NEW HAPPINESS

Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition. We do not need ‘reasons’ to be happy. We do not have to consult the future, or read on ahead, or rely on what will happen after we die. We need to know how happy we are now, and to accept what is now. The future will eventually unfold and give up its mysteries.

Jesus said, “It is the one who endures to the end who will be saved” (Matthew 10:22; Mark 13:13). The end is not the issue, but the enduring. It is in the enduring we must find happiness. The ‘reward’ is now. This is not an avoidance of trouble, persecutions, trial and hardship, but an attitude of contentment and happiness as we go through life’s situations. The perspective is to see things as eternal and everlasting. What we are now is what we are and ever will be until made into something new. The changes and conditions that may come after death have little effect on us now. To live for the future changes is a massive form of delusion and escapism. Although there is a promised ‘newness’ in the future, it is not what should motivate our current happiness.

“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Jesus