Description of Real Happiness
- Happiness
is not having what you want; it is wanting what you have, it is being at a
place of contentment. Paul will say this to us in Phil 4:11-13 "Not
that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever
circumstances I am. “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also
know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have
learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance
and suffering need." I can do all things through Him who strengthens
me." The word for content is the noun autarkes
which
means contentment, to be content, to be self-sufficient.
It actually describes the happiness of the believer in spiritual
adulthood.
- The
happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts;
therefore, you should guard the type of thoughts that you allow into your
soul. You should be careful that you do not entertain any thoughts
unsuitable to virtue and impersonal love. This is why Paul said to the
Philippians in Phil 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever is
true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there
is any virtue and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on
these things." In fact, happiness and virtue rest upon
each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are
usually the best.
- The truth
is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in
this life whenever we use our capacities to their greatest extent. It's
our capacity that allows us to experience happiness. That's why Hebrews
13:5 says "Let your lifestyle be free from the love of money,
being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I
will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you."
- There is
only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which
are beyond the power of our will. An unhappy person is involved with
egotism, selfishness, evil, or absolute ignorance. Happiness is a way of
life. In fact, happiness requires problems. As Paul will say to us in Phil
4:4 "Be happy in the Lord always; again I will say, be happy!" Phil 4:5
"Let
your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near."Phil 4:6 "Be
anxious for nothing [stop worrying about anything], but
in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Phil 4:7
"And
the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts
and your minds in Christ Jesus."
- You'll
never realize how happy you are until you go through certain problems and
find out that your happiness has not been taken away. 1 Peter 1:3 "Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great
mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 1Peter
1:4 "to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and
undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven
for you," 1 Peter 1:5 "who are protected by the power of
God through faith for a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:6 "In
this you greatly rejoice [you have inner happiness], even
though now for a little while, if
necessary, you have been distressed by various trials," 1 Peter
1:7 "that the proof of your faith, being more precious than
gold which is perishable, even though tested by
fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation
of Jesus Christ;" 1 Peter 1:8 "and
though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him
now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with an inexpressible
happiness and full of glory [a
reference to a soul structure which thinks with God],"
- Happiness
is not a reward for doing something; it is a consequence. In the Biblical realm,
it is the consequence of taking in doctrine. Proverbs
- We tend
to forget that true happiness doesn't come as a result of getting
something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what
we do have. This is where capacity comes in once again.
- It is not
the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make anyone happy
or miserable. Proverbs 23:7 "For as he thinks within himself,
so he is." Proverbs
- Happiness
is learning to understand rather than to immediately judge. A person can
save himself from many hard falls by refraining from jumping to
conclusions. If you could only take some time to understand all the facts
rather than immediately judge someone, you will experience a tranquil
life, a life of peace and happiness.
- Happiness
means not following the majority and accepting their approach toward life.
A happy person is one who makes up his own mind, has his own convictions,
and doesn't allow himself to be manipulated.
- Happiness
is not allowing yourself to indulge in the usual manipulation that goes on
in life.
- Happiness is coming to understand that
life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized or just considered. A
happy person is not afraid to live and is not afraid to fail.
- A person
is happy because they are growing daily and not thinking of where the
limit lies. Every day there can be a new revelation or a new discovery
about life and about God. The happy person lives one day at a time and
enjoys himself.
- Happiness is also being able to treasure
the memory of past misfortunes. In fact, happiness isn't something you
just experience; it's something you remember.
- The happiest people are those who think
the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means
of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures,
good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. They
are not only happy in themselves, but they share their happiness with
others.
- It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. The key to true happiness is a change in our mental attitude.
People, marriage, sex, prosperity, success cannot make you happy. Only the execution or fulfillment of the protocol plan of God and the use of the ten problem-solving devices can make you happy. In fact, success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. And once you have perfect happiness, you have the same happiness and the same capacity for happiness in adversity as well as in prosperity.
The Biblical Categories of Happiness
- Pseudo happiness or false happiness.
- Establishment happiness from following the laws of divine establishment.
- Perfect happiness which is the possession of divine happiness (also called +H).
Pseudo happiness is Satan's attempt to counterfeit the
happiness, the contentment, and the blessing which God has provided for every
Church-age believer as members of the royal family of God. The provision of
perfect happiness is found in our portfolio of invisible assets and the game plan
for the Church-age, the protocol plan of God. However, as the ruler of this
world, Satan loves to keep his citizens deceived through this counterfeit
happiness. He does so by providing stimulation, ambition, and self-indulgence
which will either counterfeit or cancel out the happiness God provides for us.
This is why the apostle John said in 1 John 2:15-17 "Do
not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the
love of the Father is not in him "For all that is in the world, the lust
of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not
from the Father, but is from the world." "And
the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of
God abides forever."
