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Happiness

Написано New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

A girl holds a piece of watermelon with a nice bite take out of the edge of it.

Does God want us to be happy? What does the Bible say about happiness?

“Happiness” may seem like a passing thing, and hardly the ultimate goal in most belief systems. In fact, though, it is the Lord’s greatest goal for us: He wants us to be happy. If we allow it, He will lead and guide us to be as happy as we are able to be.

The whole reason the Lord created us was so that he could love us, and what else but happiness do you wish for someone you love? But the happiness the Lord wants for us is not the passing joy of satisfying our bodily desires but the exquisite eternal joy of conjunction with the Lord and true love of the neighbor, things that are harder to see and harder to attain but ultimately far more delightful.

Swedenborg distinguishes heaven’s happiness from worldly happiness of satisfying our bodily desires. In heaven, all happiness is felt from loving the Lord and being of use, living for the sake of others. Everything the Lord does is part of his attempt to lead us to that state, and in everything that happens to us - even the things that are the most tragic on the natural level - he provides opportunities for us to move toward that state.

In Arcana Coelestia 6392, there's this: "...performing good deeds without thought of recompense is that in which heavenly happiness consists." A couple of sentences later, there's another key statement -- i.e. that this real love of the neighbor has to be rooted in a "new will" in us, a will that can only be implanted by the Lord when we make room for it, and seek it.

In the American Declaration of Independence, the "pursuit of happiness" is one of the 3 enumerated inalienable rights that our Creator endows us with. Certainly, the Lord wants our happiness, and wants us to pursue it. In a way, though, if we pursue it directly, externally, we will probably not get it. If we pursue happiness for others, we will be making our minds open and ready for that new will. (See Arcana Coelestia 454 for more about this.)

The Lord also leaves us in freedom. We can reject his efforts and turn away if we choose to, and while that choice may seem to us to lead toward happiness, it's a passing, low-level happiness that is ultimately only a shadow of the joy he desires for us. However, people in hell are "happy" being there - at least as happy as they CAN be - because the life there matches the self-centered love they cultivated while on earth. If people in hell could be lifted up to heaven, they would feel tormented.

From Psalm 65:9-13:

Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous.

The river of God is full of water: thou preparest their corn, for so thou providest for the earth.

Thou waterest her furrows; thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof; thou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and blessest the increase of it.

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy clouds drop fatness.

They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness; and the little hills shall rejoice on every side.

The folds shall be full of sheep; the valleys also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing.

From John 15:11:

I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

(Ссылки: Arcana Coelestia 1153 [2]; Divine Providence 37)

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Arcana Coelestia # 1153

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1153. That 'the sons of Gomer' also means those who possessed external worship, but an external worship derived from that which existed with the nation Gomer, follows from what has been stated and shown several times already about the meaning of 'sons', as well as from the fact that Gomer is one of those nations which possessed external worship corresponding to internal. Seven nations which possessed such worship are mentioned by name in the previous verse, and seven again, called 'the sons of Gomer and of Javan', in this. The specific differences however between one nation and another cannot be stated, as only their names are given here. In the Prophets however when the subject is specifically this or that type of Church-worship the differences can be established. In general all variations of external worship, as also of internal, arise according to the adoration of the Lord in the worship, and the adoration is according to the love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour that exist there. For it is within love that the Lord is present, and thus within worship. The differences of worship therefore existing among the nations mentioned here depend on the nature of His presence within.

[2] To make it easier to talk about how types of worship differ and how they did so in the Ancient Church among various nations, let it be realized that all true worship consists in adoration of the Lord. Adoration of the Lord consists in being humble; and being humble consists in the self-acknowledgement that with oneself there is nothing living and nothing good, but that with oneself everything is dead, indeed corpse-like. Being humble also consists in the acknowledgement that everything living and everything good come from the Lord. The more a person acknowledges these things not just with the lips but in his heart, the more humility he has; and consequently the more adoration - which is true worship - and the more love and charity, and the more happiness. The first contains the second, and they are so linked together as to be inseparable. This shows what these differences of worship are and the nature of them.

