Cheerful Christians

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 1, 1877

Cheerful Christians.

CHRISTIANS should be cheerful. The gospel is glad tidings. “Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy,” was the angelic announcement. Christ came to fill the earth with joy. He did not create sin, woe and death. His mission was and is to remove them. He takes away misery by removing its cause—sin. Then he fills the heart of every believer with a positive peace, which is ever increasing. Yet there are mopish and sad people among the professed disciples of Christ—the destroyer of sin and its consequent misery. Why is it? The early disciples were not so. In every state they were content. They took the spoiling of their goods, even risked their lives joyfully. In everything they gave thanks. Have Christians now less cause for joy? None whatever. And yet there are many who habitually wear long demure faces, and are continually groaning and sighing as if pressed with great sorrow. They are apparently less happy in the service of him whose yoke is easy to bear, than when in bondage to sin. And yet Christianity has not changed. Its grounds of joy are the same as ever. The Lord Jesus is the same perfect Saviour. The promises remain, and have lost nothing of preciousness. If Christians are unhappy it is because they misapprehend the genius of the gospel, or are inconsistent in their lives.

Unhappy Christians misrepresent religion. They give the world the impression that religion interferes with present happiness. Thus men are confirmed in unbelief, and their conversion delayed or hindered altogether. The world is in pursuit of happiness; and Christians owe it to the world to show that true happiness is found in Christ’s service. Be happy Christians. Do not be satisfied without Christian joy. “Happy is that people whose God is the Lord.” “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.”—Religious Intelligencer.