Do You Want Perfect Happiness?

Do you want to be happy in world of stress, strife, anxiety and depression?  Here’s how.

Matthew chapter  5, the famous sermon on the mount, covers it -living a truly blessed and fulfilled life, that is. It may seem upside down to most. It doesn’t include fame, fortune, ease, luxury or self promotion. Quite the opposite, in fact.

When Jesus used the word “blessed” the word  carried the meaning of “divine joy and perfect happiness.”

Wiersbe explains,

The word was not used for humans; it describes the kind of joy experienced only by the gods or the dead. It implied an inner satisfaction and sufficiency and did not depend on outward circumstances for happiness. This is what the Lord offers those who trust Him!

God tells us how we can have this joy and perfect happiness, and I love this because it shows that our happiness is not dependent on our circumstances.  Happiness is not the absence of life’s trials and storms. We can be perfectly at peace in the midst of the biggest storms in life, KNOWING that it is Christ who is with us, allowing the storm, and the very one who will see us through the storm and all the while, will use the storm for our benefit, if we trust Him and hold on to Him through it all.

If you want divine joy and perfect happiness:

• you  will be poor in spirit, or humble enough to see yourself before God as you really are.
• you will mourn over your sin. You’ll see it as God sees it, and agree that it needs to go.(mortify, put off the flesh) When we do mess up,  we seek to make it right, not only with God, but with the one we sinned against. (you cannot be right with God if you refuse to make things right when you have wronged others!)
• you are meek, which means that you are not easily disturbed by the sin committed against you. It  means that even though you could, by right, avenge yourself, you don’t.
• you hunger for God’s word, and are satisfied. You read it, study it, meditate on it, and let it renew your mind.
• you are merciful, and willing to extend mercy, because you have received mercy.
• you are pure in heart. Pure verses unpure, stained, tainted. Motives are checked against God’s word.
• you are a peacemaker, verses a trouble maker. Having experienced God’s peace, you ARE at peace and have a sweetness of spirit, so you can act as an instrument of God’s peace. Huge mood swings,  irrational fears, emotions or outbursts all indicate that there is a lack of peace in your spirit.
• you are persecuted for your righteousness.  This verse is talking about those who are doing the right things, with the right motives, and still you are being persecuted for their good testimony. Many people believe that they have a good testimony. A testimony is what you say about yourself. But, what about your reputation? That is what other people say about you and your life.

Would they say you are characterized by these things?

Humility, sorrow over sin, meekness, a hunger for God’s word, mercy, being a peacemaking woman verses someone who offends and causes divisions among women, sweetness of spirit, righteous in word and deed.

This is a tall order, isn’t it? Yet, it is what leads to a charmed, blessed life in Christ.