Satan himself does not personally administer pseudo
happiness to any person, but he does provide the system called in this passage
the world, or the kosmos, which we call the cosmic
system. And the cosmic system provided by Satan is filled with illusions,
delusions, fallacies, and misconceptions of happiness. Satan's myth of
arrogance is that both people and pleasant circumstances in life can make you
happy. This of course is not true. Satan's propaganda is that money, success,
pleasure, social life, sexual life, public approbation, fame, material things,
travel, health, and pleasant circumstances in life can make you happy. This is
only true under certain circumstances and with certain limitations; however, it
doesn't last. Often these things are pleasurable, stimulating, fun, and
enjoyable, but they cannot support you...especially in time of suffering.
By way of contrast, what God has provided for us in
perfect happiness is a permanent factor and a problem-solving device. Remember
this principle, anything that is worthwhile is worthwhile in adversity as well
as in prosperity. If you are dependent on any person or set of circumstances
for happiness, you are weak and you do not have happiness. To the extent that
you are dependent on people, circumstances, prosperity, success, or any accoutrements
of life for happiness, you are weak. But if, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you
have been faithful in the reception, retention, and recall of Bible doctrine
and have advanced to spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, or spiritual
maturity; you are not only a strong person, but you have great inner happiness.
You take this inner happiness with you wherever you
go, just like the apostle Paul took it with him while in prison. God's
happiness isn't dependent on environment, associations, or circumstances of prosperity
or adversity; it depends on none of these things.
God's happiness is simply a part of God's grace policy
to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that Satan is the ruler of this
world, Luke 3 4:5-7; John
Satan rules and controls through a policy called
arrogance, in contrast to God's policy of grace. However, Satan's
administration of pseudo happiness to any believer or unbeliever can only exist
when that person is involved in the cosmic system. This happens primarily in cosmic
one, where through arrogance, any capacity for true happiness is destroyed.
Arrogance destroys any capacity for happiness. The
presence of arrogance in your soul is a guarantee of unhappiness perpetuated
for the rest of your life. Arrogance includes jealousy, and you cannot be
jealous and be happy. It includes self-pity, and you cannot have self-pity and
be happy. It includes a guilt complex, which you cannot have and be happy.
It also includes implacability, vindictiveness,
hatred, revenge motivation, revenge function; any of these can keep you from
being happy. All mental attitude sins, which add up to motivational arrogance,
guarantee the exclusion of any happiness. Then from there you will move to
functional arrogance, which only intensifies your unhappiness, causing you to begin
a frantic search for happiness, and to try all sorts of things that will only
make you unhappy. Your life might be like the fool mentioned in Luke 12:16-17 "And
He told them a parable, saying, 'The land of a certain rich man was very
productive.'""And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall
I do, since I have no place to store my crops?'"
Luke 12:18-21 "And he said, 'This is what
I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will
store all my grain and my goods. "And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you
have many goods laid up for many years [to come];
take your ease, eat, drink [and] be
merry. "But God said to him, 'You fool! This [very]
night your soul is required of you; and [now]
who will own what you have prepared?'" "So
is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Unhappiness destroys the potential for contentment and
appreciation and causes people to go on the frantic search for happiness. This
complete and total search for pleasure eventually results in the total
destruction of the individual. No amount of material possession produces
wealth; but enjoying what we have, no matter how much or how little it may be,
is what makes us wealthy. And, for those in the world, it is very hard to tell
what does bring happiness because poverty and wealth have both failed. The
problem is these people have been deceived by the god of this world.
That's why in Revelation 12:9 we are told "And
the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent
of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world;" So,
the arrogance complex is very deceptive because it deludes, distracts, and
deceives mankind into false notions about what constitutes happiness. A short
good time can certainly be construed as happiness during the time it occurs. Pseudo
happiness can be stimulation, fun, entertainment, or something that is
enjoyable, but it isn't permanent; it is momentary. It depends upon a set of
circumstances and an environment pleasant to you. And the great deceiver of
this world has trapped many individuals by causing them to be suckers for
pseudo happiness.
As 2 Timothy
Therefore, it is called pseudo happiness. You are
stimulated and you call it happiness, but it's gone tomorrow. Pseudo-happiness
is associated with any form of stimulation, enjoyment, or excitement which
provides temporary pleasure, but it does not sustain, motivate, or encourage
the believer in time of adversity, pressure, suffering, or testing, during
which time he needs to use the resources of doctrine to solve the problems that
beset him. And instead of true happiness, if you are involved with the cosmic
system this guarantees you self-induced misery and divine discipline. You can
be free to indulge yourself in every whim of life, and yet become frustrated
and miserable. You must have capacity for happiness to really be happy, and
then you can be happy in whatever life has to offer you in a given moment.
Capacity for happiness must precede the experience or function of happiness.
- The
unbeliever who functions under morality without arrogance will have
establishment happiness from the laws of divine establishment.
- The
believer who functions under consistent perception, metabolization and
application of Bible doctrine will receive perfect happiness, which is a
day-by-day, moment-by moment happiness that carries you in the darkest of
nights and the most difficult of times.