[3] Those who are mentioned here and are called 'the sons of Gomer and of Javan' are people who likewise possessed external worship corresponding to internal, but it was somewhat more remote than that of the people mentioned in the previous verse. This also is why they are called 'sons'. Generations descending one after another, or derivatives, here progress from what is interior towards things that are exterior. The more someone relies on the senses, the more exterior he becomes, and consequently becomes further removed from true worship of the Lord. For when it is more concerned with the world, the body, and the earth, and less with the spirit, it consequently becomes more remote. Because these people called the sons of Gomer and of Javan relied more on the senses, they focused worship even more on external things than those referred to as their parents and cousins had done. Consequently they form a second group here.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine # 129

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129. FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA.

A life of piety without a life of charity, is of no avail, but when united therewith aids (n. 8252, seq.). External sanctity without internal sanctity is not holy (n. 2190, 10177). Of the quality of those in another life, who have lived in external sanctity, and not from internal (n. 951-952).

There is an internal and external of the church (n. 1098). There is internal worship and external worship, and the quality of each (n. 1083, 1098, 1100, 1151, 1153). Internals are what make worship (n. 1175). External worship without internal is no worship (n. 1094, 7724). There is an internal in worship, if man's life is a life of charity (n. 1100, 1151, 1153). Man is in true worship when he is in love and charity, that is, when he is in good as to life (n. 1618, 7724, 10242). The quality of worship is according to good (n. 2190). Worship itself consists in a life according to the precepts of the church from the Word (n. 7884, 9921, 10143, 10153, 10196, 10645).

True worship is from the Lord with man, not from man himself (n. 10203, 10299). The Lord desires worship from man for the sake of man's salvation, and not for the sake of his own glory (n. 4593, 8263, 10646). Man believes that the Lord desires worship for the sake of glory; but they who thus believe know not what Divine glory is, nor that it consists in the salvation of the human race, which man has when he attributes nothing to himself, and when he removes his proprium by humiliation; because the Divine is then first able to flow in (n. 4347, 4593, 5957, 7550, 8263, 10646). Humiliation of heart with man exists from an acknowledgment of himself, which is, that he is nothing but evil, and that he can do nothing from himself; and from a consequent acknowledgment of the Lord, which is, that nothing but good is from the Lord, and that the Lord can do all things (n. 2327, 3994, 7478). The Divine cannot flow in except into a humble heart, since so far as man is in humiliation, so far he is absent from his proprium, and thus from the love of self (n. 3994, 4347, 5957). Hence the Lord does not desire humiliation for His own sake, but for man's sake, that man may be in a state for receiving the Divine (n. 4347, 5957). Worship is not worship without humiliation (n. 2327, 2423, 8873). The quality of external humiliation without internal (n. 5420, 9377). The quality of humiliation of heart, which is internal (n. 7478). There is no humiliation of heart with the evil (n. 7640).

They who have not charity and faith are in external worship without internal worship (n. 1200). If the love of self and of the world reigns interiorly with man, his worship is external without internal, however it may appear in the external form (n. 1182, 10307-10309). External worship in which the love of self reigns inwardly, as is the case with those who are of Babylon, is profane (n. 1304, 1306-1308, 1321-1322, 1326). To imitate heavenly affections in worship, when man is in evils from the love of self, is infernal (n. 10309).

What the quality of external worship is when it proceeds from internal, and when it does not, may be seen and concluded from what has been said and adduced above concerning the INTERNAL and the EXTERNAL MAN.

Concerning those who renounce the world and those who do not renounce it, their quality, and their lot in the other life, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, under the following heads: Of the Rich and Poor in Heaven (n. 357-365); and of the Life that leads to Heaven (n. 528-535).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.