“…spiritual warfare rages over who appears to make people most satisfied: God or Satan. Thus, sounds of human gladness in God taunt Satan’s ears. Saints have understood their joy as a polemic: ‘You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound’ (Psalm 4:7).” - Desiring God
“The custom of praying to thank God for each meal is a wonderful one. But why should we restrict this custom to meals? Why not thank God throughout the day for a hundred other things?” - Randy Alcorn
“In a culture of death, nothing can satisfy us. The things of our world have become exclusively means… of our self-directed projects of building and securing worth, goodness, and meaning—and thus are no longer meaningful, good, worthy ends in themselves.” - Desiring God
“simultaneously, we are told to ‘rejoice with trembling’ (Psalm 2:11), and to ‘serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing’ (Psalm 100:2). We are to ‘come before His presence with thanksgiving;… [and] shout joyfully to Him with psalms.’ (Psalm 95:2)” - Churches Without Chests
“I believe that humor is a gift given to man by God as an expression of our Maker’s innate creativity. Jokes are what we create when we play with words and ideas until they make us laugh and fill our hearts with the medicine of joy (Prov. 17:22).” - 9 Marks
These days, you don’t have to be a news junky to hear of events that arouse strong disapproval or outright anger. But how should Christians feel about the foolishness and wrongdoing going on in our world and our culture? Should we be unmoved? Should we be perpetually outraged? What about Christian joy?
The Bible is clear that some things ought to get us worked up. We’re called to “hate evil” (Psalm 97:10, Prov 8:13, Amos 5:15), to “be angry” yet “not sin” (Eph 4:26).
We’re also called to be imitators of God and to be re-formed in His image (Eph 5:1, Col 3:10, Gal 4:19). We’re to walk as Christ walked (1 John 2:6). And anger is clearly part of who God is.
“How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2, CSB) - Randy Alcorn
“I’ve seen it a lot — church members who get angry at someone and then stay that way. I’ve seen people refuse to talk to each other at church, as if their silence is a godly adult reaction to disagreement. My heart breaks when I see such reactions because I’ve seen bitterness consume people for years.” - Chuck Lawless
“Play has helped me not to be defined by my difficulty or my desert. It’s helped me to see life as more than something that is challenging. It’s helped me see that my joy is not dependent on my health and my play is not dependent on whether life is good.” - Common Good
“Admittedly, many Christians will insist joy (deep, serious, lasting) should be sharply distinguished from happiness (light, trivial, fleeting), but this is a relatively recent—and in my view unhelpful—distinction.” - TGC
