Jesus Makes Me Happy

I have a question for you today. Are you really happy? I mean are you actually truly and honestly happy with your life. Maybe I should define the term happiness. Happiness is not the feeling you get when you get something. For instance, how many of you did the after thanksgiving shopping day? You get up at 4 a.m. with nothing but moonlight flowing through the windows to guide you to the light switch and groggily get ready for a day of exhausting shopping. Why do you do all that? Why do any of us go “Christmas” shopping in the first place? I think it is because we like see the faces of others light up. We can see a little twinkle in their eye when they receive what we have gotten for them. It’s fun with little kids because as soon as they here the word open, all you can see around them is a flurry of little arms and hands ripping ribbon strips of red and green wrapping paper and tossing them every where. They just know that something fun and exciting hides beneath that paper! They then proceed to play with their new toy for about two weeks before putting it down and never looking at it again.

I am talking today about a better happiness than that. A happiness that supersedes that temporary happiness fo giving and receiving gifts. God promised something in John 10:10. He stated blatantly why Jesus had come in the first place. “The thief only comes to steal kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Satan sets up tons of traps to take away any semblance of joy and happiness we have in our lives; he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Yet, Christ came to give life. He came so that we could rise above those empty desires and false feelings of happiness. Those temporal instances of happiness act like a drug. Once we have it, it fades away and we need something more to get our happiness high. So we want more, bigger, and better stuff to keep the euphoria going. Soon, you might even start using credit cards to buy what you want, honestly planning on paying for it later. Now you have debt to go along with the emptiness left behind by that missing happiness.

Don’t you want something more this year? I know that living from puff of happiness to the next puff of happiness is a miserable existence. Today, I want to offer you something much more substantial than that. I want to offer you real happiness that can always be had each and every day. It can never run out and never be exhausted. I am here to tell you that you can have real happiness! Honestly, this happiness is so simple that it is found in a children’s book. The title is Jesus Makes Me Happy. This little book has only seven pages including the cover. The other six pages have written on them six reasons we can be happy; six pieces of a life lived abundantly. Each one has a verse we can cling to every single day of the week! The left side of each part says “I am happy because…” which is then finished on the other side of the book. You can be happy because…

Jesus Loves You! – John 3:16, 15:9

“I loved you as the father loved me. Now remain in my love.”

Considering this book is a simple book for a child, we might be more than ready to dismiss its simplistic claims at happiness but I think you should stop and take a second to consider what it has to say. It even starts with the most simplistic of ideas. Jesus Christ loves you. He loves you in such a way that he will love you no matter what you do or where you go. He will always love you. He will never leave you nor will he abandon you. He loves you that much. He loves you so much that he would even die for you; actually He already did.

So many people are looking for love and grabbing at anything resembling it. Boys and Girls date as they try to figure out and understand love. Men and women change partners weekly trying to feel loved by someone and yet they never seem to find it. They always feel emptier than the week before. Wives scream and yell at their husbands because they feel unloved by His actions. They get mad and go gossip to their friends about how stupid their husband is. The problem is that the rest of the group feels the same way and so they deepen the problem instead of helping it. Husbands get tired of being nagged and shut themselves off so they can no longer hear their wife. They are tired of being disrespected. Does this resemble anything in your life? You spend all day cleaning the house and fixing yourself up and no one cares to say a word. You work your can off all day trying to make ends meet and never hear a word of thanks.