If every Sunday morning service is an evangelistic crusade, then the congregation will be a mile wide and an inch deep. Conversely, if no Sunday morning services offer explicit presentations of the gospel, then the congregation will be an inch wide and an inch deep. Paul teaches a better way: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much [...]

“Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). This is perhaps the greatest of all the lessons that Paul has been teaching us about joy. He has saved it for last. It is assumed here that to be godly, one must be born of God. Godliness is therefore the precondition for being a happy Christian. But it is an obvious fact of life that not all Christians are happy. The missing element that, if found, would allow any Christian to be truly happy, is contentment. Contentment is the state of a Christian’s heart when gratitude has become greater than [...]

The church at Philippi was troubled by some contentious women—Euodia and Syntyche.  The temptation to contentiousness, which finds its expression in nagging, fault-finding, chastising, complaining, emoting and the like, is a particularly strong temptation for women. The Bible does not contain a counterpart referring to men when it comes to the book of Proverbs, where, in verses 21:19, 25:24, and 27:15, those addressed repeatedly are contentious women. Now, men are specifically singled out in the Bible in a warning about “anger and quarreling” (1 Timothy 2:8), the masculine temptation here to be avoided being the desire to punch one another, [...]

There can be almost as much joy in the anticipation of a good thing as there is in the experience of the thing itself.  Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family, tells about his family’s yearly summer vacation. Each year, Jim and his wife take the boys camping. But the trip is preceded by months of anticipation. The family looks at maps of the areas where they intend to hike. They look for waterfalls, lookouts, interesting places. The actual camping experience only lasts a week, but the anticipation of the camping week builds for several months. As the trip [...]

Preachers have made much about the difference between joy and happiness. They say that joy is a steady inner condition of the heart, whereas happiness is an up-and-down response to conditions on the ground. “Nothing can steal your joy, but happiness depends on circumstances,” sayeth the preacher.  But what does the word of God say? Philippians 2:19-30 “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek their [...]

The theme of JOY is more prevalent in the book of Philippians than any other book in the Bible. The book can be divided into eight major sections and each one contains a key statement on the subject of joy. The first section (1:1-11) teaches us that when Christians invest themselves in partnership with other Christians, joy is the eventual return. The second section (1:12-18) teaches us that joy goes to the runner who is obsessed with advancing the gospel. When effective evangelism and discipleship has become a person’s passion, happiness is the reward. The third section (1:19-26) teaches us [...]

There are few things in life that are invincible. The mightiest nation might still be conquered, whether by an enemy’s resolve or by an internal rotting away of what made that nation strong in the first place. The best sports team is sometimes only one injury away from becoming one of the worst. There are countless people who can testify that they once sat upon a mountain of wealth but now sit upon the cold hard ground of homelessness or in a cold jail cell. Few things in life are invincible. It seems that unfettered joy is therefore unattainable, since [...]

Where is your happy place? Would you be happy to spend the next year of your life sitting in your happy place, be it on the shore or in the mountains, doing absolutely nothing for that entire year? When life has gotten way too busy, it’s easy to imagine that a year like that would indeed make you very happy. But nothing could be further from the truth. Paul found his happy place in a cold Roman prison cell. How can this be? “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance [...]

The Grinch was a loner. His cat-like face matched his propensity to slink off by himself the way cats like to do. The Grinch’s only friend was a pet dog, but the dog-like disposition of his little buddy actually served to illustrate just how miserable the Grinch was. The dog gave the Grinch an outlet for his anger. He was the whipping boy. But except for the moments when the pot-bellied green guy was lashing out at him, the dog was a happy little fella, and thus provided a stark contrast to the bitter Grinch. They were quite a pair, [...]

On his radio show, Dennis Prager devotes an hour a week to the subject of happiness. The subject has proven important enough to fill the hour week after week, year after year. Prager has a lot of good things to say about the subject, perhaps the most important of which is that being a happy person is a moral responsibility. To walk around as grumpy as Eeyore is to have a draining effect on others, which is a profoundly unloving thing to do. Plus, it is an affront to the God who made us for joy.  But of what [...]