The Blessed God

In the apostle’s words recorded in 1 Timothy 1:11, which we have quoted before, God is spoken of as “the blessed God.” As we read these words, we feel a need to meditate upon them.

In what does the blessedness of God consist? We conclude that whatever would make God a blessed God, that same would make man a blessed man. Blessedness has a somewhat similar meaning as happiness, only it is a deeper and richer word. It means the fullest joy, the deepest and highest felicity, the purest ecstasy, the richest and fullest contentment that can be experienced. Such is the blessedness of God; but in what way does God find such blessedness?

God is not made happy in the way most men seek for happiness. Dear young people, this a lesson you need to learn. We feel so incapable of telling to you, as we would like, how you can be the most and truest blessed and happy. Oh, how our heart sickens as we see how men are trying to find happiness. This world is seeking after pleasure. The highest pleasure they know is gratification of some physical sense. They are seeking for physical thrills. These are mean in comparison to the pleasures of God. Dear young people, go not into the ways of the world to find true pleasure. True happiness is not to be found in those things that please the palate, that delight the eyes, that charm the ears, that play upon the feelings, that gratify the physical passions. Alas, how many are bartering away their highest happiness, truest joy for some sensual enjoyment! O God, save our young people from the allurements of fleshly pleasures. The whole life of many a young man and woman has been wrecked and ruined by a momentary gratification of the flesh.

Jesus has taught us that the deepest and purest joys come through sacrifice and suffering. The joy of giving is purer, higher than the joy of receiving. How few have tasted this. The love of God is of such a nature that it finds its highest happiness in suffering for the object loved. Oh, the blessedness of pouring out our life for those we love! Those who are the most capable of suffering find holiest delights. Multitudes of what many religious professors call “innocent amusements” serve only to dull the sensibilities of the soul to higher and finer joys. Have a care of those things the world is calling innocent and educational. Beware lest they rob your soul of its sensitiveness to the touch of pity and sympathy for souls in the guilt of sin. Beware lest these sensual pleasures relieve your heart of its capability of being burdened for lost, wrecked, and ruined men.

It is not in the feast, but in the fast, that we come in touch with the pure joy of the Lord. It is in the agony of prayer that we experience the blessedness of God. It is in travail of soul that we taste of the joy of pain. It is in bearing the cross that we approach nearest to the felicity of heaven. It is in suffering love and sympathetic sorrow that the soul tastes of highest and holiest rapture. The blessedness of God does not consist in forgetting the sorrows of men, but in feeling them. Christ is not blessed in saving Himself, but in saving others. There are some sufferings of Christ yet left behind for you and me to fill up. We fill them up by laboring, sacrificing, sympathizing, agonizing in prayer that we might bring souls lost in sin to the light and love of Jesus. Those who have the spirit of the cross, who are workers with Christ in the great mystery of suffering, have found the secret of the blessedness of God.

Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.”* (John 15:11) The joy of Christ in the life is the highest happiness of man. Dear reader, we implore you to seek for the highest joys, and seek them in the way they are to be found.