Forgiveness leads to happiness!
Happy are those who mourn over wrongdoing; for they are being forgiven.
Sin and happiness are never found together. Consider the lives of King Saul and King David.
Saul was handsome, powerful, the choice of the people. As long as the adulation of Israel was directed toward him, all was well.
Then came David’s stunning victory over Goliath. When the army was returning from the field of battle, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet them. They danced and sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” 1 Samuel 18:7.
Saul was enraged. He sent David away and then hunted him across the hills of Israel like an angry hound pursuing a fox. Slowly but surely Saul conquered his conscience.
In all of Scripture, there is not the slightest hint that Saul ever mourned over his sin toward David, or over his defiance of God’s law concerning the witchcraft in which he had participated when he consulted the “witch of Endor.”
He died in bitterness and anguish, utterly bereft of the joy that could have been his as God’s anointed.
Now consider King David. After many years on the throne, he became addicted to the nectar of power. When he saw the beautiful Bathsheba, he used his absolute authority to have her brought up to him. He committed adultery with her and, to cover up his crime, craftily arranged for her husband to be killed.
God sent the prophet Nathan to King David. He told the king a story of a wealthy man who had stolen and eaten the only sheep of a poor man. David was enraged. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he said, “the man who did this deserves to die!” Only then did Nathan point his finger at David and intone, “You are the Man!”
At that moment, David’s life before God hung in the balance. What decision would he make? Would he mourn for his sin? Or would he, like Saul, choose to override his conscience and ignore that voice of God? The Scriptures record his decision: “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’”
That one simple statement delivered David from spiritual leprosy. He mourned his son before God with tears.
Being happy in an unhappy world requires mourning over wrongdoing so that we may know the joy of forgiveness.
Source: Being Happy in an Unhappy World
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