Lesson for December 4, 2022
Problem-Solving Devices
#9 Problem-Solving Device – Sharing the Happiness of God
Sharing the happiness of God is having permanent contentment as your constant companion. This happiness is permanent because it does not depend on the circumstances in your life. It is actually God’s own perfect happiness that He shares with the advancing believer as a grace gift. Sharing God’s happiness is obtained only by consistently learning, believing, and applying the Word of God over a period of time. The more time you log under the power and the control of God the Holy Spirit and thinking divine viewpoint, the happier you are going to be. Therefore, sharing the happiness of God is not for the novice believer. It is impossible to share in something that you know nothing about. Being happy is one of the many spiritual blessings that comes with increased capacity. Increased capacity to receive God’s blessing of happiness comes only one way – study and application of Bible doctrine. (Jeremiah 15:16; John 13:17)
It is impossible to be happy as a believer in Christ without obeying the principles and commands we find in the Word of God. Disobedience brings only self-induced misery and discipline from our Heavenly Father. As Christians, we must learn to make good decisions from a position of strength. Our position of strength is in direct proportion to the amount of truth we have stored in our souls and the maximum utilization of that truth to our circumstances. This is what is meant by creating an environment in your soul for happiness. Bible doctrine is stored in the soul and is accessed from the soul by wisdom (application). (Proverbs 3:13)
The Word of God gives us a clear picture of how Jesus exhibited the happiness of God during His life on earth. You will recall that Jesus utilized the same power source that we have, the Holy Spirit, to sustain and empower Him. Therefore, the happiness of Christ was based on truth. He fully understood God the Father’s plan for Him and executed it with joy (happiness). Remember that Jesus was fully human with the same emotions that we possess. (John 15:1-14)
It is recorded that Jesus wept at the death of His friend Lazarus (John 11:33-35), He sorrowed over being rejected by the Jewish nation (Luke 13:34) and showed great emotion as He anticipated going to the Cross (Luke 22:42). However, throughout His entire life He always exhibited the happiness of God. Why? Because true happiness is a mental attitude, not an emotion. (Hebrews 12:2)
Christ was constantly being attacked by Satan and his accomplices, the Jewish religious leaders. Christ even endured six illegal trials, with all the physical and verbal abuse at the hands of the Jews and the Romans and still maintained His happiness. How? By utilizing eight of the ten Problem-Solving Devices, the exceptions being Rebound (He did not commit sin) and Occupation with Christ (He was Christ). As humanity, Christ was controlled by the Holy Spirit, used the Faith-Rest Technique, was totally oriented to grace, learned Bible doctrine, had a personal sense of destiny, exhibited the maximum personal love for God and impersonal love for all mankind and shared the happiness of God. In other words, He pioneered the Christian Way of Life for you and me. (John 1:1-34)
There is a counterfeit “happiness” of Satan. Since Satan was unsuccessful in destroying Christ’s happiness, now his mission is to attack the happiness of both unbelievers and believers. Satan has no happiness of his own to share. Therefore, he must resort to his favorite tactic, counterfeit. Satan is a genius and has been observing mankind from day one. This, of course, means that he knows people better than they know themselves. As the ruler of this world system, Satan’s system can provide all the conditional and temporary “happiness” a person can handle. This includes money, power, and fame. These things, we know, do not bring true happiness, and often bring only misery. But these things are not Satan’s only deceptions – his most effective one is religion. (II Corinthians 11:13-15)
Religion comes from two Latin words which mean “to bind back.” This naturally leads to a form of works for both salvation and spirituality. Religious leaders often encourage their members to engage in certain “spiritual” activities or to avoid certain “worldly activities” in order to be happy. Sometimes Christians are tempted to fake happiness in order to gain the approval of their pastor or other members of the church.
The word “joy,” which means happiness, has been distorted by Satan and his followers into an overt display of emotion, which is supposedly a sign of “spirituality.” Emotion is Satan’s best counterfeit of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. However, as we have studied, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is not felt nor seen.