Life is divided into two parts: living and dying. And
if you have perfect happiness in living, you will have perfect happiness in
dying, whether it is prolonged and painful or short and sweet. The only
difference between living and dying is that, in living, we have the full use of
our volition toward doctrine. However, in dying, our volition is no longer an
issue because God's sovereignty selects the time, place, and manner of our
death. If you live in the cosmic system, you will have a pseudo happiness in
living and therefore a pseudo happiness in dying; and you will die miserably
with a lifestyle of fear. Your mental attitude of panic will actually intensify
all your problems in dying. But if you have perfect happiness, you will have a
magnificent life and a magnificent time while dying.
Another area in which you can have either pseudo
happiness or God's perfect happiness is in your single or marital status. If
you have pseudo happiness, when you are single, you wish you were married; and
when you are married, you wish you were single. But if you have perfect
happiness, it doesn't make any difference whether you are single or married. If
you have perfect happiness and impersonal love in marriage, you can resolve all
marital problems. That doesn't mean that the marriage is always going to work
out; in many cases it does not. However, it does mean you don't have to have
any bitterness, jealousy, anger, vindictiveness, or revenge motivation, like so
many do when their marriage doesn't work out.
Remember that the four divine institutions are for
believers and unbelievers alike. They are the basis of structure in society,
the basis for the perpetuation of human life and freedom, and the basis for
order in society by which each person can fulfill his own destiny while others
fulfill theirs. However, neither divine institution number one, volition, nor
divine institution number two, marriage, sustained and carried Adam and the
woman in perfect environment. Before the fall of man, two divine institutions
existed. There was freedom of volition, divine institution number one, and then
there was marriage, divine institution number two. There was no family and no
nation, which are divine institutions numbers 3 and 4 However, the marriage of
Adam to the woman was a flop, a failure, as noted by Adam's original sin and the
woman's sin.
And as they left the garden, God gave each one a
mandate, and whether you and I like it or not is not the issue; God said
"Husband, work! Wife, bear children!" God didn't tell them, "Go
forth and be happy." In fact, throughout the Scripture, there are no
mandates to be happy in marriage, because marriage is not a state of happiness.
And if you did a study in the word of God, you would find out that certain
marriages were flops, but the individuals still had perfect happiness. For
example, remember Abraham's deceitful and cowardly attitude toward his wife
Sarah, Gen 12:12-13, 20:1-18. They didn't have a good marriage, but they both
ended up winner believers and had the happiness of God.
Moses divorced his first wife Zipporah in Exodus 18:2,
but he still had the happiness of God during that terrible marriage where she
threw some foreskin at him. I'll let the Living Bible give you an idea of what
happened. Exodus 4:25 "Then Zipporah his wife
took a flint knife and cut off the foreskin
of her young son's penis, and threw it against Moses' feet, remarking
disgustedly, 'What a blood-smeared husband you've turned out to be!'" He
didn't have a good or happy marriage, but he had the happiness of God. Do you
think that David had a happy marriage when in 2 Samuel 5:13 "Meanwhile
David took more concubines and wives from
He didn't have a good or happy marriage, or in his
case, marriages, but he had the happiness of God. In fact, in 2 Samuel 6:16, it
says that his wife Michal hated him. However, David still had God's happiness. Hosea
is another example of a winner believer who did not have a happy marriage. Hosea
1:2 "When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to
Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry [or
go marry a whore], and [have] children
of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord." Hosea
1:3 "So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she
conceived and bore him a son." He didn't have a good or happy
marriage but he had the happiness of God. Now,
the point is, marriage was never designed for happiness. A happy marriage
occurs when two happy people enter into
a state of matrimony and in that state retain their
happiness.
The only happy people who can do this are those who
have perfect happiness or
A marriage is successful when two unhappy people get
married, and through the predesigned plan of God or the laws of divine
establishment, attain happiness and live together in a state of contentment. But
with regard to believers, it is impossible for believers to have a happy
marriage apart from spiritual growth, execution of the protocol plan of God,
and possession of perfect happiness. The best potential for a great marriage
belongs to believers who are positive toward doctrine. If the carnal believer
tries to have a good marriage through establishment, his carnality and arrogance
cancel out the establishment principles. Therefore, the believer's only hope is
to grow in grace through the perception of Bible doctrine.
A successful marriage is possible for any two
believers who are both positive toward Bible doctrine. An unsuccessful marriage
also happens when a happy person and an unhappy person get married, and the
unhappy person causes the happy person to revert to the cosmic system. A
failing marriage occurs when the happy person married to an unhappy person
changes his priorities in life so that he loses his premarital happiness. So
marriage will not make you happy. In fact, if you are involved in the arrogance
of the cosmic system, marriage will intensify and increase your misery.
People, marriage, sex, prosperity, success cannot make
you happy. Only the execution or fulfillment of the protocol plan of God and
the use of the ten problem-solving devices can make you happy. In fact, success
is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. And once you have
perfect happiness, you have the same happiness and the same capacity for
happiness in adversity as well as in prosperity.
In Phil
However, if you are single and looking for happiness,
do not look for it in someone of the opposite sex...you won't find it! People
are no better in marriage than they are as people. People are never the same
after marriage; they change either for the better or the worse. Marriage is a
problem manufacturing device which demands the best from every believer.
