Joy & Happiness

September 30, 2014

How is it, people often ask, that so many professing believers have so little happiness in their religion? How is it that so many know little of joy and peace in believing, and go mourning and heavy-hearted towards heaven? The answer to these questions is a sorrowful one, but it must be given. Few believers attend as strictly as they should to Christ’s practical sayings and words. There is far too much loose and careless obedience to Christ’s commandments. There is far too much forgetfulness, that while good works cannot justify us, they are not to be despised. Let these things sink down into our hearts. If we want to be eminently happy, we must strive to be eminently holy.

– JC Ryle –

September 10, 2014

Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

– CS Lewis –

August 17, 2014

As I linger on the Hill of the Cross — my sorrow is changed into song, and I go on my way with a merry heart.

– Alexander Smellie –

July 23, 2014

The worldling does not care for Christ because he has never hungered and thirsted after Him. But the Christian is athirst for Christ. He is in a dry and thirsty land where no water is and his heart and his flesh pant after God, yes, for the living God! And as the thirsty soul dying, cries out, “Water! Water! Water!” so the Christian cries out, “Christ! Christ! Christ!” This is the one thing necessary for me and if I have it not, this thirst will destroy me!

– Charles Spurgeon –

July 21, 2014

No one can live without delight, and that is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasure.

– Thomas Aquinas –

July 18, 2014

If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.

– Oswald Chambers –

July 11, 2014

…my heart is taken with Christ, it is ravished with His love; my soul is burning, my soul is beating towards Christ. Oh, none but Christ, none but Christ! I cannot live in myself, I cannot live in my duties, I cannot live in external privileges, I cannot live in outward mercies; I can live only in Christ, who is my life, my love, my joy, my crown, my all in all.  Oh, the more I come to know Him in His natures, in His names, in His offices, in His discoveries, in His visits, in His beauties, the more I find my heart and affections to prize  Christ, to run after Christ, to be affected with Christ, and to be wonderfully endeared to Christ!

– Thomas Brooks –

July 4, 2014

And yet, if it be true that God alone is goodness and joy and love; if it be true that our highest blessedness is in having as much of God as we can; if it be true that Christ has redeemed us wholly for God, and made a life of continual abiding in His presence possible, nothing less ought to satisfy than to be ever breathing this blessed atmosphere, “I wait on Thee.”

– Andrew Murray –

May 25, 2014

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

– AW Tozer –