JOY-LACK OF
The joyless
Christian reveals himself by having negative thoughts and talk about others, in
a lack of concern for others welfare, and a failure to intercede on others
behalf. Joyless believers are self-centered, selfish, proud, and often vengeful
and their self-centeredness inevitably manifests itself in prayerlessness.
The Christian
is a [person] of joy... A gloomy
Christian is a contradiction of terms, and nothing in all religious history has
done Christianity more harm than its connection with black clothes and long
faces.
John, v. 2.
God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.
Jeremy Taylor
The best
Christian has not always a joyous day. Our sins make sorrows needful – our lack
of watchfulness may bring disquietude and doubt, and, instead of “rejoicing in
the Lord,” our hearts may be filled with despondency and gloom. Christian! if
you have not this joy “abiding” in you now, you have cause for alarm; for, be
assured, it is suspended, not from any lack of love on the part of your Savior,
nor from any forgetfulness of you by the Holy Spirit, but, because you yourself
have become less watchful, in guarding the citadel of the heart.
John MacDuff
The Throne of Grace, Alexander Strahan Publishers,
1865.
When
the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the
fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that
it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart.
C.H. Spurgeon
The Sympathy of the Two Worlds, Sermon, Luke 15:10.
A pivotal
Christian thinker of our time once said, “Joy is the surest sign of the
presence of God... The bottom line for you and me is simply this: grimness is
not a Christian virtue. There are no sad saints. If God really is the center of
one's life and being, joy is inevitable. If we have no joy, we have missed the
heart of the Good News and our bodies as much as our souls will suffer the
consequences.”
Bruce Larson
There's a Lot More to Health Than Not Being
Sick.
The glum,
sour faces of many Christians. ...They rather give the impression that, instead
of coming from the Father's joyful banquet, they have just come from the
Sheriff who has auctioned off their sins and now are sorry they can't get them
back again.
Helmut Thielicke
Leadership, v. 1, n. 4.
If you have
no joy, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
Billy Sunday
The religion
that makes a man look sick certainly won’t cure the world!
Phillip Brooks
An unthankful
and complaining spirit is an abiding sin against God, and a cause of almost continual
unhappiness; and yet how common such a spirit is. How prone we seem to be to
forget the good that life knows, and remember and brood over its evil – to
forget its joys, and think only of its sorrows – to forget thankfulness, and
remember only to complain.
John
Broadus
Christian Joy.
If Christians
do not rejoice, it is not because they are Christians, but because they are not
Christian enough. Joy is the rational state of the Christian in view of his
spiritual position in Christ.
Derek Prime and Alistair Begg
On Being a Pastor, Moody Press, 2004, p. 52.
You must be
made miserable before you can know true Christian joy. Indeed the real trouble
with the miserable Christian is that he has never been truly made miserable
because of conviction of sin. He has by-passed the essential preliminary to
joy, he has been assuming something that he has no right to assume.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 28,
Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
No one is
really happy merely because he has what he wants, but only if he wants things
he ought to want.
Augustine