God's Promise of Happiness
By Randy Alcorn
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About this ebook
We know that we will experience unimaginable joy and happiness in Heaven, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also experience joy and happiness here on earth.
In God’s Promise of Happiness, bestselling author and noted theologian Randy Alcorn shares select passages and scripture from his latest hardcover release, Happiness, that provide insight, wisdom, and proof positive that God not only wants us to be happy, he commands it!
Randy Alcorn
Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries and a New York Times bestselling author of over sixty books, including Heaven and Face to Face with Jesus. His books have sold over twelve million copies and been translated into over seventy languages. Randy resides in Gresham, Oregon. Since 2022, his wife and best friend, Nanci, has been living with Jesus in Heaven. He has two married daughters and five grandsons.
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God's Promise of Happiness - Randy Alcorn
THE HAPPINESS GOD OFFERS
My dear brothers and sisters, if anybody in the world ought to be happy, we are the people. . . . How boundless our privileges! How brilliant our hopes!
CHARLES SPURGEON
section dividerDo we seek happiness because we’re sinners or because we’re human? Should faith in God be dragged forward by duty or propelled by delight? Must we choose between holiness and happiness?
Much of my time with my wife, Nanci, and our family and friends is filled with fun and laughter. The God we love is the enemy of sin and the creator of pleasure and humor. (True, God’s gifts of art, movies, books, sports, work, food, drink, sex, and money can all be used selfishly and sinfully. In a fallen world, what can’t be?)
I was an empty, unhappy teenager when I first heard the Good News about Jesus. Soon I put my trust in him and experienced a deep, heartfelt happiness unlike anything I’d ever known. Nevertheless, there’s a paradigm-shifting doctrine I was never taught in church, Bible college, or seminary: the happiness of God. Scripture says about Christ, Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked
(1 John 2:6). If Jesus walked around mostly miserable, it makes sense that we would. But if he was happy, shouldn’t we be happy too?
Christians throughout church history understood that happiness, gladness, feasting, and partying are God’s gifts, yet many Christians today live as if faith drains happiness! Life isn’t easy, of course, but believers have the benefit of walking the hard roads hand in hand with a Savior and King whose love for us is immeasurable. Who has more reason to be happy than we do?
There are a lot of promises in this booklet—most of them are God’s, not mine. All his promises are fully trustworthy. Why? Because they’re blood-bought, paid for by an all-powerful Lord who loves you radically.
Ask your Creator to speak to you, especially as you contemplate the Scripture I’ve included. May you find greater happiness in God than you’ve ever known—beginning now and never ending.
The people ransomed by the L
ORD
. . . will come to Zion singing with joy. Everlasting happiness will be on their heads as a crown. They will be glad and joyful. They will have no sorrow or grief.
ISAIAH 35:10, GW
Randy Alcorn
FALL 2015
Chapter 1OUR UNIVERSAL SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS
section dividerDO WE HAVE A CHOICE WHETHER OR NOT TO DESIRE HAPPINESS?
Augustine wrote in the fifth century, Every man, whatsoever his condition, desires to be happy.
[1]
Nearly 1,300 years later, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, All men seek happiness. This is without exception. . . . The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
[2]
Puritan Thomas Manton said, It is as natural for the reasonable creature to desire to be happy, as it is for the fire to burn.
[3] J. C. Ryle said, All men naturally hunger and thirst after happiness.
[4]
If we don’t understand what these wise people knew, we’ll imagine people have a choice whether or not to pursue happiness. We don’t. Happiness-seeking is built into every person, of every age and circumstance.
I believe we inherited from our Eden-dwelling ancestors a sense of their pre-Fall happiness. Our hearts refuse to settle for sin, suffering, boredom, and purposelessness—we long for something better. Were we merely the product of natural selection and survival of the fittest, we’d have no grounds for believing any ancient happiness existed. But we are all nostalgic for an Eden we’ve only seen fleeting hints of.
Unfortunately, for countless Christians, being happy yields an uneasy guilt. Being holy is something we can do in God’s presence, but being happy is something we’re more comfortable doing behind his back (which isn’t possible). But God’s children are told to be happy "before the L
ORD
":
You shall rejoice before the L
ORD
your God, you and your sons and your daughters. (Deuteronomy 12:12)
May all those who seek you be happy and rejoice in you! (Psalm 40:16,
NET
)
IS IT OKAY FOR CHRISTIANS TO BE HAPPY?
Shout triumphantly to the L
ORD
, all the earth! Be happy! Rejoice out loud!