Spirituality is being controlled by God the Holy Spirit. Emotion itself, as we know, is not evil. It is the incorrect use of emotion that is evil. Emotion is a wonderful thing, given to us by God as a response mechanism, especially to truth. True Christianity is not a religion. It is a permanent relationship with Jesus Christ. This relationship begins upon faith in Christ as Savior and has the potential of continuing after salvation as a way of life. Happiness, as we will see, is not dependent on overt activity or avoidance of certain taboos. Genuine happiness depends on the truth that you have stored in your soul.
True Happiness
“In fact, we write these things in order that our state of happiness might be completed.” (I John 1:4)
A state of genuine, true, and complete happiness depends on absolute truth found only in God’s Word. There are, however, degrees of happiness. The more time you spend in the study and application of Bible doctrine, the higher your degree of happiness. As believers continue to seek truth over time, their capacity to receive blessing increases. One of the many blessings that God gives, as a fruit of the Spirit, is happiness. But as with everything in the Christian Way of Life, happiness is only a potential. A believer must make the decision to spend time studying and applying God’s Word. The more you know about God, His policies and His mandates, the more application you will be able to make. The more application of God’s Word that you make, the happier you will be. (Matthew 6:33; Romans 14:16-19; Galatians 5:22-23; II John 12)
Divine Happiness
God is perfect happiness, His happiness is eternal, His happiness is unchanging (it never decreases or increases). Why? Because it is a part of His character. There has never been a time when God was unhappy. The times in the Bible when unhappiness is ascribed to the Lord, it is an anthropomorphism (ascribing to God human characteristics) to help us understand. God in His grace designed man with the possibility of sharing this divine happiness.
When believers think divine viewpoint, they are sharing the thinking of God and can also share the happiness of God. One of the by-products of sharing God’s thinking is personal independence. This means believers are becoming self-sustaining, able to make good decisions from a position of strength and utilize Bible doctrine effectively in all areas of life. Divine guidance, for example, becomes a matter of “spiritual common sense.” Believers are able to take the responsibility for their own decisions, good or bad, and stabilize their life as a result. No one is allowed to disturb, upset, or depress you since your confidence is in the Lord. All this combines to bring you happiness. This means that truth, exhibited in the life as integrity (a strict adherence to the truth), must precede happiness! (Proverbs 3:13, 8:32-34; John 17:13)
Sharing the Happiness of God
The completed state or mature state of happiness is a matter of spiritual growth. Believers who reach this state of happiness do not require overt blessings to sustain their happiness. And their state of happiness does not hinge on people, things, money, relationships, promotion, etc. Their relationship with God has matured to the place that they do not need special blessings in order to be happy. Therefore, God can give special blessings to them since they will not forget the source of their happiness or this prosperity. These believers will not be distracted from personal love for God by any details of life, whether it is adversity or prosperity. The first priority of these believers will be learning and applying Bible doctrine so that they can know God and fulfill His plan for their lives. (Philippians 4:8-13; Revelation 2:1-5)
When your spiritual life becomes more important to you than the details of life, you will be able to enjoy God’s happiness in all situations. no person or set of circumstances can defeat you because your happiness does not depend on people or circumstances. Your happiness depends on the doctrine that you have stored in your soul. Because your priorities are in order, you have learned that sharing the happiness of God replaces any false, temporary happiness that this world system offers. Sharing God’s happiness builds spiritual self-esteem, increases capacity for life, eliminates fear, increases our ability to endure suffering and continues to advance the maturing believer. When you reach the point of increased capacity in your spiritual life, God begins to pour out fantastic blessings (not always material) to you, which brings glory to Him both now and for all eternity. This means that you are no longer reaping what you sow, you are now reaping what God has sown. (James 1:2-3; Ephesians 2:7; Galatians 6:7-9; Hebrews 3:10-12)
The Litmus Test
It is impossible to have the capacity to share God’s happiness, if you’re not consistently utilizing the Problem-Solving Devices in your daily life. It’s a complete system. As with everything in the Christian life, sharing the happiness of God is only a potential, acquired only through spiritual growth. If the details of life are keeping you from learning and using an inventory of Bible doctrine in your soul, you will never experience the necessary growth required to share God’s happiness. So, here’s the litmus test for us. Am I progressing or retrogressing spiritually? We certainly never stand still in the Christian life. If you’re not growing, you’re shrinking! (Proverbs 8:32-34)