Chapter 4 - Why Does Our Happiness Matter?

In this chapter Alcorn again dismisses the common Christian view that it is wrong or sinful to seek happiness. He goes on to quote many divines who say that true happiness is what God wants to give us. Yes, we are to shun the false happiness that sin offers but run hard after the happiness found in Christ. This not only glorifies God but it is the way to awaken a disillusioned, lost, unhappy world.

These 4 points are the essence of the chapter:

1.     All people desire happiness.

2.     The gospel of Jesus Christ offers people both eternal happiness and present happiness.

3.     People are drawn to Christ when they see true happiness in his followers and are pushed away when they see us chronically unhappy.

4.     God is the sole origin of true happiness, and we should wholeheartedly seek our delight in him.

Here are the quotes. How do they strike you?

·       CS. Lewis wrote, If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion . . . is no part of the       Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

 ·        Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) said, “No one can live without delight, and that is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.” He also said,  “Man is unable not to wish to be happy.”

  ·        Blaise Pascal, who said, “All men seek happiness… Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both… They 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.

 ·        J. C. Ryle said, “I assert without hesitation, that the conversion described in Scripture is a happy thing and not a miserable one, and that if converted persons are not happy, the fault must be in themselves. . . . I am confident the converted man is the happiest man.”

 ·        Spurgeon said, “There is nothing that more tends to strengthen the faith of the young believer than to hear the veteran Christian, covered with scars from the battle, testifying that the service of his Master is a happy service, and that, if he could have served any other master, he would not have done so, for His service is pleasant, and His reward everlasting joy.”

 ·        German Reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) said, “It is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.”

  ·        Puritan Thomas Watson wrote, “God has twisted together his glory and our good.” He argued that God says to us, “The more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.”