“There is a kind of danger in power, a bit of slavery in wealth, and a latent misfortune in comfort. There must be, has to be real joy found somewhere else.” -Charlie Dates
Tag Archives: joy
Heavenly Enjoyment
“We shall never enjoy ourselves fully till we enjoy God eternally.” Thomas Watson
BTW note: Watson’s point is less about ‘how much do you enjoy God: a little or a lot?’ The comparison point is ‘now or in eternity’ He’s saying we don’t really enjoy life to its fullest until we are in heaven enjoy God forever. He’s especially offering this insight to those who are struggling and suffering in this life.
God’s Tough Love
God intends to “break your schemes for earthly joy.” -John Newton
BTW NOTE: So we find lasting joy in him.
Panic Displeases God
“Panic displeases God. Fear is a matter of the heart, and our reigning King cares deeply and especially about our hearts, since it is from them that everything else issues (see Matthew 12: 33– 37; Mark 7: 20– 23). God cares about why we do something at least as much as he cares about what we do. Psalm 97 reminds us that, deep down, the fundamental tone of our lives must be joyful confidence in God’s sovereign reign, not fear: “The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. . . . Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name.” (Psalm 97: 1, 12, emphasis added). When I choose political and social action because I am afraid, even if I can justify that action from Scripture, I am denying God at a deep level. I am acting from unbelief. I am taking his majestic name in vain.” -Charles Drew
Leisure is Good
“Leisure is the condition of considering things in a celebrating spirit… Leisure lives on affirmation. It is not the same as the absence of activity… It is rather like the stillness in the conversation of lovers, which is fed by their oneness… And as it is written in the Scriptures, God saw, when ‘he rested from all the works that He had made’ that everything was good, very good (Gen. 1:31), just so the leisure of man includes within itself a celebratory, approving, lingering gaze of the inner eye on the reality of creation.” -Francis Pieper
Creation is to be Enjoyed
“Did God create food only to provide for necessity and not also for delight and good cheer? So too the purpose of clothing apart from necessity was comeliness and decency. In grasses, trees, and fruits, apart from their various uses, there is beauty of appearance and pleasantness of fragrance… Did he not, in short, render many things attractive to us, apart from their necessary use.” -John Calvin
Praise Completes Joy
“I think we delight what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.” -C.S. Lewis
Cultural Observation: Your Joy Makes Me Sad
The Absence of God
“a consciousness of the absence of God is one of the standing incidents of religious life. Even when the forms of devotion are observed conscientiously, the sense of the presence of God, as an invisible Friend, whose society is a joy, is by no means unintermittent.” -Austin Phelps
God Loves Variety, And That Should Make Us Love God
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.” -John Calvin
A Pilgrim's Theology 