happiness on Holiness

I have a nagging sense that when we read the word blessed , we either feel indifferent or suspicious. Both of these responses are likely the result of the way the term is (over)used in our day-to...

No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be.

God doesn’t “just” want you to be happy; he wants you to be holy as he is holy and to find true, lasting joy in him.

People shoot for happiness, but they often feel empty, alone, and without meaning…People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering…Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefi...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

"God's joy," said by the Persian mystic Rumi, "moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rain water down into flower bed. As roses up from ground. Now it looks ...

People shoot for happiness, but they often feel empty, alone, and without meaning…People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering…Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefi...

It is my happiness that I have served Him who never fails to reward His servants to the full extent of His promise.

There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he ...

Pastor: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  People: Amen.   Pastor: Shout for joy to God, all the earth! People: Sing the glory of his name; make...

There is a constant mental pilgrimage towards that Mecca of the human heart—happiness. . . . Everybody wants to be happy, and thinks, strives, wishes, and lives to that end.

Go, as God’s people of joy, carrying in your hearts the good news that our God delights to seek and save all who are lost. May you know how deeply Christ values each and every person who you encounter...

Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body ...

Father God, you come to us in the everyday. You give us your Word and your Spirit that we might hear your voice, and follow your ways. We confess that we have neglected your words to us and pretended ...

Leader: When our Lord Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, He lifted His hands in blessing, promising to be with us always. Even though His Word confirms His presence in our lives, we are a sinful...

We believe, O Lord, that you have not abandoned us to the dim light of our own reason to conduct us to happiness, but that you have revealed in Holy Scriptures whatever is necessary for us to believe ...

Leader: Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. People: Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever. Leader: T...

There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.

It is a mark of the essential morality of fairyland (a thing too commonly overlooked) that happiness, like happiness anywhere else, involves an object and even a challenge; we can only admire scenery ...

[T]hose persons who are on the leading edge of evolution realize . . . that the greatest happiness in life comes, not from the comforts and pleasures that money can buy, but from the investment of the...

Until Christ completely cures us and this world, our happiness will be punctuated by times of great sorrow. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be predominantly happy in Christ. Being happy as the norm rat...

If you seek righteousness first, you get happiness. If you seek happiness first, you get neither.

We pray to You our Lord, our Savior, our Merciful God, that all our sins may be forgiven. Our sins are like a straight jacket, binding us, and keeping us from relationship with You. Although we know w...

We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ...

The first thing the group of American church leaders noticed about the Central Asian pastor they were meeting was his smile. It was huge. It was so big that anyone who looked at it had to smile too!...

Pastor: Even on this joyous day of celebration let us not forget that we are sinful people who do not deserve the precious gift of salvation that God has given us in the death and resurrection of Je...

There's no greater lifestyle and no greater happiness than that of having a continual conversation with God.

Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we ha...

Have you seen The Good Place ? You should. The afterlife comedy TV show, starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, offers a quirky take on heaven and hell which offers plenty of grist for the mill fo...