The word “happy” comes from the old English root “hap”—which means fortune or luck. Happiness, then, is the result of good fortune. Although born-again Christians have every reason to be happy, the better word to describe our spiritually emotional state is the word “joy.”
Since joy is not reliant on good circumstances, we can have unbroken joy. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written while he was in prison. But twelve times he uses the word ‘joy’ or ‘rejoice’ to describe his spiritual/emotional state.
If you were in prison would you be rejoicing! I know that would be very challenging for me. But that was the expectation of Paul. It was also Peter’s experience. In his first letter he describes the Christians who were being persecuted as having inexpressible or unspeakable joy (1 Peter 1:8). The implication is hard to miss: only those who have been tried can know unspeakable joy—so great you can’t put it into words!
As long as we are in this world, we will have problems (John 16:33). And while we cannot control our circumstances, we can control how we respond. We can see right through everything to the finished work of Jesus (Heb. 12:3). When we understand that, we will know joy inexpressible—you might even say we have discovered the secret to happiness.
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