Jesus is represented as doing His work through love (John 3:16), and
for the joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
The Search for Happiness.--How can I be happy? This is the great
question with multitudes of people. Men seek joy with the same
eagerness that they dig for gold. Yet this world is a sad one, full of
care, sickness, anxiety and sorrow. Many are the railers at fate and
circumstances which keep them from realizing the object of their
search.
The failure to find happiness arises in large part from going wrongly
about it. Men seek happiness through relaxation and the lowering of
the moral standards. Men ask, why should we obey this or that law of
God, man or our moral nature, if it bars the way to our enjoyment?
"Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die"; and eating and drinking
they go out into a wild and barren land of sorrow. Again men seek
happiness through the abundance of things; as if a human soul, born in
the image of God, could be satisfied with mere things.
The Conditions of Christian Happiness.--Christ, as the Great Pattern
of life, showed that true happiness must be attained through the
mastery of the situation, the victory over temptation (Matthew
4:1-11), and the hardest and most adverse circumstances of life
(Hebrews 12:3; Philippians 2:8-10; 2:1,2; Matthew 16:21-27). There is
no greater joy than that of the victors in a hard fought
battle. Heaven is for conquerors (Revelation 15:2,3; 17:14). It is the
man who has gone down into the tumult and uproar of the arena of life
and fought and conquered in some good cause who tastes the supreme cup
of happiness. The master words of the Christ were, "fight," "watch,"
"pray"; here is the entrance to the Utopia so long sought by men. The
man who has no control over his appetites, passions and temper, and
who cannot endure hardness in a service in which he is interested, can
never know what genuine joy is. Read the roll call of the heroes in
the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.
1. A great object in view. There can be no greater object than to
serve Christ in all the relations of life (Matthew 6:33; 10:38; 8:22;
16:24; 19:21).