It doesn’t matter where you live everyone wants to be happy, it’s the desire of every human heart, and yet it’s something that seems so elusive if nigh on impossible to achieve, and when perhaps you do seem to get a bit of it, it doesn’t seem long before it’s gone again.
Perhaps it’s because we look for it in all the wrong places, seek it in the wrong things, seek it in people and seek it in circumstances.
One things for sure, we were made for happiness, that’s why we desire it, why we seek it, because God put it there. This is where Christmas comes in, because true happiness is found where Christ is, hence we wish one another a Happy Christ-mas.
The Christmas message is about God breaking in on our unhappy broken humanity in Jesus in order to restore our relationship with himself and thereby enable us to be connected to the true source of happiness and so know true happiness once again. As Paul says to Timothy the gospel is ‘the Good News of the glory of the happy God.’ (literal translation).
To know and be right with God and live in relationship with Him is happiness. As John Piper loves to say in his rendering of the the answer to the Westminster Confession of Faith’s question concerning the chief end of man, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
Enjoyment and happiness go hand in hand. We were made to enjoy God, to be happy in him.
It is our sin, our rebellion, our self will, our selfishness, that cuts us off from God and ruins our relationships with others.
Jesus came to change that, to bring salvation. As the angel said to Joseph “you shall call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sins,” and the angels to the shepherds, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you Good News of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Knowing you are forgiven, cleansed, made new, and have a vital life giving and life sourcing relationship with the God who made and sustains you is indeed happiness.
May you know the true happiness of Christmas.
A Happy Christmas to you!
The Word 4 Life 
Reblogged this on Praying for the millennials.
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