Do you ever wonder where you can find the things that will make you happy?
We often try to find happiness through the things in this world. But nothing in this world can make us fully content and satisfy our souls. This is because the things in this world are only temporary; they don’t last forever. If you were to get the best things in this world, you would never catch up to the latest technology, or trend. This world keeps on changing. You will never get everything you want.
Think of it this way: Our soul is like a hole…
But the problem is our soul is of eternal value. We want to try to make ourselves fully happy, content and satisfied. But if we find the source of happiness from this earth, full of things of temporary value, it will never fill our souls up, no matter how many things we have. The only thing that can fill your eternal soul up, is something else that is also of infinite value. And that is God. Nothing else can ever make us happier than God himself.
Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher and mathematician once said:
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
Blaise Pascal
The only thing that can truly fill this ‘vacuum‘ in our hearts is God. It cannot be satisfied with any other thing on earth, ONLY God, through Christ Jesus.
Happiness has become an important factor that defines our life in this post-modern age as teens. Yet, we don’t realise that there is something more that can satisfy our souls than just the things we can see in this world — it is only God that can make us truly happy.
Introducing Sin
Sin is rebellion against God. It all started with The Fall, and ever since mankind fell into sin, all the generations until now have had a sinful nature. As Romans 5:12 states, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sinned.” (Read Genesis 3 for the story!)
According to 1 John 3:4, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; sin is lawlessness.”
God’s ultimate design is meant to be for us to find our satisfaction and enjoyment in Him alone. But in sin we turn away from God, and as a result, we seek happiness without God.
The Curse of Sin
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). The wages of sin is death, both physical and spiritual death. Because of our sins, we are all spiritually dead meaning we are separated from God. Because of the curse of sin, we are never truly satisfied when we try to find happiness because we are separated from Him, our only true source of happiness.
This spiritual death leads to our physical death where then we will be eternally dead — eternally and completely separated from God.
Reconciliation and True Happiness
The good news is, Jesus painfully died on the cross just for us — sinful and wicked beings, so that we can be reunited with Him and have a relationship with Him. He did something that we don’t deserve, yet His love for us is more than our sin and iniquities.
As Colossians 1:20 states: “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
How can God make us happy?
So we now know that God is our only source of true happiness, but the question remains:
How does God give us full satisfaction?
This is what the Bible says about this. Here are three things how God is our ultimate happiness.
Joy in Having a Relationship with God
Psalm 16:8-9,11
“I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
If we truly have God in our hearts, Psalm 19 states that we will receive happiness and find joy in the Lord. We become happy in the enjoyment of God, having hope in Him. This is what makes us happy: having a relationship with God. Having a relationship with God is the greatest gift you can ever receive because in Him, you find truth, protection and hope. This is something that the world cannot offer. Friends can hurt you, what you put your hope in won’t always happen. But this free gift that God offers to us assures true hope and joy in the Lord that will never fail us.
Joy in our suffering
Romans 5:1-4
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.“
This joy that God gives to us, doesn’t mean that we, as Christians will never experience any struggles or suffering because suffering is the result of sin. But, we learn to rejoice through suffering. The reason God gives us suffering is to strengthen our
faith and draw us closer to Himself — this shows us the significance of having a relationship with God.
Locked-in Happiness
John 16: 22
“So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
John 16:22 says that your heart will rejoice, and no man can take that joy from you. All the things in this world can be taken away by man or the world. Having the assurance that our joy in God is locked in forever once we’ve received it and that no man or anything can take that away from us, proves to us that this is a promising kind of happiness that definitely cannot be found anywhere in this world no matter how much we try. It’s an unbreakable happiness between you and God. This kind of joy is more than worth it because it is inseparable.
Where’s Your True Happiness?
God’s love for us and the happiness He gives us could never compare to the world’s happiness and satisfaction. All of the worldly desires will never be enough to fully satisfy our souls. Where is your true happiness? Have you confessed your sins, believed in what Jesus has done and place your happiness in God? The happiness the world offers is fleeting, it’s only temporary. The happiness God offers us is eternal and everlasting. In God is where you find true joy.
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:2