Happiness in the Christian Life

Some traditions and common sayings in Christian circles may lead people to believe that Christianity is only about self-denial. The Bible mentions this, but the Bible has a specific meanings for it, and when done in the right way (following the true meaning of it and with wisdom), it leads to happiness.

Christianity is about seeking your happiness and the happiness of others in God. The self-denial of Christianity promotes the long-term happiness of ourselves.

Often people focus too much on the denial, of not doing things, like denying themselves pleasure instead of positively doing things for others. When we help and love others we find we are much happier than if we were always alone.

When we talk about the Christian life, it's important to not forget the freeing aspect of Christ's work for us and how God's commands are really good and freeing in a sense. Sin is what tries to convince us that there is a better way than God's commands when truly there's not.

Here are five posts related to this topic:

• Our True Selves: "Often our feeling about Christianity from the outside or inside is that it may destroy our personality. ... The reality is that we find our true selves when we accept God. ..."
  
  
• Suffering as Non-Ideal: "Various Christian groups have promoted suffering as a Christian virtue. While the bible does suggest that suffering produces virtue, the bible does not promote a life of suffering. ..."
  
  
• The Word "Sacrifice" Should Be Used More Carefully
  
  
• Pleasure Is Not the Enemy
  
  
• Reflections on Being "Selfless"

Reflection on Self and Others

Often you see people assume a great coherence of thought of themselves and others. We assume we are highly logical beings whose thought all meshes together and assume so of others.

It is one of those things which is often not the case. It is actually very normal for people to have disparate ideas with degrees of contradiction in their thought.

We often think about ideas in isolation and while the contradiction is often not very high in our thought it does exist. Sometimes others might point out the error and it is easy to become defensive.

Often what we need is grace and humility. Humility to admit that we are wrong on things. We cannot grow if we refuse to admit our errors.

Grace on ourselves is also very important. Sometimes we don't want to admit we are wrong because we are too tough on ourselves. We have more judgement against ourselves than God does and so we can't accept our flaws because of the guilt we feel.

It is normal to be wrong in life. Truly great thinkers are great not because they are never wrong but because they have the humility to accept they have made mistakes and grow.

We all have errors and issues. The question is just if we are willing to accept them and learn from them as we become aware of the errors and issues.