This wonderful article captures the millennial hope our Christian forbears sought so diligently. Read the whole thing without delay. It’s suitable because it correctly identifies what Americans were, why they were the men and women they became and to whose culpability our current problems must be attributed. The loss of Christian America can only be the responsibility of Christians. Writing this post has reminded us of the damage the pessimism of Premillennialism can have on civilization.

Nothing below is a slight against the author or the article. This post is categorized under Religion and tagged Christian Instruction. It’s posted with a prayer to God that He brings joyfulness to the hope of the believer.

The author discusses happiness in a very biblical way, yet happiness is the wrong word; it’s not what the Christian ethic is about. Words matter, a lot, and all the more as communists destroy the actual and historical meaning of language.

A modern American dictionary will claim that Happiness and Joy and virtually synonymous. Those are the same dictionaries that claim a nation is a country and vice-versa.

You might get temporary happiness from a psychiatrist or psychologist, but joy is of the Lord. You can, at times, be content in your external situation, but internal contentedness comes from the knowledge of Christ Jesus, joy abounding unto the fruit of the Christian in service of Him toward your fellow man. Joy is a gift too precious not to share.

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” – Galatians 5:22-23

If you have a Bible translation that replaces joy with happiness, it was written by an inferior mind, one probably trained by communists. It’s not merely a matter of interpretation; it’s translated wrong! I’m not going to delve into the greek to show why; I couldn’t. But better yet, we’ll show what God does in the heart of the believer because that’s what matters. The issue is so important that we doubt the salvation of the translator who would use happiness.

It’s not happiness. Happiness comes from that which is external. Everything that happens to us and around us causes an emotional response, one of which can be happiness. Happiness is caused by things that happen; for that is the hap. Dear Christian friend, if you’re looking for happiness from external motivations, that is NOT Christianity!

The fruit of the Spirit, as we’ve explained prior, is not our fruit; it’s God’s fruit in and through you. It’s the Holy Spirit’s fruit, and He is God. Nor is the fruit of the Spirit many fruits; they are a single fruit that shows in the believer and through his converted heart to others.

The very first aspect of this fruit is love! Love does not cause happiness alone. In fact, if you love God and have a personal relationship with Him through Christ, you will experience the full range of emotions, and at times happiness will be one of them, and you may encounter a range of emotions all at once. But God is not a feeling or an emotion and not happiness.

Ah, but joy, dear brothers and sisters, the joy in Christ Jesus, there is the thing. Joy is the inward condition of the believer because the love of God by the Holy Spirit of God resides in the believer’s heart overriding all externalities; it’s the manifestation of love, the very love of God Almighty.

Joy is what keeps the believer calm when under persecution, and dear American believers, you need to know that because your day is swiftly approaching. Joy is what overrides the feeling of disgusted yuckiness so that we smile, take the hand of somebody who hasn’t bathed in a month or more, hug them and tell them that Jesus loves them and wants to save their eternal soul from damnation.

It’s joy, and man is this important, that overrides the desire for the momentary and fleeting happiness we get from sinning! This Joy of ours is caused by love; we have the love of God in us, His joy filling us; therefore, we depart from evil, rejecting the short season of pleasure (happiness) in sin, desiring much more so to please Him that we may attain to the fullness of the image of Christ Jesus in eternal life.

When we’re wronged by a brother in Christ; it doesn’t cause happiness! But it’s joy that makes us quick to forgive our brothers or share the Gospel even with those lost souls that have wronged us. You might assert those who hate God deserve nothing from you, but that’s wrong. They deserve to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for who were you but dead in your own trespasses and sins! We’re full of joy because we know God, lest we be high-minded, somebody loved us enough to tell us of the marvelous salvation in Christ by faith in His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. It’s the joy of His love for us that causes the believer to overcome doubt, nervousness, or shyness about openly discussing our Saviour and all He is willing to do for those that call upon Him in repentance of sin and hope of eternal life.

The love of God manifests the steady joy in knowing Christ is our King, God is our provider, and heaven is our home as we serve and live in the Kingdom of God awaiting the last day. This brings the desire in the Christian heart to give, care, and assist others while longing for the day of righteousness in Christ we know is coming by His vengeance upon all that reject His holy name. This is my considered and experiential observation; joy is the patience of the saints to those who keep His commandments.

These attributes of God, from Ephesians 5, imputed unto us should show outwardly toward a dead and dying, wicked, and sin-filled world as peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, which is a sober and sound mind. The love of God through His Spirit brings the joy from which all the fruit of the Spirit is bound to flow, changing the environment everywhere a Christian lays claim in the name of his King. The Love of God will cause us to show all these traits of God at once if only we would let Him. And that’s what they are, God’s own traits; His children should look and act like Him.

Hope and joy and love and peace aren’t mere words in the economy of God; they are how we proceed daily as we live, and move, and have our being in Him. Happiness comes and goes, but joy is our eternal state in the heavens before the throne of the Almighty, worshiping and bringing Him glory for today and evermore. Amen.

Happiness comes in a moment, and more often than not, from sin, which later brings heartbreak and suffering under the weight of the curse of God for our disobedience. Whereas joy comes from Christ in the heart of the believer so that in the face of all the ugliness the communists can muster, our giving and caring spirit remain to show outwardly as love and kindness for our fellow broken man.

This is how our Christian ancestors weathered hard times, and it’s what made them salt and light:

“17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: 18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” – Habakkuk 3:17-18

God is love. Joy brings rejoicing in Christ to those that have eternal salvation.