Quote 626
If you want to try your hand at stoicism, forget the Bible. It has little for you. Scripture does not support the idea that our motives are more pure the less we are pursuing our own joy. Nope. In fact, according to the Bible, unless we are pursuing our happiness we cannot even come to God: for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6).
Jon Bloom
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/pleasure-is-the-measure-of-your-treasureOther Quotes from the Author & Topic
Joy is the highest testimony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or person. Love is to joy as fuel to the fire. If love lay little fuel of desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be great.
There are three expressions of a great joy in Scripture: the joy of a woman after her travail, the joy of harvest, and the joy of him that divides the spoil. The exultation of all these is wrought upon a sad ground; many a pain and tear it costs the travailing woman, many a fear the husbandman, perils and wounds the soldier before they come at their joy, but at last are paid for all, the remembrance of their past sorrows feeding their present joys.
Religion was never designed To make our pleasures less.
Joy is something very deep and profound, something that affects the whole and entire personality. In other words it comes to this; there is only one thing that can give true joy and that is contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He satisfies my mind; He satisfies my emotions; He satisfies my every desire. He and His great salvation include the whole personality and nothing less, and in Him I am complete. Joy, in other words, is the response and the reaction of the soul to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.Life in Christ, 30
Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose, only upon the Beloved who will never pass away.
the Christian tastes God in all his or her pleasures, and this increases them, whereas for other people pleasure brings with it a sense of hollowness which reduces it. God Has Spoken (14)
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