Resources by Topic: Happiness

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, Randy shares several scriptures and quotes about happiness. Watch the full video here. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. He shared scripture, quotes and personal experiences about happiness. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, he talks about experiencing happiness in creation and how that has been especially helpful for him. Watch the full clip here. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, Randy talks about our expectations for health and wealth and how that relates to happiness. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, Randy talks about some of the realities of having depression. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, Randy talks about depression and happiness. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Randy Alcorn spoke at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church, on the topic of happiness. In this clip, Randy shares about his personal journey to faith and how happiness was a part of it. For more information, check out Randy's Happiness book. 

Every sin we commit, every shortcoming we display is an attempt to be happy through a God-substitute. Lewis, who spent much of his life trying to find happiness outside God, finally realized he’d been deceiving himself. He wasn’t alone.

Our thankfulness glorifies God and makes Him happy: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” (Psalm 50:23). But God isn’t the only one affected when we give thanks.

The problem with idols is not that they’re intrinsically wrong. God created wood, stone, and gold, which can be fashioned into heathen idols. Likewise, He created family, friendships, work, music, art, sex, food, drink, and all that we rightly value. But all of these can still become idols—God-substitutes.

Something would be terribly wrong if we weren’t grieving for this world and those who suffer. But is it okay to be happy when we live in a world of hurt? And beyond that, is it actually God’s calling? Those questions motivated me to go deeper into Scripture and to see what people through the ages have said about happiness, especially the Puritans. 

Suppose you and a friend entered a store and your friend was awarded $100,000 for being the store’s 100,000th customer. Would you be hounded by the wish that it had been you instead? Would you expect your friend to split it with you since you held the door open and otherwise would have won? Or would you have simply rejoiced for her?

My son-in-law Dan Stump, married to my youngest daughter Angela, recently preached a great sermon on this passage in Jeremiah 2. I was there when he preached it and went back to listen to it again because it really spoke to me.

In our culture, most humor is based on joke telling, verbal ambiguities, and physical comedy. Jewish humor often employed witty hyperbole—clever, startling, over-the-top statements—to get a laugh. Though some comedians today do this and we laugh, when we see Jesus use the technique in the Gospels, we usually don’t get it.