make this comment as a justification. I can do this thing that is clearly a sin but it is OK because God wants me to be happy. Now there is some discussion there, but let’s assume God does want you happy. Wouldn’t he tell you how to be happy?

Let look at some verses:

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye

1st Peter 3:14

If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you

1 Peter 4:14

Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure.

James 5:10-11

Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.

Romans 14:22

These verses paint a different picture of how God says one is happy. Suffering for righteousness. Being insulted for the name of Christ. Happy because you endured hardship. Because you did not ruin yourself in what you accepted as right.

To go even further, look at the Beatitudes. Blessed, or just as easily translated happy, is he who mourn, suffers, is insulted, is pure. It seems what God says will make us happy isn’t always what we think will make us happy.

If God wants you to be happy, then He should know what true happiness is. If your thinking is God wants you to be happy, then you still very far off in your thinking if you think he wants you in sin.

True happiness isn’t in man determination of what best but it holding to God standard no matter what the cost. The world may mock you, you might suffer, you might ‘miss out’ on something, it may be very hard, but God says it will truly make you happy.

Don’t you really want to be happy?

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