The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

Bridge-Logos Publishers

Chapter One

Is It Scriptural?

No thoughtful person can question the fact that, for themost part, the Christian life, as it is generally lived, is not entirely ahappy life. A keen observer once said to me, "You Christians seemto have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a manwith a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but ithurts him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek very earnestlyfor anything so uncomfortable." Then for the first time I saw,as in a flash, that the religion of Christ ought to be, and was meantto be, to its possessors, not something to make them miserable, butsomething to make them happy; and I began then and there to askthe Lord to show me the secret of a happy Christian life.

    It is this secret, so far as I have learned it, that I shall try to tell inthe following pages.

    All of God's children, I am convinced, feel instinctively, in theirmoments of divine illumination, that a life of inward rest and outwardvictory is their inalienable birthright. Can you remember,some of you, the shout of triumph your souls gave when you firstbecame acquainted with the Lord Jesus, and had a glimpse of Hismighty saving power? How sure you were of victory, then! Howeasy it seemed to be more than conquerors, through Him that lovedyou! Under the leadership of a Captain who had never been foiledin battle, how could you dream of defeat!

    And yet, to many of you, how different has been your real experience!Your victories have been few and fleeting, your defeatsmany and disastrous. You have not lived as you feel children ofGod ought to live. You have had perhaps a clear understanding ofdoctrinal truths, but you have not come into possession of their lifeand power. You have rejoiced in your knowledge of the things revealedin the Scriptures, but have not had a living realization of thethings themselves, consciously felt in the soul. Christ is believed in,talked about, and served, but He is not known as the soul's actualand very life, abiding there forever, and revealing Himself therecontinually in His beauty. You have found Jesus as your Saviorfrom the penalty of sin, but you have not found Him as your Savoirfrom its power. You have carefully studied the Holy Scriptures, andhave gathered much precious truth therefrom, which you havetrusted would feed and nourish your spiritual life, but in spite of itall, your souls are starving and dying within you, and you cry out insecret, again and again, for that bread and water of life which yousee promised in the Scriptures to all believers.

    In the very depths of your hearts, you know that your experienceis not a scriptural experience; that, as an old writer said, your religionis "but a talk to what the early Christians enjoyed, possessed,and lived in." And your hearts have sunk within you, as, day afterday, and year after year, your early visions of triumph have seemedto grow more and more dim, and you have been forced to settledown to the conviction, that the best you can expect from yourreligion is a life of alternate failure and victory, one hour sinning,and the next repenting, and then beginning again, only to fail again,and again to repent.

    But is this all? Had the Lord Jesus only this in His mind when Helaid down His precious life to deliver you from your sore and cruelbondage to sin? Did He propose to Himself only this partial deliverance?Did He intend to leave you thus struggling under a wearyconsciousness of defeat and discouragement? Did He fear that acontinuous victory would dishonor Him, and bring reproach on Hisname? When all those declarations were made concerning His coming,and the work He was to accomplish, did they mean only thisthat you have experienced? Was there a hidden reserve in eachpromise, that was meant to deprive it of its complete fulfillment?Did "delivering us out of the hand of our enemies" mean that theyshould still have dominion over us? Did "enabling us always totriumph" mean that we were only to triumph sometimes? Did beingmade "more than conquerors through Him that loved us" meanconstant defeat and failure? Does being "saved to the uttermost"mean the meager salvation we see manifested among us now? Canwe dream that the Savior, who was wounded for our transgressionsand bruised for our iniquities, could possibly see of the travail ofHis soul and be satisfied in such Christian lives as fill the Churchtoday? The Bible tells us that "for this purpose the Son of God wasmanifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil"; and canwe imagine for a moment that this is beyond His power, and thatHe finds Himself unable to accomplish the thing He was manifestedto do?

    In the very outset, then, settle down on this one thing, that Jesuscame to save you, now, in this life, from the power and dominion ofsin, and to make you more than conquerors through His power. Ifyou doubt this, search your Bible, and collect together every announcementor declaration concerning the purposes and object ofHis death on the cross. You will be astonished to find how full theyare. Everywhere and always, His work is said to be to deliver usfrom our sins, from our bondage, from our defilement; and not ahint is given, anywhere, that this deliverance was to be only thelimited and partial one with which Christians so continually try tobe satisfied.

    Let me give you the teaching of Scripture on this subject. Whenthe angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream, and announcedthe coming birth of the Savior, he said, "And thou shaltcall His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."

    When Zacharias was "filled with the Holy Ghost" at the birth ofhis son, and "prophesied," he declared that God had visited hispeople in order to fulfill the promise and the oath He had madethem; which promise was, "that He would grant unto us, that we,being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Himwithout fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the daysof our life."

    When Peter was preaching in the porch of the temple to the wonderingJews, he said, "Unto you first, God, having raised up His SonJesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you fromhis iniquities."

    When Paul was telling to the Ephesian church the wondroustruth, that Christ had so loved them as to give Himself for them, hewent on to declare that His purpose in thus doing was, "that Hemight sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word,that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not havingspot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy andwithout blemish."

    When Paul was seeking to instruct Titus, his own son after thecommon faith, concerning the grace of God, he declared that theobject of that grace was to teach us "that, denying ungodliness andworldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in thispresent world"; and adds, as the reason of this, that Christ "gaveHimself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purifyus unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

    When Peter was urging upon the Christians, to whom he waswriting, a holy and Christ-like walk, he tells them that "even hereuntowere ye called: because Christ also...