Count-It-All-Joy Parties

I know a pastor in Florida who used to have count-it-all-joy parties every now and then. He so believed this verse, that when he would face a difficult ...

Songs from Stress

There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God towards us. ... Faith sees that in her worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop ...

"Steady as She Goes"

To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy, and then, like sheep, it comes most ...

Dramatic Conversion

All Sins Swept Away:

A slave describes her delayed but dramatic conversion.

Jarena Lee (1783-c.1850) was one of the outstanding preachers in the African ...

Discipleship Means Joy

If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go ...

Happiness Is Our Response

God ... does not lavish his children with a jolly discipleship so that they may swim in spiritual ecstasy between conversion and death. God is a giver, ...

Cheering for Church

Like a victorious locker room, church is a place to exult, to give thanks, to celebrate the great news that all is forgiven, that God is love, that victory ...

Where Are the Happy People?

Not long ago, as I was talking with one of my teenage sons, he recounted an experience he had on a commuter train outside of New York City. It seems he ...

Sun Alone Creates a Desert

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Joyless Christians

The glum, sour faces of many Christians. ... They rather give the impression that, instead of coming from the Father's joyful banquet, they have just ...